The Windows Registry

Keep it healthy.

There are programs that can read the Windows registry, check for common problems, and repair them. But many of the advertised tools are not worth having.
If you want to check, clean, repair and optimize your Windows system you need a reliable tool.
Some advertise their brand with scare tactics to get you to order their product. We do not need that. We just need to know which tools are from reliable, trusted companies who know their business.

Registry Booster
from Uniblue

Free Trial

Keep your Windows system registry in good condition.

• Some background about the Windows registry. (Just below.)
• Some quality registry repair tools with free trials.

What is the Windows system registry?

The Windows system registry is a crucial part of Windows operating systems since Windows 95.

Problems in the registry can cause programs to crash frequently, the computer to run slowly and the system to freeze or close down unexpectedly.

Obviously, if these sorts of things are happening, your data is not secure. If a program you are using closes unexpectly you can at least lose all your work since the last time you saved your files. Moreover if your registry becomes seriously damaged your system might not restart.

Without going into too much detail, the important thing to note is that the registry can get into bad shape over time, but it can be repaired.

Go straight to quality registry repair tools. Click here.

Viewing the Registry

Although you can easily look into and edit your registry, it is really not possible to repair or improve it unless you know exactly what you are doing.
If you open the registry editor that comes with Windows (by running 'regedit.exe') you will see the registry information displayed like this.

Registry Editor. Click to see a larger image.

So, as we said, unless you know exactly what you are doing...

What can you do to keep your registry secure?

Backing up your registry.

When you use System Restore on a Windows system you are making a backup of your registry. So if your registry gets seriously damaged you can restore your previous settings.
Obviously it is good to have a backup of your registry in case something goes wrong.
But a backup does not check your registry for problems and clear out unwanted entries.

Fortunately there are programs that can automatically read the registry, check for common problems, and repair them. See examples below.

Microsoft formerly provided a tool called "RegClean", widely used in the days of Windows98, but it is no longer supported. It has been removed from the Microsoft download sites.

Buyer Beware

There is a problem with choosing a registry repair utility: there are just too many available.
There are certainly too many for me to compare and review.

If you search for registry tools on a search engine such as Google or Yahoo you will see many, many results – and a great amount of advertising.

However, the most 'visible' brands and most heavily advertised brands are not necessarily the best ones. Sometimes the most visible ones are just the brands which pay the highest commissions for advertisers to promote them and mention them on their web sites.

And worse, some registry repair tools are aggressively advertised with fake 'Windows Alert' messages and scare tactics.
I mean images like this below that look like a message from Windows with a title bar, an X button and an OK button etc...

These often have a message suggesting that your Windows system is in 'danger' or 'infected' or likely to crash, and so on. Of course the entire image is a link.

The idea is that a user might click on the X or the OK button to close the message but will but taken to the advertiser's web site instead.
Respectable software vendors do not use or condone this advertising trick.

Often the software promoted this way is 'Rogue' software.

See on our glossary page for an explanation of rogue programs.

In the interests of balance, we should note that some people are not convinced of the value of registry cleaners.

Some people suggest that, although a registry cleaner might keep your registry tidy, there may not be any other real benefits (see the forum discussions linked below).

On the other other hand nearly every site providing a registry cleaner shows testimonials from users along the lines of "thank goodness my computer goes faster and doesn't crash all the time".

That said, here are some tools.

Registry Mechanic from PC Tools

A respected registry cleaner: with free trial.

The internet is infested with aggressive advertising for registry tools.
Don't fall for any of that: There is too much rogue software out there.

Registry Mechanic is one of the most trusted commercial registry tools. You are dealing with a reputable company, you get free customer support and a money-back guarantee.

You can buy Registry Mechanic directly from us , OR since it is free to try, you can also download Registry Mechanic from here and do your registry scan for free. If nothing is wrong, just leave it at that.
(It's a quick download.)

(This free download file was updated in October 2008.)

The free trial download of Registry Mechanic will actually FIX registry problems that it finds in the main parts of the registry.

(Most trial versions of registry tools won't actually fix anything – they'll just tell you there's a problem.)

Operating Systems
Most Windows versions:
The latest Registry Mechanic is designed for Windows® Vista™ 32-bit, 2000 and XP.
If you are using Windows 98 or ME you can still download from us the older version of Registry Mechanic.

Description
Don't compromise your PC Registry with the second best.

Registry Mechanic is THE world's most popular registry cleaner, with 300,000 plus downloads per week.
- Recommended by experts and editors around the world as the best registry cleaner.
- FREE award-winning customer support for all users.
- Cleans the Windows registry, fixes errors and optimizes your PC for better performance.
- Easy to use. Designed for both expert and novice users.
- 100% Guaranteed.

With Registry Mechanic you can safely clean, repair and optimize the Windows registry with a few simple mouse clicks! Problems with the Windows registry are a common cause of Windows crashes, slow performance and error messages. By using a registry cleaner regularly and fixing registry errors your system should not only be more stable but it will also help improve your system performance without expensive hardware upgrades.

Get a free scan with Registry Mechanic.

Registry Mechanic uses a high-performance detection algorithm to quickly identify missing and invalid references in your Windows registry. These problems can occur for many reasons including being left-behind after the un-installation or incorrect removal of software, by missing or corrupt hardware drivers, or orphaned startup programs.

With a few easy steps Registry Mechanic will scan your entire registry for any invalid entries and provide a list of the registry errors found. You can then choose to selectively clean each item or automatically repair them all.
For your convenience and protection Registry Mechanic can also make a backup of any repairs made so that you can easily recover any changes if required.

Free Trial: Registry Booster From Uniblue

Click here to run a Free Registry scan
Don't be fooled by poor quality system tools.
Only let trusted software scan your Windows Registry.

Registry Booster from Uniblue

Uniblue is a company that specialises in computer performance. They know the Windows Registry in minute detail.

RegistryBooster can do just what you would expect: repair or remove unwanted, out-of-date, corrupt or harmful items in your registry.

The point of this, of course, is to eliminate all the problems that can be caused by a out-of-shape registry: crashes, applications that freeeze up, strange error messages from Windows, slow start-ups, Windows software not working properly etc.

RegistryBooster is also a security tool. A lot of the malware in circulation likes to attack our internet browsers and install unwanted software when we use the web. Often the adware or spyware they use relies on an entry in the Windows registry.

Of course our anti-spyware and anti-virus programs should be helping here too: they should be alert to illegal access of the registry, but a specialist registry tool is an extra layer of security. RegistryBooster can tell you if there is something in the registry that should not be there.

In fact, I first encountered Uniblue because they supplied an anti-spyware utility. However that is no longer available. Uniblue now concentrates on software to repair and optimise computer systems.

For example, other utilities offered by Uniblue include:

Apart from what is in your registry, there are a lot of other settings and processes that can affect your computer's performance. SpeedUpMyPC is designed to scan your system, advise you and clean up clutter, wasted CPU and RAM resources etc. that make a PC slower than it could be.
(Links go to a free trial download.)

Driver Scanner

Driver Scanner is offered to help PC users to keep all their drivers up-to-date.

What's a driver?

A driver is the software that makes hardware work: e.g. your printer is hardware - so it needs a driver, and so does your scanner, your PC's sound system, its video system etc.

Why is this important?

This is another issue relating to PC peformance.

I hate thinking about updating drivers. But if we don't use the latest drivers our PCs can become unstable. We need to always have the latest improvements to our drivers. (For one thing, some of these might be security fixes.)

You will also notice that if you go to a forum for help with a hardware problem the first question you will be asked is "Are you using the latest driver?"

You will not get any help on the forums if don't use the latest drivers: after all, the problem you are having might be old news - already fixed in the latest drivers.

As I said, I hate thinking about updating drivers and I suppose there are a lot of other people who feel the same. That's what Driver Scanner is for. Driver Scanner monitors the drivers on your system. So you only need to do a 'one click' update to keep hardware working properly.
(Links to Driver Scanner go to a free trial download.)

Free registry cleaner: 'ccleaner'.

Click to visit the ccleaner site.

Ccleaner is mainly a privacy tool, aimed at cleaning out unwanted files and traces of activity from your system, but Ccleaner cleans the registry too as part of that process.

Operating systems
Most Windows versions. Fully tried and tested with:
Windows 95 / 98 / NT4 / ME / 2000 / XP (32 bit) / 2003 / Vista.
Partially compatible with 64bit Windows XP: a few non-critical issues are still being worked on.
Note: Ccleaner is ready for Vista.

Free registry cleaner: 'RegSeeker'.

RegSeeker is free for personal, non-commercial use.

You can download this registry software for free at Hoverdesk.
Hoverdesk specialise in utilities to customise your desktop and your Windows system in general.

I can't vouch for the quality and reliability of this tool, but it seems to be offered in good faith as a free tool that we might find useful.

• Remember these basic requirements to staying secure online:
• Making your browser more secure (or maybe using a different browser).
• Using anti-spyware tools. (A few.)
• Using an antivirus tool. (One good one that runs all the time.)
• Using a firewall. (Just one.)
• Using email safely. (Some antivirus and anti-spyware tools will monitor incoming and outgoing emails.)