Windows 7 is perhaps the greatest and most advanced incarnation of the beloved operating system yet to grace a PC. But in spite of all that it brings to the table, there are still a few of the typical Windows issues that bog down the package a bit. Chief among these is the infamous Windows Registry. The Registry has been slowing down and plaguing our PCs for a long time and, though Windows 7 has taken care of a lot of the Registry’s faults and bugs, there is still the chance of slowdown and corruption when the Registry starts acting up. These tips will help to make sure your Registry remains free from these issues.
What is the Registry?
The Windows Registry is a set of files and programs in your PC that contains your most important and frequently used data. This information is compiled in the Registry so that it can be easily accessed quickly and effectively. In theory, this is meant to make your computer faster and more efficient. But, of course, we said “in theory.” In practice, the Registry often gets clogged and cluttered and does the opposite of what it is intended to do. When your computer slows to a crawl, there’s a good chance that the Registry is to blame.
Why Does my Registry cause slowdown?
The Registry isn’t great at cleaning up and defragmenting its own data. This means that files that you may have used in the past sometimes stick around in the Registry, taking up space and gumming up the works. Some files are corrupted, which means that they won’t work at all and could potentially harm other bits of data. Other files are fragments of old data that might have been removed but left behind this useless clutter. To make your computer reclaim its speed and efficiency, the Registry must be cleaned regularly.
Registry Cleaners for Windows 7
Though Windows 7 is still somewhat new, there are already plenty of great registry cleaners available for it already. Windows has its own cleaner that works better than previous Windows versions. There are also plenty of great third party cleaners as well. RegClean is a good one, as is Registry Mechanic. What you’ll want to do before you clean your Registry, though, is back up all your data. This should be done regularly anyhow but when you defragment or clean your PC, it is doubly important. Luckily, many of the better cleaners out there come with backup software but you can backup your data any way that you please, so long as you do it.
