On your Windows computer, one of the components that is a part of it is a registry which keeps details and information on the set up and configuration of your software, hardware, and any other parts of your computer. Typically, this is a great thing because it requires less CPU to understand all the different parts of your software and hardware. The issue comes in, though, when things are manipulated.

The reason it becomes necessary to clean your registry is because, naturally, people sometimes get viruses and spyware on their computer. Furthermore, it is so easy to uninstall a program now that people do it on a whim and certain pieces are left in the registry. As the registry gets bloated, it begins to suck up more CPU which, in turn, slows the computer down. It is because of this that people are so adamant about cleaning their registry.

There are two methods in which one can clean their registry. The first is the manual way, which requires some understanding of computers. The second is to get some software. The topic of this article, though, is going to be geared towards cleaning your registry the manual way. The first thing that one must do is figure out what each part of the registry is connected to. It would be detrimental to your computer to delete a certain component only to find out that it is necessary to turn the computer on.

The first thing that you need to do when preparing to clean your registry is to create a backup. If you have a backup, you’re safe in case something goes wrong. Here are the steps to create a backup:

· Go to start, click run, and type in regedit.

· Click file when the window appears and click export. Then save the backup

Now that you have a backup, the next thing you’ll want to do is click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Here is your computer’s registry. By clicking on it, you’ll see hardware, software, components, SAM, and numerous other things. If you want to clean hardware, go into it and then start looking for what parts of the hardware you want to delete so that the registry is clean.

If something goes wrong, don’t worry. By creating that backup, you can enable that and your computer will go back to that time period. However, if everything goes according to plan, your computer should start to run faster because there is less need for your computer to work so much with the registry.

There are also numerous different types of software that are able to read your computer, determine what is necessary and what is unnecessary and then, with the click of a button, can delete the registries that you do not need. Because you’re using a piece of software, you are able to rest easy because you know that the developers created something that can pick and choose what is necessary and what is unnecessary. It does cost a bit of money; however, it can take time to determine what a good registry is and what a bad one is, so it can be beneficial.

While the registry is a nice thing, Windows really is poor at cleaning itself, so sometimes, you need to step in and clean it yourself. It’s a little dangerous, but as long as you know the components you’re deleting, you’ll be okay.