Editing the
Windows Registry
The Windows Registry is an integral and fundamental part of your
computer system that ensures the smooth running of your operating
system, your hardware, any installed application and your connection
to the Internet. Making sure that the Windows Registry is kept
clean and free of errors becomes critical if you do not want
to experience OS and application seizures and crashes.
However, editing the Windows Registry is not a task for the faint hearted.
It is complex and requires thorough knowledge
of the way the registry works. This article explains the complexity
of Editing the Windows Registry and suggests a way to keep your
registry clean without getting your hands dirty - think of it
like changing a punctured tire of your car without the hassle
of talking it in to a shop or changing it yourself!
What is the Windows Registry and why do you need it?
The registry is a centralised hierarchical database used by
various Windows operating systems to store computer configuration
information.
This information is necessary for Windows to
run your computer system including all your installed applications
and hardware devices. Not only does the windows registry save the path
and location of these items, it also retains other details which
help the processor to locate applications and hardware devices
quickly and efficiently thereby reduce decreasing processing
time.
Records are kept of each and every item present.
Windows registry entries include details on:
- User profiles, settings, options and preferences
- Applications installed on the computer
- Property settings for folders and applications
- Hardware devices installed on the system
- Ports being used
- System Policies
- File Associations
Whenever you make any changes in your preferences
or settings, installed software or hardware, these changes are
stored in the Windows registry.
When do Registry Programs Occur?
The latest statistics show that about
94% of computers have corrupt and possibly harmful files. On
average, almost each PC will have about 150+ errors on them
due to corrupt or missing registry entries.
If your system is new, you usually will not
notice the need to effect any changes to your registry. However,
over time, your registry will grow as you add and remove software
and hardware on your computer. These additions and deletions
will cause your Windows registry to become fragmented, corrupted
or full of errors.
Common errors include:
- Missing, orphaned, broken or bad application/Windows paths, shortcuts and links,
- Unwanted browser objects,
- Unused, obsolete Start Menu items,
- Missing or corrupt application IDs,
- Corrupt Active X/COM Objects,
- Residual and unused file and drivers,
- Unnecessary recent files list…
- …the list is endless.
When you remove software from your system, for
example, it is highly probable that residuals are still littering
your hard drive and your regsitry.The result? Frequent error
messages, slow start-ups, sluggishness, declining performance,
system stalls, severe degradation in operating speed, unstable
and frequent application errors and crashes, and, at times,
even an inability to start Windows.
Backing Up the Windows Registry
In Windows XP, you can backup all of your registry
or the particular set of keys that you are planning to edit.
To backup all your registry, you may either
use the Windows backup utility and backup the System State data
OR use your preferred backup utility (e.g. WinBackup) and follow
the instructions given by your vendor OR use a registry cleaning
software (e.g. registry Booster).
Convenient One-Click Registry Backup with Registry Booster
To backup your all your registry files with
Registry Booster you need to fire up the program and run a complete
registry scan. Click on the Create Backup icon and your registry
will be backed up. As a safety precaution you can backup this
registry file on another medium. You can restore the registry
at any time by using the restore functionality of Registry Booster
later and when needed.
To backup the keys that you will be editing,
Click Start and then click Run. In the Open Window,
type "regedit" and click OK. In the
resulting interface, identify the subkey that contains the values
you want to edit.
Select keys for export
Click on File->Export as
shown in the figure below. A window will pop up prompting you
for a the name of the file to which you should export and for
the location of the file to be saved. Name your file according
to your needs. You will notice that the file extension is "reg".
Click File->Export to export the keys for editing
Editing the Windows Registry
The only way you can avoid and eliminate these problems is if
you keep your registry clean of errors AND if you defragment
your registry regularly. This section of the article will talk
about how you can go about editing the Windows Registry, the
next section will talk about Defragging the Windows Registry
and the subsequent explains to you how you can automatically
edit and clean your registry without getting your hands dirty
- think of it like changing a punctured tire of your car without
the hassle of talking it in to a shop or changing it yourself!
Again, I remind you the importance of backing
up your registry. Using the Windows Registry Editor incorrectly
may lead to serious problems that will require you to reinstall
your operating system and/or the applications/hardware you have.
The Microsoft website also adds the following provision: "Microsoft
cannot guarantee that problems that result from incorrect use
of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your
own risk".
Once you have backed up your registry, start
up the Regedit Utility of Windows to identify and edit the registry
keys of your choice.
Locating a key
It is best to think of your registry like a tree with branches
or subtrees. Each subtree is further divided into subbranches
and keys with each key having a specific value tied to it. There
are five top-level registry subtrees each of which starts with
"HKEY" as may be seen from the screenshot below:
The above example shows the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
subtree, the SOFTWARE key and the Uniblue SUBKEY in the left
panel of the Windows Registry Editor. Information about the
value name and type and the actual value data appear on the
right-hand side:
As with most Windows Explorer type interfaces
you may expand each folder by expanding the 
that is found next to it. Upon expansion the plus sign changes
into a  .
You may either locate your desired set of keys
manually or perform a search through the Windows Registry Editor
utility. Click on Ctrl+F to get to the search window and type
in your search.
To locate the Registry Booster subkey expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
expand SOFTWARE, EXPAND Uniblue and click on Registry Booster.
Its values appear on the right.
Adding a key
To add a key within the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree (or any other
subtree), expand the subtree, expand SOFTWARE, and expand Uniblue.
On the edit menu point to New and then click key. Type
the name of the desired key and press enter.
Adding a value
Now within the new key, repeat the same process as above but
click string value (instead of key) from the Edit Menu->New.
Right click on the new string value and click modify.
Set the value data to 1 and click OK.
Deleting a key or value
Right click on the desired key/value and right
click. Select delete to delete (or rename to rename). Alternatively,
select the key/value to be deleted (or renamed) and click on
the edit menu and select the relevant command.
Deleting registry entries is handy when you
know that you have removed software and you want to ensure that
all references within the registry have been deleted. To do
so, uninstall the software and then manually remove the registry
entries by looking through the HKEY_CURRENT_USER, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
and HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG subtrees (usually the first two are
enough however some software installations do effect modifications
in your current configuration).
Of course, this article has shown you the basics
of adding, deleting, changing and renaming registry entries.
Specific actions depend entirely on what your requirements are
and what you intend doing.
Fragmentation Windows Registry
Registry fragmentation occurs because
certain processes continually use the registry to incrementally
modify the same values in the corresponding areas therein. Microsoft
warns, for example, that this fragmentation, in certain cases, may be excessive.
File sizes may eventually exceed the Registry Size Limits imposed
by Windows and this will cause subsequent modifications to the
registry to fail with resultant errors, slowdowns and crashes.
Editing Your Windows Registry Automatically
You can automatically edit and clean your registry without
getting your hands dirty - think of it like changing a punctured
tire of your car without the hassle of talking it in to a shop
or changing it yourself!
Automatic AND regular registry cleaning carries
many advantages the main one being you do not have to keep track
of what software you install/remove, what user settings you
add, delete or change, what hardware you have attached to your
system, what shortcuts you have created, changed and deleted,
what files you have used recently and where the references to
these files are contained within your registry ... and much
more.
Registry Booster is one of the leading registry
repair software available today. Like other software it regularly
scans for errors in your registry and effects repairs. Also,
the product allows you to defrag fragmented registry regularly.
What sets Registry Booster apart from the rest
is its Advanced Error Detection technology that allows you to
quickly scan for all errors in your registry including:
- Registry integrity and shell folder entries including My Documents, profiles and favourites.
Software locations including missing, orphaned, broken or bad application/Windows paths, and links.
- Unwanted browser objects.
- Corrupt Active X/COM Objects.
- Unused, obsolete Start Menu items.
- Redundant Startup applications and uninstalled application schedulers.
- Orphaned shortcuts, temporary (.tmp) files and Scandisk or Checkdisk fragment (.chk) files.
- Missing or corrupt application IDs.
- Obsolete shared DLLs and folders.
- Unused help file references.
- Residual and unused files.
- Uninstalled software remnants.
- Unused and unwanted drivers.
- File extensions and associations.
- Unnecessary fonts and recent files list.
Repair your registry automatically at the click of a button - which is what you want to do.
Registry Booster also enables you
to start the program at system boot - this gives you peace of
mind of regular system clean up. In addition, the popular registry
repair software lets you defrag your registry regularly to prevent
problems cleaning your system while optimising your registry
entries for peak performance and stability.
The award-winning software from
Uniblue, also ensures you the possibilty of creating backup
and restore registry settings as may be seen from the screenshot
above.
With Registry Booster, you don't
need to keep track of all problem sources. One mouse click and
Registry Booster does the rest.
Defragging your Windows Registry Automatically
Again Registry Booster is designed
to reorganize the data within your registry so that your computer
runs more efficiently.
Registry fragmentation is a similar phenomenon
as fragmented hard drives. Your computer will slot new pieces
of data in empty areas of your registry. If the file is too
big for the slot, your computer will break it up and put a piece
in one slot and another elsewhere. This creates gaps, wasted
space and increase the probability of corruption of your registry.
By defragging your registry, Registry Booster
will create a more linear structure maximising application response
times and registry access times, saving memory (smaller registries
consume less memory), and enhanced boot-up times. This results
in improved system performance and decreases the probability
of registry corruption.
Finally, I remind you the importance
of backing up your registry before effecting any changes even
if you use any registry cleaner. All the serious registry cleaning
software companies will tell you this. Please heed this advice.
Using the Windows Registry Editor incorrectly may lead to serious
problems that will require you to reinstall your operating system
and/or the applications/hardware you have.
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