Clean your Windows registry

Also, when you uninstall a program, it may seem gone, but many uninstallers leave remnants of a program in the registry.

Before you begin, it's important to understand that cleaning the registry manually can be dangerous. A misstep, deleting or changing the wrong registry values, can create an unstable Windows environment leading to crashes.

So it's a good idea to make a backup of all the data on your computer before performing any work with the registry, so you can undo any damage if you do make a mistake.

There are two ways to back up the registry to protect yourself. You can either create a restore point using Windows System Restore, or export and save a copy of the registry to another location on the computer.

Creating a restore point to backup the registry is the simplest approach. By creating a restore point, the computer effectively takes a snapshot of the entire computer at that moment and saves it in the event something has gone wrong and it is necessary to revert back to that point.

Here's how to create a restore point in Windows XP or Windows ME using a program called System Restore. (System Restore is not available on Windows 98 or 95,)

1. Click the Start button to open the Start menu.
2. From here, choose All Programs, then Accessories.
3. Next, choose System Tools, then click System Restore.
4. In System Restore, choose Create a restore point, and click Next. Note the button that says Restore my computer to an earlier time. This would be used to put the computer back to the way it was after a mistake occurred.
5. Give the restore point a brief description and click Create. The restore point is created and is tagged with the date and time.

A second option for creating a backup of the registry is to export part (or all) of the registry and save it elsewhere in the computer. Here's how to do that:

1. Open regedit by clicking Start, then Run, and type regedit into the dialog box, and click OK.
2. In the registry editor, click File at the top, then Export.
3. Give the file a name and choose to save either the whole registry (the All button under Export range) or just the selected branch.
4. Click Save and the registry will be saved in the specified folder.

REGISTRY EDITING BASICS

Performing manual changes to the registry is as easy as clicking folders, just like you would in Windows Explorer.

To select a folder, choose the value on the right and click Delete. If you want to delete an entire folder, simply right-click the folder and click on Delete to permanently remove that folder from the registry. Because this operation is so simple, be sure you are not deleting the wrong value.

Let's walk through an example to illustrate just how easy it is to remove an entry in the registry. In this case, let's remove an unneeded file extension called .in_.

1. First, click the drop-down box next to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.
2. Scroll down to .in_ and right-click on the folder.
3. Click Delete.
4. At the next prompt, click Yes to permanently delete this key and all of its subkeys.

WHAT SHOULD I CLEAN?

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