Bits'n'Bytes

As heard on CJCD

Episode 26

You may have heard me, in a previous episode, refer to your computer's registry as the phone book it relies on to find programs. This phone book tells your operating system where everything is, how to run and what helper programs need to run to get stuff done. The computer has to try and keep the registry as up to date as possible and has to try and keep some backups, in case something happens to it. Without the registry, the operating system can't even find itself, so you really need the registry working properly to run your computer.

Occasionally, mistakes are made writing to it. Sometimes, not all the registry entries are deleted when you uninstall a program and every now and then a malware program will stick an entry into it that you don't really want. Recognizing this, a bunch of companies decided to write programs to help clean up your registry for you. Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, not always.

Some programs, especially some of the antivirus programs, but not just them, write many levels of entries into the registry. Your computer has to go on the equivalent of a treasure hunt sometimes, just to read all the levels of registry entries. What a lot of the registry fixing programs do is look for "orphan" registry entries. Entries that don't seem to point at anything - kind of like an entry for a phone number that's now out of service. Quite often, it finds an entry it considers an orphan and marks it for deletion. If it really is an orphan, no problem. If it's a really deeply buried entry for a working program, there's a good probability that program will stop working properly. If that entry is an entry for Windows itself, you're setting yourself up for a major problem down the road.

While registry fixers can be great, I don't recommend you use one then blindly delete or "fix" all the entries they recommend, just on the programs say-so. Spend some time going through the results, if you can. You may notice program entries for programs you still use - don't fix those ones. Also, make sure you back up your registry before attempting to fix it. That way, if everything or anything stops working, you can restore it.

Stay tuned next week I describe how CDs work.

I’m Computer Dave, thanks for your time.