How to Fix the Windows Registry
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Now that we’ve briefly discussed how the Windows Registry works, let’s discuss why the Windows Registry breaks, and how we can go about fixing it.
As we mentioned previously, the Windows Registry is the giant storehouse of information for all the different software applications (like Word, or Internet Explorer) that run on your computer. When each of these different pieces of software is installed on your computer, it adds an entry to the registry. This is so the software can keep track of seperate settings (your homepage, for example) and also to let Windows know that a new piece of software has been installed.
The trouble starts when the piece of software is deleted, uninstalled, or has a fatal error of some sort. Then, entries which existed previously in the Registry no longer exist, and the Registry is essentially corrupted.
The difficult way to fix this is to run RegEdit.exe from the command line - something Microsoft itself doesn’t even recommend. If you’re still interested, see this article at the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
The more relatively easy way to fix the registry is to download a registry cleaner. We will review Registry Cleaners in a separate post.
What is the Windows Registry?
A lot of basic Windows errors seem to start with the Windows Registry. So before we start tackling the major problems that our caused by the Windows Registry, let’s try and get a basic idea of it’s history, it’s purpose, and why it can be your worst nightmare:
The Windows Registry came around with the release of Windows 95. It was designed as replacement for the different ini (short for initiation) files that were used to configure the computer in previous versions of Windows 3.x and previous.
The purpose of the Windows Registry is to serve as a centralized location for applications (such as Microsoft Word, your internet browser and many others) to store their data and default settings. It’s also where the operating system itself stores various portions of data.
In other words, the Registry is simply a place where you computer remembers basic things - from printer settings, to default fonts, to software installed.