Registry Cleaners

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Let's start with a short explanation about the windows registry. The windows registry is a database (collection of data) that consists about 90% of your operating systems settings. The following is a quick explanation about the windows registry, how data is stored, in what structure and how to manually edit it (not for computer dummies!). 

In earlier versions of Microsoft Windows, such as 95 and 98. The windows Registry is made up by two hidden files in your operating systems directory. The names of these files are USER.DAT, SYSTEM.DAT.

Starting with Windows 2000 and continuing with Windows XP, the Registry is stored in a number of compartments called Hives. The hives are located in the \windows\system32\config as well as the \Documents and Settings\{username} directories. 

The windows registry has an organized tree like structure. Similar to the folders on your hard disk. Each and every one of the branches (marked by a directory icon in the RegEditor) is referred to as a Key. All of the keys can be made up of other keys, as well as Data Values. Each value may contain the info stored in the windows registry. There are three different types of values; String, Binary, and DWORD. Each value type is used for different purposes.

The windows registry is composed of 6 branches (5in Windows 2000\XP), each is made from a portion of the infor collected in the Registry.

Detailed description:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT - this branch contains all of your file types as well as OLE information for all your OLE-aware applications.
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER - this branch points to the part of HKEY_USERS appropriate for the current user.
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - this branch contains information about all of the hardware and software installed on your computer.
• HKEY_USERS - this branch contains certain preferences (such as colors and control panel settings) for each of the users of the computer.
• HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG - this branch points to the part of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE appropriate for the current hardware configuration.
• HKEY_DYN_DATA (Doesn't exist starting with windows 2000) - this branch points to the part of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

The Registry Editor tool comes with the windows operating system and allows you to view and edit your windows registry. When you run the Registry Editor you see a window divided into two sub windows. The left side shows a tree with directories and the right side lists the values of the selected directory (also known as key).

To open a specific branch, click on the + to the left of any folder, or just double-click on the directory. To display the contents of a directory, just click the requested key, and look at the values listed on the right hand side. If you want then you may add a new key or value by choosing New from the Edit menu. You may also rename any value and any key with the same method used to rename files; right-click on the selected value and choose rename, or click on it twice, or just press F2 on your keyboard. If you want then you can also delete a key or value by clicking on it, and pressing Del on the keyboard.

If you want to save yourself the time and energy then we recommend using a registry cleaner to automatically search your registry for errors and fix them:

Registry Cleaner Reviews

For a non bias review of all the registry cleaners out there then go ahead and check out our registry cleaner comparison.