How to know when to fix Windows registry?
Although fixing your registry won’t be necessary when your system is new, within a very short period, your registry will grow as you install and remove software and hardware. Usually, after six months of regular use, updating software and adding or removing hardware, your PC’s Windows registry will become highly fragmented, with corruptions and errors. It is at this point that a Windows registry fix starts to become essential.
Let us look, in more detail, at the process by which a registry becomes corrupted with use. Fragmentation occurs because certain windows processes continually use the registry to incrementally modify the same values in the corresponding sections of the registry (or hives). Microsoft warns that this fragmentation can, in certain cases, be excessive.
Changes to registry entries also modify the size of the files, where the information is stored, and so file sizes may eventually exceed the registry size limits imposed by Windows. At this point any subsequent modifications to the registry will fail. Other common registry errors include:
- Missing, orphaned, broken or bad application/Windows paths, shortcuts and links
- Unwanted browser objects
- Unused or obsolete Start menu items
- Missing or corrupt application IDs
- Corrupt Active X/COM objects
- Unnecessary entries in the recent files list
- Residual and unused files and drivers
- The list is endless
None of these problems is visible unless you access the registry directly. And even then the problems are rarely obvious. Further symptoms of registry problems also include:
- Frequent error messages
- Slow start-ups
- Sluggishness
- Declining performance
- System stalls
- Severe degradation in operating speed
- Unstable and frequent application errors and crashes
- At times, even an inability to start Windows
Registry corruption, fragmentation and errors will affect the performance of a computer, impeding its stability and smooth operation. Since the Windows registry lies at the heart of a PC’s functionality, the corruption of the registry, over time, causes a parallel decline in system performance and, ultimately, possible total PC failure. And it is for this reason that regular registry maintenance or use of a registry cleaner should form a central part of your system security and maintenance program, along with your firewall and anti-virus program.
