How to clean windows registry and repair errors

The windows registry is the equivalent of your bodies central nervous system for your PC. It's important that you take precautions when repairing or tweaking the windows registry because one wrong change or deletion could leave your computer in a bad way.

This article is going to explore how to clean windows registry and offer some simple solutions if you don't want to try and edit the windows registry on your own.

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Step 1: Windows Registry backup

Whether it's learning how to clean windows registry or any other file structure repair always remember to backup what you're about to work on. This ensures that you can replace any changes you make to the windows registry and return you system back to what it was before the changes.

Backing up the registry via windows can be difficult, so it's recommended that you get a windows registry repair tool to handle this for you. A simple web search will reveal multiple registry repair downloads, I suggest you download a copy of RegCure from here. You can easily follow the instructions with the software to backup your registry prior to making any changes.

SIDE NOTE: A little side note on registry repair software, you can schedule some software to continually backup your registry. This ensures that you always have a recent backup in case of a crash.

Step 2: Opening and Scanning the Windows XP Registry

There are two ways to scan or review whats inside your registry. The manual way is to click the Start button in windows, then click run, and type regedit. This will open a new window that displays everything in your windows registry. Most articles you'll find about how to clean windows registry won't suggest you try and edit it on your own.

I suggest you get a hold of a registry repair tool that will scan all of the entries in the registry for you. These software tools look for several types of entires such as:

  • Program Shortcuts
  • Hardware information
  • User Information
  • Empty Registry Keys
  • Incorrect File Paths
  • and more

Any one of the above items would be difficult to spot if you're a novice (which most of us are) at registry editing. I suggest you download the free scanning tool from RegCure and use it for step 2.

Step 3: Repairing windows Registry items

This step is the real meat and potatoes of how to clean windows xp registry (or any other windows version). You want to review the windows registry for empty keys, incorrect file paths, incorrect hardware information and other such errors. For the normal eye this will be hard to spot, so again I'm going to suggest you download a registry repair tool to scan your registry for possible errors.

You might be starting to see the pattern about how to clean windows registry, don't try to do it yourself unless you are an expert. It's smarter to get a piece of software that makes the job easy for anyone to do, and provides backup capability.

For a registry repair tool that will do all three of the above mentioned steps I recommend RegCure. You can download a free trial here, and run a scan on your windows registry. It will locate any windows registry errors that need cleaning, provide a backup of your old registry, then clean your windows registry.

Click here to visit RegCures website.

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RegCure voted the top Registry Cleaner program offers a FREE scan utility to check for registry troubles on your PC.

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