The Windows Registry: Its Importance and How It Affects Your Computer's Performance Your Windows Registry Files are and important part of your computer's operation. It is therefore necessary that you maintain and prevent any and all errors which may occur in order to insure optimum performance from your computer. Unfortunately, many computer users do not realize just how important their computer's registry files are, as well as how sensitive the registry files truly are. It does not matter whether you use a computer occasionally or regularly, the registry of any computer is extremely fragile, and it can be corrupted at anytime -- and, it can happen without the knowledge of the computer user -- in most cases, it may not be the fault of the user. While it is true that adware, spyware, viruses, trojans, and other forms of malware can corrupt the computer's registry in more ways than one, the registry files of a perfectly clean computer can still become corrupt due to various other circumstances. Some of them include: • • • • •
Incomplete Uninstalls of Previously Owned Software Missing File Associations Due To Previous Uninstalls Device Drivers Which Are No Longer Needed Invalid Hard Drive Paths Which Remain From Previous Uninstalls And Much, Much More
Most of these problems mentioned above are out of the control of the average computer user. When a computer user removes an item from their computer which is no longer wanted or needed, also known as an uninstall, the program is deleted from the hard drive -- but not necessarily from the registry of the computer. This is very important, because while the user and hard drive may know that the program is no longer there, the registry does not. These files which are incompletely removed will take up a surprisingly large amount of hard drive space, which in turn makes for the computer to behave at a significantly decreased speed. This is because these files which have been left behind and incompletely removed cause your computer to search for them at startup, and your computer needs much more time to search, load, and scan the information contained in its registry files. Your registry also will continue searching for these files while your computer is on, as it is "confused" as to why it cannot find them. Do you remember how fast your computer used to be? Perhaps you think, like most people, that your computer has slowed down considerably just from normal wear and tear, and from all users of your computer downloading and adding more content on your hard drive. The fact is, this only accounts for less than 2% of computer performance problems. True, a lot of content will slow your computer down, but only if your registry files have missing entries. Your registry slows your computer down when it is searching for all those missing files. As you can see, it is NOT the amount of stuff you have on the hard drive that make a difference in computer performance, but the amount of incomplete and missing entries your registry files detect which is slowing your computer down. Because of the size of your computer's registry(millions of files), it is next to impossible for a