Community Newsletter: Q&A: Slow computer: Will a registry cleaner help?

Keeping your system at its peak performance

In reply to: Slow computer: Will a registry cleaner help? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

It is not a bad thing to fear the idea of modifying your system's registry. Luckily there are plenty of steps you can take to keep your system running smoothly and efficiently without delving into permanent modifications, so I'll start with those.

First, go through your Add/Remove Programs list and remove anything that you don't need. Not only do these programs take up storage space, but many times they have components that run in the background (some show up as icons on your taskbar near the clock). A free program called JoneSoft Uninstall Cleaner (http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/util/uninst.html second application on the page) can help you make sure that there are no residual files. Uninstall Cleaner does modify registry settings, but doesn't require that you go through the actual keys yourself.

Once you have removed any unnecessary applications, run msconfig. The last tab (Startup) shows you most of the things that run when your system boots. Searching the internet for the executables listed here will let you know which ones your system needs, and which ones you need for things like mouse and keyboard drivers. It is generally a good idea to filter out anything that you could start manually following system boot, such as messenger applications (AIM, MSN, Google Talk) or multimedia players (RealPlayer, Quick Time). The next tab to the left (Services) shows all the services that start when your computer boots. Most of these need to stay on, but some services can be disabled, such as Wireless Zero Configuration Service if you don't have a wireless card, or Smart Card if you don't have a card reader. Again, some internet searching can help guide your decisions.

Next, make sure you run both Disk Cleaner and Disk Defragmenter (in that order) to ensure that your hard drive is clean and efficient. While RAM is traditionally assumed to be responsible for computer slowdowns, the fact is that bottlenecks can occur in a variety of places. The hard drive, being a mechanical device moreso than a logical one, is one of these places. The more files are stored on the drive, the farther the drive has to spin to find segmented files. This is similar to what would happen to you if at tax time someone filled your office with every piece of financial documentation you have ever possessed and suddenly you need to find just what you received in the past year. This condition is more manageable if there is organization to the files (such as there exists after defragmentation), but it would be better overall if you only had a couple years' worth of files. This is why some hardware sites prescribe not using more than 75% of your available hard drive space, though the actual number is debatable.

If you have taken all these steps and the computer is still running slower than you would like, increasing the amount of RAM is an option.

Now that I have covered the easy steps that can be taken toward speeding up your computer, I'll address the registry, as per your question. As I mentioned earlier in my discussion of the msconfig Startup list, not all of the programs that start when your computer is booted appear on this list. Some (typically viruses or spyware but sometimes poorly written drivers or vendor-specific software) hide themselves in the registry in key locations, so modifying the registry may be the only way to remove these. My brief experience in using registry management or registry cleaning software is not enough that I can suggest any one product over another, so I suggest looking at some of the better-informed posts for those answers. The best thing you can do for yourself, if you choose to use one of these programs to change your registry, is to make a backup copy of it. There is probably more than one way to do this, but the way I use is to run regedit, click on File > Export... and save it somewhere handy so that you can Import it if need be.

While changes to the registry cannot be undone, the majority of the changes you can make are changes to settings, many of which can be repaired with a reinstall of the program in question and will likely not require a complete system reinstall (unless the program in question is Windows). Still, being aware of the potential dangers of modifying the system registry and avoiding it whenever possible are good ideals for anyone concerned with the maintenance and continued operation of a system.