Don’t Get Too Reliant And Back Up Your Windows Registry
Your Windows Registry is really nothing more than a large meticulously kept store of records. Whatever is on your hardware (and the hardware itself) and all the software installed on it, all the settings and configurations are kept in an organized fashion in literally thousands of entries in a kind of hierarchical order in the said Windows Registry.
With a new computer there isn’t a need to get your Windows Registry cleaned – not for a while, at any rate. But as time goes by and as you use the computer more and more, some registry cleaning may be in order to get rid of unnecessary entries that are no longer needed.
Windows Registry is a growing enterprise. That’s because as new hardware and software gets added to your computer, it all gets recorded in the registry. Nothing gets overlooked, even a plugin that you may get in your IE gets to be entered in your registry’s database.
A lot of program do not get completely removed when you uninstall them. This means that bits and pieces of it remain and clutter up your hard drive. That is, they are there but do nothing for you anymore except use of valuable memory.
Since your Windows Registry is chock full of entries that you may not even be able to understand even if you could just look at them all, the best thing you can do is clean your Windows Registry – you may attempt this yourself, doing it manually, provided you really do know how to go about this.
If you are not such an expert, though, it is highly recommended that you utilize a registry cleaner to get in the act and work on your behalf. With a program that’s a virtual error doctor you need not worry about leaving unwanted things behind on your drive.
But whether you do this registry cleaning yourself or are using a registry cleaner, you must do a backup prior to proceeding. In fact, it’s a good idea to do a periodic backup of the Windows Registry from time to time.
The procedure is not the same for each operating system. In Windows XP/2000, you nick to click Start and then Run in “regedit.” Once the Windows Registry is open, click File and then Export. Once another window get opened, you can give it the location (and the name) to have your registry saved in.
There are some important things to note here – actually, two: You need to have the file type designated as “Registration Files (*.reg).” This is important, because saving the files as a text file may not let you get them back should you need to, in case your Windows Registry becomes corrupted.
The other point to note here is that you need to click on radio button “All” when you are in the export range options. That’s because you don’t want to back up only part of your registry files, but all of them.
Another recommendation is that the registry file get backed up onto another computer or a removable disk. If your Windows Registry get corrupted, you may not even be able to boot Windows no matter what.
Your Windows Registry is clearly, then, something crucial on your PC. This means that it needs to be backed up. And you should reframe from editing or removing it if you don’t really know how to do these chores.
