Earlier today someone on FriendFeed asked a question regarding the Windows registry and using a specific utility type application in order to clean up his registry. What he wanted to know was what to look out for in the scan results so that he didn’t end up deleting the wrong thing and screwing up his machine in the process. My first response was as it is to anyone who starts asking questions about the registry - be very very careful.

While it was never intended to be the dumping ground for every single application in the world when Microsoft first came up with the concept of a central database style system for Windows settings that is pretty well what it has become. In the process Windows has paid a hefty price in user complaints as their systems slows down as more and more applications are installed.

Under Vista and .NET developers are being encouraged to move away from using the registry for storing all their program’s settings however that is easier said than done. In the meantime that leave us users with a system that will over time become more of a pain in the ass to use than anything else. Hence the on-going joke even with XP of having to do full system re-install every six months to a year to get that snappiness back.

The other option open to us is to try and manage the Windows registry. For which plenty of software companies have come forward with tools to do this with but in the majority of cases I have found that they are more of a way to part unsuspecting and inexperienced users with their money. The other problem that tools like registry cleaners and other such system tweaking utility programs is that they can give the user a false sense of security that if they do the scans and delete everything that is found they will be okay. In some cases you might be but in the greater majority of cases you could just as easily bork your machine beyond recovery.

Working with the registry is no different than working with anything else - if you don’t know the basics of what you are working with it doesn’t matter how good your tools are. Just as an electrician needs to understand how electricity works in order to use those Marrs caps or wire cutters you need to understand what the registry is and how it works before using any tool against it. If you don’t take some time to get a basic grasp of the different parts of the registry and how they affect your machine then I’m sorry you get what you deserve if you blindly use some utility to manage it.

Below I will provide some links to various resources that I have used over the years and some of the better utility tools both freeware and pay. However there are two steadfast rules that you should tattoo on your forehead before using any application on the registry and they are:

1. Set a System Restore point on XP and Vista before touching the registry
2. Make a backup of the registry before and depending on how much you are working on the registry during any changes being made to the registry.

Now repeat that three time so that it sinks in because once you start mucking with the registry you can make changes that could totally screw your machine up and those two things might be the only thing that will save your ass and the frustration of having to do a reinstall.

Registry Resources

Books:

I would never recommend anyone to touch the registry without having done their research first on how it works and ideally getting themselves some books on the subject for their particular flavor of Windows. The ones listed below are ones that I recommend from experience.

Mastering Windows XP Registry (Amazon)
Inside the Microsoft Windows 98 Registry (Amazon)
Microsoft Windows Internals (4th Edition) (Amazon) Any book by Mark Russinovich for Windows is a wise investment
Hacking Windows Vista: ExtremeTech (Amazon)

Web Resources:

Just like any set of tools there is nothing like having a handy set of references of information, tips and hints of people who have been down the same road as you. The list below are ones that I have referred back to over and over again through the years.

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows - straight from the horse’s mouth on how to backup and restore the registry with a default set of Windows tools.
Annoyances.org - Introduction to the Registry - this is one of the standard bearers when it comes to dealing with the registry
Registry Edits for Windows XP - The Elder Geeks is more of a tweaks and tips type site for XP but there aren’t many others out there that are better.
Troubleshooting Windows XP, Tweaks and Fixes for Windows XP  - Kelly’s Korner can be kind of hard to navigate around but like Elder Geek it is one of the best.
Windows Registry Guide - Registry tweaks and fixes for Windows systems - used to be known as RegEdit.com but has since been picked up by PC Tools. While I am not a user of their software this is an excellent registry resource.

Registry Software:

There are an incredible number of programs out there that will let you work with your registry but I am very reluctant to recommend very many of them. In a great many cases some of the software is being used to install spyware and other malicious types of goodies on your system or they generally don’t work as advertised. There are some that I have used in the past which are listed below but the truth of the matter is that in many cases I prefer using the default regedit.exe that comes as part of Windows. Between it and the other resources that are available you can perform the majority of tasks that you would want to do with your registry - you just have to be more careful.

jv16 PowerTools 2008 1.8.0.455 - jv16 has been one of my standby utility programs since the days when it was a freeware product. It is still worth the money but is not your only alternative.
CCLeaner - this is another program that has been around for a very long time and is a freeware release. However using this one does require you know what you are doing.
RegScrubVistaXP 1.5 - this is a newer program that I haven’t worked with that much but it has had good things said about it.
Wise Registry Cleaner 3 - I have used this one in the past and it has generally behave nicely
System Mechanic - this is more of a combination deal of which part is a registry cleaner. It is also a pay program but I have used it before and had no problems with it.

Now that all is said and done there is three areas that you have to be extremely careful messing around in regardless of the program you use on the registry. These areas are:

1. Anything that resides under the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT section. This is typically where you will find all your file associations and typelibs - be very careful mucking around in here.
2. The CLSID key section - regardless of the registry root key which you find it under
3. Again anything to do with file associations
4. Anything under any of the CurrentControlSet keys regardless of where you find them in the registry.

And finally because I can’t stress this enough - remember these two things

1. Set a System Restore point on XP and Vista before touching the registry
2. Make a backup of the registry before and depending on how much you are working on the registry during any changes being made to the registry.

Conversation Tags: Windows, XP, Vista, registry, system cleaning, system tweaking