How The Registry Gets Messed Up
The registry database is accessed constantly by Windows itself and by applications and processes running on your machine. These applications and processes read and write data to and from the registry. Data is inserted, edited and deleted by many processes, often at the same time. Windows handles access to the registry and has to take care of all these concurrent access operations and, for lack of a better word, sometimes it simply messes things up. Data doesn't get deleted properly, records are duplicated or wrong data is written to registry entries. The results of these "misthaps" can be as harmless as some program's setting not being read correctly all the way to complete system failure.
Another source of registry problems is installing and removing software. Some uninstallation routines don't work the way they should and leave traces of the program they're removing on the system. Among other things, application-specific registry keys that are supposed to be deleted stay in the registry forever and lead to bloating of the registry database over time. Also, references to old components (like drivers) are not removed and might lead to incompatibilities with future versions of Windows.
Regular Registry Repair Protects You From The Worst Case
As a general rule, the longer the Windows registry goes unrepaired, the more complicated it gets to fix things. If you wait too long that next registry error might just be the one that cripples your system to the point of completely refusing to work. Just hope you have a working backup in place if that happens.
But why risk the worst case when regular maintenance of the registry's integrity can spare you a lot of trouble?
The easiest way to prevent registry problems is resolve to regularly scan and repair your registry and keep it healthy and in good shape. Here's how you do that.
Fix the Registry with
a Registry Repair Tool
If you've failed to either create a custom backup of your system or a restore point with the on-board System Restore utility, you still have the option of repairing the registry. You will need a registry repair tool for this, of which several are available.
The way these tools work is that they first scan the registry for inconsistencies and then allow you to repair these errors automatically. Most tools, the better ones, allow you to choose which errors you actually want to repair and, just in case, they backup your current registry so you can revert back to the previous state in case anything goes wrong.
There are numerous registry cleaners on the market, and how good they are at their job varies greatly. The most important thing to look for is whether a tool allows you to make backups and of course how good a job it does at detecting and repairing registry errors without removing anything that's supposed to be there.
