In this Article, I'll Explain...

1. What the Windows Registry Is
2. What Makes One Registry Program Better than Another
3. The Registry Programs I Use on My Clients Computers

 Beware of the Source !  

There are literally hundreds of registry repair utilities on the market today - and unfortunately most are going to cause your computer more problems than you already are experiencing.   The registry is the brains of your computer - it provides all the system policies for your system and if it becomes damaged or corrupt, a total operations failure can take place and your computer may become unbootable.  The problem with many registry repair programs is they are being sold by companies that didn't develop them - and therefore have no real understanding of their function or even how they work.  The result is that you risk installing an inferior piece of software that can permanently damage your computer. 

The problem is magnified when it becomes near impossible to find a trustworthy source of information on registry cleaners.    The issue lies in the explosion of spam-review sites which are nothing more then websites promoting affiliate links under the guise of an official " review " site.  There main goal is to accomplish one thing - to send you to the site they are promoting and hoping you but the product they are selling - if you do, they get up to a 75% cut of the sale.  In other words, their reviews are up for sale - and are not anything buy thinly vailed sales pitches.  For example, if you do a search for the term " Paid Survey " or " Registry Repair " you'll notice that the paid listings all include sites that say " read our review " or " warning, don't download anything until you read this..." 

Subsequently, don't put a lot of stock into their reviews or you might end up with a computer that is worse off than when you started.   The best way to spot a self promoting affiliate site is to check the link that they use to send you to the reviewed products site for anything but the correct URL address.  If there is a "hop" or a "aff" in the link, you can be sure that they are getting a cut off of the sale of the product.    

When it comes to cleaning your registry, your goal is to find the right application that makes your computer run properly, rather than detects the most errors.   The problem with most registry repair titles is that they are based on the same open source software script  which has then been customized and branded to their company name.  The issue with this base product is that it is a basic registry scanning program that doesn't have the capacity or technology to effectively clean your registry.   In other words, there are literally dozens of the exact same inferior programs doing the exact same thing - but all have a different look so the consumer doesn't realize they are different products and assumes they are unique to the company selling them.  This is called while labelling and is as common in the software industry as it is at your grocery store.

The reason I tell you all of this is to debunk the industry and to ensure that you, the consumer, is aware that the people reviewing these registry products have a pure profit motive and are not worried in the least about the effective operation of your computer.  Secondly, that you realize that many of the registry repair titles that are on the market are out dated, inferior coded applications that can do more harm than good to your system.      

There are though a few excellent programs that I tell my clients about that are custom engineered to clean your registry safely and properly.  One of the titles I personally use is called XP Medic  ( xpmedic.com )  which is kind of a thinking mans' registry cleaner.  It packs a lot more features than your typical registry repair program

( such as several optimization tools as well as advanced memory utilities ) and is specifically created for the Windows XP System.  The program is stable, features an automatic, one click restore component and is likely one of the best thought out programs for the XP registry system. 

For those of you want a powerful and effective registry cleaner,  but is not complicated to use, I highly recommend the Registry Patrol application ( registrypatrol.com )   Registry Patrol is a straight forward, easy to understand and operate registry cleaner that is designed for the user who wants to clean their registry up, but requires a program that doesn't require a lot of back ground understanding and is pretty well completely automated.  

Both programs effectively clean the Windows Registry and are safe to use on your system.  Although I would recommend downloading the trial version for free rather than buying the software first.  This will allow you  to perform a full system scan to ensure that your registry does in fact have a problem that does need to be cleaned by the paid version of the software.

On a side note, I recently was working on my parents computer which was painfully slow ( literally five minutes to load a webpage )  and ran Registry Patrol on it.  I ran the software, clicked " fix the errors " and it instantly ran like it was supposed to with no more slow page loads.  

Editors Note:

Ask Nerd is not an affiliate of either XP Medic or the Registry Patrol websites and is not being paid a commission to refer users to these products.      

Document Resources

You can go to the Registry Patrol site by clicking here.

You can go to the XP Medic Site by clicking here

Note:  If you are wanting to perform a complete diagnostic and trouble shooting test on your computer, I’ve put together a full step by step guide on how to tune up the seven key components of your computer that covers everything from disk defragmenting to cleaning up your registry.  It will take you about two to three hours to go through all the steps to performing a full diagnostic and repair check on your system and is pretty comprehensive.  You can see the full step by step guide by clicking here.