Windows Registry Junk. Drilling Down To The Root Of The Problem!

Most often, Windows registry is so bloated with junk that one can only guess at its volume and sigh at the fact that one cannot manually get rid of it. It is a fact that the Windows registry is constantly bombarded with keys of applications that are banished from the face of the system but allowed to leave its stamp in its innards; the registry. Free ware installers patronized by purse pinched programmers leave a trail of debris behind. Even the best of the breed, Microsoft approved installers, add their share to the junk that is collected in the registry while installing and uninstalling applications.

So does this file system detritus or debris have an impact on the performance of the system? Not immediately. One could argue convincingly that a few hundred kilobytes of unused registry keys is not likely to impact on system speed or performance immediately or in the long run. However, like the proverbial grains of sand that make the mighty nation, hundreds of kilobytes of unused registry keys would definitely result in bloating the registry and in the deterioration of the system performance. The system may slow down or hang or the applications may not open or perform as they ought to. A Windows registry fixing is definitely called for.

The point that I am trying to make can be easily illustrated. There are hundreds of instances where the user is plunged into difficulties by the junk that has collected in the Windows registry. Let us look at one familiar example.

How many of us have been caught staring blankly at our screens when Internet Explorer refuses to start up for some mysterious reason? Even uninstalling and reinstalling IE does not seem to help? The problem does not lie in the application. It has to be traced back to the Windows registry. An undeleted previously used ISP dialer that lurks under HKEY_CURRENT_USER would be the culprit. The deletion of the unused registry key would get the IE starting normally with the new ISP dialer. This is an example of debris affecting application performance.

However, the implications of this issue are far reaching. Let us probe further into the issue.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER is part of the per user settings. If more than one user had been availing of the services of the previous dialer and the application had been deleted from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE part of the Windows registry, the installer would have performed the deletion operation system wide, leaving the individual users with their settings intact under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, but their IE with a broken configuration. This is primarily because the uninstaller will not have the necessary permission to delete keys out of other user profiles. In other words, the uninstall remains incomplete and problematic if there are multiple users using a single computer and is less problematic if a single user is using the machine exclusively. This problem also could crop up in cases where domain users carry their roaming profiles with them to other machines and return to the parent machine. The deletion may occur in the parent machine and may not be updated in their profile.

So what is the solution to the problem? You could certainly do a quick format and reinstall, but that would be an expensive and time consuming solution--especially, if you have a large number of applications that need to be reinstalled. A simple Windows registry cleaner may offer you the best option in the circumstances. It is only a matter of selecting the registry cleaner that will serve your purpose.

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