Have you ever heard about the Windows Registry? Great, if you have! Actually, not so many people have even an idea about Windows Registry as well as about Windows Registry Cleaners and their necessity.

So, what on Earth is Windows registry?

Windows registry is the crucial part of the operating system. It is the central database that stores various setting and options in order to control the appearance and behavior of the computer systems. If to express it figuratively, it is a heart and a nervous system of a computer. Most of the information contained in the Windows registry is located on a hard drive of a computer as a set of binary files known as “hives”. Hives have the fixed format and they are unreadable for a human being. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get access to your Windows registry but it is strongly not recommended except you are a computer expert. The registry records all the activity that takes place on a PC system. It alters automatically when you apply any changes to your system. For example, you can change a sound settings or whatever using your Control Panel.

Keep in mind that it is easy to corrupt Windows registry but it is a hard job to restore it. That is one of the reasons why the registry files are stored as hidden files in your PC.

If you still want to access Windows registry you have to change settings in your Control Panel first. The next step is the installation of special registry editor and it will give you an ability to edit registry files and its settings.

Open Windows registry and you will mainly see five (or six) different divisions that are also called root keys:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT- contains a detailed information associated with user interface, OLE and COM object data.

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER - contains all the information for the currently logged in user.

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - contains configuration data specific to the local PC, with the components of an operating system and its hardware devices.

• HKEY_USERS- contains the profiles of all the users who have logged onto the computer.

• HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG - contains configuration settings for all currently active hardware and makes current versions of Windows compatible with older Windows 95 applications.

• HKEY_DYN_DATA – you can see this root key if you use Windows 95/98/ME and it contains information about Plug and Play devices.

Thus, these root keys contain vital information that allows your computer to work correctly.

WHAT IS REGISTRY CLEANER? AND WHY DO YOU NEED IT?

In a course of a time, Windows registry becomes clogged with various types of useless and malefic information: outdated entries, broken links, DLLs and so on. An oversized registry can cause a system slowdown or even its crash. In any event, it will take more time for a system to access a data that is required during the startup and run time then.

As you see, you really need to clean your Windows registry to let your PC run correctly. We can suggest you some good and reliable registry cleaners that you can simply use to clean up your system. Read our reviews about the best Windows registry cleaners and make your choice.

We can only recommend Registry Easy but according to our tests, it is the best registry cleaner at present time.