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#1 Applications fail with
cryptic error messages.
In the good old days of Windows
95, many users did not immediately realize what
to blame for these failing applications. Indeed,
the installation base was quite diverse back
then, with some traits remaining up to this day:
have you noticed how the installation wizard of
every game seems to check for DirectX ?
Nowadays, almost any application which suddenly
ceases to work, displaying an error you cannot
make sense of and which is not covered in the
FAQ is almost always a sign of a failing
registry, especially if we are talking about a
slightly older application, which still uses the
Windows Registry to store almost every kind of
option. Using a good registry cleaner could cure
this kind of problem in a matter of seconds.
#2 System bootup times are unusually long.
The
Windows Registry stores a huge set of system
wide settings, many of them having to be
accessed during the boot sequence. If the
registry is very big, the settings cannot be
accessed very quickly, and the boot sequence is
slowed down.
Of course, a bloated registry is only one of the
reasons why the system will boot slowly, but it
should be your first suspect.
#3 Installation of new
software is slow.
This is one of the prime signs of worry, and in
fact it is almost always linked with a bloated
or corrupted registry. If copying files seems to
go well, but the final stages of every
installation are very slow and seem to cause
your system to freeze, this is almost always a
sign that the installation program has
difficulties in writing settings to the Windows
Registry. This problem is even more obvious
nowadays, when hard drives, CD and DVD drives
are fast enough to allow files to be copied
extremely fast.
#4 Uninstalling software is slow and
unreliable.
Directly linked with the slow installation
problem are the various problems which may arise
when uninstalling applications. A prime sign of
registry cleaning being required is an
Add/Remove Programs dialog which is full of
programs that you no longer have on your
computer. Their presence indicates that their
registry entries had not been removed when you
uninstalled the program. This is almost always a
sign that your registry needs cleaning.
#5 New settings are slow to
apply.
If any setting you change in the Control Panel
seems to take ages before being applied, it may
be a sign that your registry needs cleaning.
Many of the options in the Control Panel have
correspondents in a Windows Registry key, and a
bloated registry can make applying these
settings very slow.
Some settings are of course inherently slow to
apply, such as networking settings. However, if
you notice that all settings are slow to apply,
and the system seems to freeze each time you
click "Ok" or "Apply" in a Control Panel window,
the Windows Registry can be at the top of your
list of suspects.
Summery
In any of these cases, it is best to run a quick
scan with a good registry cleaning program, such
as
ErrorSmart.
Although such advanced programs can work
wonders, there are systems which are beyond
rescue even for the best of them, which is why
experts constantly repeat their recommendation
to regularly scan and maintain your registry, at
least once every week. Just like a doctor would
say, it's better to prevent than to treat. The
easiest way to do this is by using a good
registry cleaner. |
