Optimize Windows Registry: Clean, Defragment, Analyze, Fix Errors, and Protect

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 05 Feb 2009

One of the most important parts of the Windows operating system is the registry. Keeping it optimized, clean, and defragmented will have a positive impact on your system’s performance. It might also prove useful to keep the Windows registry safe from harm, and by harm I mean malicious software. There are several software products that I would like to present to you, so let’s get started.

With tons of nasties in the wild (Trojans, malware, spyware, adware, viruses, and so on) it is important that you keep you system protected. Malicious software will particularly target the Windows registry, modify system settings and influence system startup by adding malicious scripts. For an added level of protection, alongside your currently installed security solution you might want to use Registry Prot, a program that you will barely realize is running in the background. It makes sense to use it since some security solutions out there do not provide registry protection. RegistryProt will run in the background, using up a minimal amount of system resources, and will jump into view only when a certain program attempts to modify the Windows registry.

Keeping useless files on your disk is of no use to anybody; disk space is taken up by files you do not use no more when that space could be occupied by something useful, or at least fun. The same goes for Windows registry: after uninstalling a program, some .dll files will remain behind. RegDllView, which does not require an installation, will scan registered .dll as well as .ocx and .exe files and let you easily get rid of the ones you do not need anymore.

Defragmenting is a task that any computer user should run from time to time and the same goes for windows registry. With Auslogics Registry Defrag you can do just than – ensure your registry’s size is kept to a minimum and running smoothly.

Every once in a while you will have to deal with Windows registry errors. Handling any type of error is annoying in itself, let alone when the registry is involved. Vit Registry Fix will automatically scan for errors and remove them; alternatively the software is capable of cleaning you recent, temporary and old files, manage startup programs, and for getting rid of installed software programs.

The more technically oriented user that wants to analyze registry hives might want to be aware of Registry Ripper, which the developer says it is the “best tool for registry analysis in forensics examinations”.

Last but not least, I present to you RegistryCleaner from PC-Kitchen. Here is a quick list of tasks the program is capable of performing: scan and fix registry errors, schedule registry reparation tasks, automatic backup and restore, manage startup programs, automatically check for updates.

If you would like to get RegistryProt, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get RegDllView, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get Aislogics Registry Defrag, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get Vit Registry Fix, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get Registry Ripper, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get RegistryCleaner, a download location is available here.


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