Registry repair tool

[Azrael Strife]

Does anyone know of a program to repair my registry? I used to use Norton Systemworks, but recently ditched it as it was very heavy. Something free / opensource would be preferrable.

[Matri]

Repair as in how?

[Azrael Strife]

Well, windows likes to have its registry filled with errors, so I used to use Norton to repair it, now that I don't want to install it, I'm wondering what tool I could use.

Use a registry scan tool to find out how damaged yours is

[Matri]

You need to phrase your questions better. A damaged registry usually means it's already too late, that there are critical errors introduced that threatens your system's stability. Even on a clean install of Windows you will find many, many non-critical "errors". Go figure.

 

So what you're saying you really need is a registry cleaner. You will find many tools, one off the top of my head is CCleaner. Just search for the keywords "registry" and "cleaner".

 

Also, after cleaning out your registry, be sure to use a registry optimizer. It should compact your registry, removing any excess space and thereby improving your system startup. I recommend NTRegOpt. It's simplistic, but it works. You'd be surprised at the amount of wasted space you'll find after cleaning it out.

 

Also, PageDefrag is an excellent tool to defragment your registry hives, making your startups smoother at the least.

[Azrael Strife]

Thanks Matri But I think I used my terms correctly, the term such program use is "Repair registry" (Well, at least Norton Systemwork and Uniblue's tool, which unfortunately isn't free), so I can only suppose it was damaged (which doesn't really mean damaged beyond repair)

[Bomb Bloke]

Think of your registry like your hard drive. A damaged hard drive is difficult to extract information from, some files may point to the same clusters on the disk, and you'll be lucky to boot up off it.

 

On the other hand, a drive that needs cleaning is probably just filled up with files left over from incomplete uninstalls and the like.

 

A drive does not need to be cleaned. Sure, it's a good idea, but the computer will still function no matter what junk you put on there. Given a week, it'll probably have some more junk on it anyway...

 

However, a drive with real errors on it needs to be patched up at the earliest opertunity. You don't expect such a thing to happen often, though.

 

The exact same analogies go for a registry. Anyone who tries to tell you that a cleaner is "needed" to "fix" or "repair" your registry when your computer seems to be working fine, is using those terms so's to get you to pay them money for tools you don't really even need to know about.

 

Back in the day, if you messed up your registry so bad that it needed to be repaired, you just grabbed one of the backups Windows makes (Seems to be c:\windows\repair under XP). Though you need to make a serious dent to render a system unusable. I once "uninstalled" DirectX by going through and just deleting every key that looked to be related, and the OS didn't miss a beat. I'd be surprised if Windows is any less robust (even if modern versions drop down dead at the slightest sign of damaged RAM).

[Azrael Strife]

Ok ok, bad analogy then

 

walks away muttering "I'm going to fix my damaged registry"