What You Can Do Before Installing a Registry Cleaner Software

First Recognizing the Realities 

It does not matter what kind of computer or the operating system that is installed.  Eventually you will start seeing signs of a system registry dysfunction.  You know - things like Your computer is running significantly slower, you type in a specific URL address and end up somewhere else, random error messages, your computer keyboard functions incorrectly, your computer mouse seems to go haywire, your CD-Rom Drawer(s) open and close by themselves and a multitude of an endless stream of things significantly out of the ordinary. Without a long barrage of expert opinions, let us just agree these things are a fairly realistic indication that computer maintenance is a necessity. 

Weeding Out Opinions  

You can do an Internet search and end up at forums, expert sites, product pages and computer service sites.  There are millions of choices from every direction.  I am of the opinion you can put 500 people in a wind storm and take an opinion survey only to discover when all is said and done you will have believers that proclaim the wind is blowing in each and every direction.  So if you were not confused before you tried to solve the problem, what do you do now to come up with a viable solution to your computer ills? 

First of All, Why the Problems?  

Well, you didn't buy your computer to be a bookend; you are going to use it!  When you do Internet searches, you are going to collect viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, cookies and whatnot.  When you buy software like firewalls, registry cleaners, PC Tweekers, games, music or movie downloads and a 100 other things, you are going to install them and remove some of them as well.  By doing these things, your computer registry is eventually going to develop situations.   Over time your computer develops a corrupt registry because pieces of programs are left behind, installation files are no longer being used, uninstall files remain, user settings change or are added, old fonts and files abound, things end up at incorrect locations, and much more. 

Your First Contingency Action Should be Self Help  

You took the time to learn your operating system, Email account and how to do all kinds of the great things a computer is designed to do.  Now before you buy any software solutions to solve some of the situations we previously discussed and there are needed tools and solutions, let me tell you some things you can do all on your own to keep the computer registry optimized. 

First Self Help Operation 

1.      First of all as you surf the Internet the computer disk is going to store Internet files, temporary files and you are going to delete things that go to the registry recycle bin and just this can in time cause your computer to loose the maximum operating speed.  To get back this speed one sure thing you can do is a disk clean up.  It does not cost you anything but a few minutes of time.  Here is what you do; 

2.      Disk Cleanup is a matter of going to the Start button in the lower left corner of your computer screen and clicking on same. 

3.      This will bring up all the programs installed on your computer and upon review, you'll want to then click on the Accessories function. 

4.      Under this will popup a menu where you will then click on System Tools and under this button you press the Disk Cleanup function.  Do not be afraid you have not altered anything critical. 

5.      Push on Disk Cleanup and your computer will automatically calculate the free space on your computer, which will in fact take a number of minutes.  After this calculation is completed you will be presented with some courses of action.  Simply click on only the following boxes - Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin and Temporary Files than click on OK and Yes when prompted to delete these files. 

6.      The Disk cleanup will than delete these files and close automatically when the actions are completed.  This alone will bring your computer speed back to a good operating speed and eliminate pesky cookies, adware, popups, etc. 

Second Self Help Operation  

When you simply use your computer every action you start and finish is stored in segments, sectors, stringers and all kinds of technical stuff we could care less about as long as things just operate appropriately as the salesman promised your computer would do.  So, to further add speed to your operating system just complete a simple computer disk defrag.  It is pretty much similar to the Disk Cleanup operation just explained.

1.      Go to the Start Button access Accessories then on the menu you will see Tools and ultimately you want to push on the Disk Defragmenter Button. 

2.      A screen will popup and on it you'll want to hit the Analyze Button.  The disk review will take a number of minutes and upon completion will advise you whether or not a defrementing will recover and organize enough space on the disk drive to make this operation worth your while.  If advised the process is warranted just simply push the Defragment Button.  The process can take a good deal of time depending upon how much file moving is required. 

There are some other important things you can do as well to safeguard and optimize your computer and in another article we will discuss the importance of setting a computer restore point prior to installing or removing software or using a registry repair program.  Lets just say for now prior to leaving your computer for the day just hit the restart button as an option that pops up before actually or subsequently logging off for the day.  This automatically sets a restore point on your computer.  More details later.