Be Aware of what you Download

There are so many opportunities online to download materials, but you have to be aware of what you access. Make sure your computer has a program in place that will assess the download first. If there is a problem with it, or it could have a potential risk, then it shouldn’t download without giving you a pop up message to approve it. You will be better off to abort the download to ensure a safe operating system.

Keep an Eye on Browsers

If you have more than one toolbar on your browser, you will want to get rid of what you don’t use. Those objects can be taking up space. You may have some that are obsolete, so they are just in the way. Carefully go through all of your menu items.

Unused Files and Drivers

Periodically go through your files and get rid of what you don’t need. If you have something around that you feel you may need in the future, store it externally. For example you can store it in an email account with Yahoo, Google, or other locations. Then you can access it if you need it, but it won’t be taking up space on your computer.

Evaluate your System

One of the best ways to find out if you have unused or corrupt registry files on your computer is to run a free system scan. There are various programs you can find online that will do this for you. Not only will they look over your entire system, but they will give you a full report of the findings. Then you can decide if you want to use their program to successfully remove the problems from your computer.

A corrupted registry needs to be fixed. If you do know enough about computers and Windows, you will be able to fix the registry yourself. You have to run Windows in Safe Mode on start. This will enable you to work with the minimum resources. Then you run regedit and try and fix the errors, providing you know what is wrong and how to solve the problem.

However, do remember to back up the files and changes that you make on another drive or external storage media so that you can undo the changes if they cause any problems or stop the computer from running. When you go to regedit, then click on File, you will find options to import and export entries. You should export the details of the actual status before you change something to a text file and then, if there is a problem, you can always import it back. It is important that you take the right steps for reconstructing a corrupted registry.

There are different ways of used backup methods. Some Windows versions come with automatic back-up systems. In others you can use the Recovery Console which comes when you try to insert the Windows disc into the drive. When you come to the recovery console option you should click on that and follow the instructions.

Before you attempt reconstructing a corrupted registry make sure that your system restore point is active and working. There are also many registry cleaners available, with varying feedback.

Obviously, you don’t want to lose your data, be it work or entertainment. So how do you go about reformatting the computer without losing important data? There are two basic ways to do this.

Using a back-up storage device

Nowadays, external hard drives are very reasonably priced. And they are available in large capacities including terabytes. These are great for transferring everything from you computer into the back-up storage device. Alternatively, you can use high capacity DVD drives or pen drives.

There is only one problem here and that is if the data or other files have any viruses, these may well get transferred to your computer even after it is formatted. So you need to run a full scan on your transferred data drive before putting the data back on your main computer. After that, you format the drive/s, partition then if required and reinstall your operating system.

Using Windows repair system

New versions of Windows come with a repair option, which means that you actually don’t need to format the computer. This will also get rid of system and other errors and speed up your computer.

For this you need the Windows installation CD. When your computer is on, insert the CD and restart the computer. On restarting, the setup CD will show up and you will be prompted to run the setup. You will then see a screen where you have the option of ‘setup Windows now’ ‘repair using Recovery Console’ and ‘quit’. Here you have to be careful and press the ‘setup Windows now option’.

The second screen will then give you a full repair option or a fresh installation option. Here you should select the repair option. Then you follow the instructions and you will have a computer where the operating system is fixed, minus all the errors and without any data loss either.

Just keep in mind that for either of the options, you do need to have a few hours at your disposal. The first option will take longer than the second one, though this does depend on the amount of data which you have to transfer and the speed of your system. Confused? Need a registry cleaner? Check out some options here.

To save time you can use a registry cleaner or attempt a system restore to take your computer back in time before the damage to the registry was done.

This article also assumes three things:
1) You know how to use Regedit.
2) You know how to use MSConfig.
3) You know how to backup the windows registry and/or any other windows tools listed.

Do keep in mind that these solutions are designed for more experienced users, and as usual, you’ll want to keep a backup of the windows registry in case things go from bad to worse.

The five registry keys listed below are areas that you’ll want to take special interest in, as they’re one of the most common places that malware will “hide” itself in order to start running again, even after you have shut down the process. If you find references to the offending piece of malware in any of the entries below, delete them after killing off their processes, and deleting the offending files.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx

The next area, and even more insidious area that malware can disguise itself is in the Winlogon area of the registry. The two keys this concerns are listed below. The first one is obvious and easy enough to get rid of, as when the the “Notify” key is expanded, each of the services that start up after the user logs on are shown, along with the file that is used to implement any of the services. After the offending piece of malware is deleted, simply delete the associated registry key.

The second key involving one of Winlogon’s many entries is the value “Explorer.exe” under “Shell”. Unless you have a customized shell that you’re using to run windows from, this value should never actually change. Malware can often exploit this technique, allowing it to load before Windows Explorer does, thus enabling it to further disguise itself. If the file is deleted and the shell entry is not changed, windows will usually throw an error, since the offending piece of malware no longer exists to load Explorer.exe afterwards.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon – Shell – “Explorer.exe”

Sometimes, a malware infection will also cause Windows to behave strangely after removal. Below is a registry that may be of help and/or interest in getting your system functioning normally again. The two registry keys listed under Image File Execution Options are “iexplorer.exe” and “explorer.exe”. Normally, those two keys should never be listed under the “Image File Execution Options” category.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options

The next registry key involves Internet Explorer and Browser Helper Objects. These entries control the toolbars and other bells and whistles of Internet Explorer. Malware also likes to hide here quite a bit, disguising itself as a control. Simply delete the offending key after the file has been deleted.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects

Malware will sometimes attempt to hijack internet requests. Although extremely uncommon, it does happen. The list below shows what the values should be. If they’re not, then trouble is most likely brewing.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\URL\Prefixes
“ftp”=”ftp://”
“gopher”=”gopher://”
“home”=”http://”
“mosaic”=”http://”
“www”=”http://”

ActiveX Controls are also occasionally used to run and/or distribute malware. Once you navigate to this specific registry key, look for “StubPath” values with each ActiveX CLSID, which will usually be a giveaway for malware entries.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\

MSConfig is pretty easy to use. You can either run it from the start menu, or the task manager under “File”>”New Task (Run…)”, and typing in msconfig. This particular built-in windows tool not only handles registry entries, but also a few system files where malware can disguise itself, which will be described below:

Under the “SYSTEM.INI”, and “WIN.INI” tab, there will be a list of commands dealing with startup entries and other system settings. Although these two files aren’t used by default on Windows XP systems and later, they can still be an entry point for malware to restart, and can sometimes make things a bit of a pain. The two lines to look for in WIN.INI are “load=” or “run=”. SYSTEM.INI’s weakness lies with the “shell=” command.

The services tab also lists processes that are used while windows is running. Some of them are optional, some of them are required. Generally speaking, malware doesn’t usually create itself as a process under system services, but sometimes it does. This is another good place to look for and disable malware. The last, and most common place to look is the “startup” tab. Anything that you don’t recognize as being part of a legit application is generally safe to disable.

The aforementioned methods of clearing specific registry entries after a malware attack may not work in every case, but in most cases they will.

We strongly recommend novice users to just use a registry cleaning program like PC Health Advisor or Registry Booster. You should also run a full virus scan using an antivirus client like Spyware Doctor with Antivirus or something like Malwarebytes.

Use System Restore

When windows won’t boot, hit ctrl, alt, and delete to restart the computer. You’ll see a message that will ask you to select your operating system. When this happens you’ll want to push F8 and you’ll bring up the Advanced Options menu for Windows. From here, you’ll be able to enter windows in Safe mode. Safe mode is a very limited version of Windows but in most cases it allows you enough access to fix the problem. While in safe mode, simply select the system tools menu from the start menu and choose system restore. This will allow you to restore your computer to an earlier date, which should allow you to once again use windows properly

Use a Startup Disk

This is a little more intensive than System Restore but it is still an easy enough solution that can fix many Windows issues. When you start up your computer, enter a floppy disk into the drive and then select My Computer. You’ll see a floppy disk icon which you should right click and then select the format dialog option. Hit the start button and then wait until the operation concludes. Once it does, close the box and then click on the new icon in the C Drive. You’ll see a directory with files that you can copy. You’ll want to copy them to your floppy disk and then restart the computer. If you performed it successfully, you should be able to start up Windows properly.

Do an In Place Upgrade

With more recent versions of Windows you can do what is known as an in place upgrade, which essentially allows you to reinstall Windows into the same folder that it was previously in. This is actually a very handy way to get Windows to boot up again because you’re basically copying the OS once again. To do this, you simply insert the CD into the drive, restart the computer, and then boot from the disc. From there you simply follow the steps to reinstall the program. The in place upgrade is meant to be an easy way to upgrade from one Windows version to the next but you can still “upgrade” by reinstalling the same version, which in almost all cases helps to overcome almost any Windows boot issues.

If you’d like to review our top 5 picks for registry cleaners, please visit our top registry cleaners chart.

Registry Entries

Invalid and corrupt registry entries can often lead to your system freezes and overall poor performance of your computer. To resolve this we recommend you scan your computer with a registry cleaner and repair invalid and corrupt entries.

Auto-Starting Programs

Programs with auto-start capabilities may seem like a convenience, but unless you really need them to run at startup, don’t let them. While it seems like a good idea at the time, it’s the same as what I like to call “The Bellhop Effect”: You arrive at the door, and the bellhop is there to greet you. He asks if he can take your coat and hang it up somewhere of your choosing, so you can retrieve it after you’re done. You agree, thinking all is well. In short order, you find yourself surrounded by an array of them, all offering you different services and/or requests. Before you realize it, you find the atmosphere thick with loud, yet indistinct chatter and instead of finding your way through the door, you find yourself at the center of a slow-moving train wreck. The same thing often happens if you allow multiple programs to initialize at startup. It’s best to only allow those programs which are truly necessary to auto-start.

Excessive Junk Files

Excessive junk files, along with prefetch or other cached data can significantly reduce hard drive performance, and in turn adversely affect the speed of your computer. A few extra temporary files here and there won’t really impact system performance, but several thousand can easily do this without even seeming to be the culprit. The reason is that when there are an excessive number of unneeded files in the system, some applications will literally choke, as they attempt to enumerate hundreds, and even sometimes thousands of files. These junk files can also take a toll on hard drive space, which can have an impact on other programs. To avoid this, clear your browser’s cache, run the windows disk cleaner every now and then, and delete any temporary or junk files.

Further explaining the dilemma, when critical data is not consolidated, this can also cause the hard disk to spin an extra time or two (sometimes more) to get the necessary data, since the platter only spins in one direction. While that might not seem like a lot, 4 extra spins can add up quickly. For instance, if the hard drive has a spin ratio of 7200RPMs, and we have 4 extra spins, that effectively “reduces” the hard drive speed to 6960RPMs. That’s nearly a 4% loss in optimal disk speed, which brings us into the next reason why a computer will slow down.

Hard Drive Fragmentation

Hard drive fragmentation is a common problem for windows users. Some other operating systems do a pretty good job at keeping appropriate files consolidated together. Unfortunately, windows is not one of them. The only thing that can impact hard drive performance worse than excessive, unneeded junk files is a fragmented hard drive. A good analogy of why fragmentation is a problem is to briefly illustrate The Tale Of Two Libraries.

One is currently using The Dewey Decimal system to keep track of their books. It may take some effort to maintain this system, but the visitors of the first library always find that the books they want in a relatively short period of time. In fact, some of the patrons find that by following this particular system from start to finish, they can find all the books they need in one pass, just like a defragmented hard drive.

The second library has decided to eschew The Dewey Decimal system on the grounds that it’s too complex and it takes up too much time, and have instead decided to implement The Laissez Faire System (French for “let it be”). In fact, taking out the trash or cleaning up every now and then also seems rather unnecessary. After a few weeks of this, they discovered a new problem, since some of the patrons are having trouble finding what they need, clearly, the lights aren’t really doing anyone a favor. So they decided to get rid of the light fixtures as a valuable cost cutting measure. In short order, most of their old patrons have started favoring the first library because of its efficiency. Somewhere, in a darkened corner of the second library, an exasperated voice cries out in disgust amidst the cackling of ravens and the rustling of waist-high paper rubbish, “Did I step into The Twilight Zone?”

As slightly humorous as the analogy may have been for some, it’s a pretty accurate representation of what can happen to system performance if an occasional defrag is not performed, along with routine maintenance.

Unneeded Services

Unneeded and/or unnecessary services are another thing that can potentially bog down your system. However, in most cases, an excessive number of services are rarely generated unless you’re installing an extensive list of programs. Services can be enabled/disabled either through MSConfig or services.msc. This approach is only recommended for advanced users or administrators. Disabling the wrong service can sometimes have disastrous results.

Lack Of Memory

Sometimes, a system needs a RAM upgrade. If you’re running a system with Windows XP, I recommend having at least 1GB of RAM installed. While a lower amount of memory is usually fine within reason, the reason that you should have at least 1GB of RAM available is so that windows and any other applications that you may be running will have plenty of memory to run. Also, having your pagefile set to three times the amount of RAM you have installed is usually sufficient enough for most paging operations: If you have 1GB of RAM, set your pagefile to have a maximum size of 3GB.

Hardware Issues

Sometimes faulty hardware, or hardware conflict can cause system instability or sluggishness. Occasionally, having the incorrect driver installed can also cause this. To avoid this problem, make sure that the hardware you’re purchasing is compatible with your system, and that you have the correct drivers installed on your system, and that the drivers and/or the hardware is compatible with all other hardware and software that’s installed.

While this article may not cover all of the causes of why a computer may slow down, these are the most common reasons for poor system performance.

PC Health Advisor addresses all the issues above with the exception of hardware issues and lack of memory. These are physical components and software will be unable to resolve them. The exception is if the hardware issue is caused by an out dated driver. The lack of memory issues may be resolved by optimizing your start-up menu to limit the amount of programs that auto start on you. So in reality PC Health Advisor can resolve all the above issues but not in every circumstance.

Too Many Operations Running

Many of us open up several browsers at once. This is especially true in a work setting. It enables us to have various windows open to conveniently flip back and forth. Yet that can be overwhelming to the operating system and cause your computer to freeze up.

Installing and Uninstalling Programs

You need to make sure you follow the right procedures when you are installing or uninstalling programs. When my computer freezes after install and uninstall tasks I know that is where you’ll need to start troubleshooting efforts. Computers may be reaching the capacity of their storage and may not be able to install or run programs correctly due to lack of space. You may have to go to a restore point to get your computer to function properly again.

Corruption

Corrupted files can occur even for well-kept systems. All of the data that we access with a computer can allow problems to occur. Corruption and difficulty can occur due to a variety of things.

Email Viruses

For example viruses that we open up when we read attachments. Be careful of what you open in your emails. These can definitely have a negative impact on your system and cause freezing.

Unused files, spyware, malware

There can be fragmented files, malware, and spyware out there. Such forms of corruption can cause your registry to not follow the rules of the operating system properly – and then the computer will freeze up.

Registry Cleaning Software

The use of a quality registry cleaning software program such as Registry Mechanic can prevent your computer from freezing. This type of program is able to ensure your hardware and software for the operating system is functioning like they should. The software is able to scan your computer from the inside out and to diagnose problems. Then it is able to fix them so that your computer won’t freeze up.

When Windows 3.1 was introduced to the market back in March 1992, it was the first time that Microsoft implemented a “registry” with its operating system. The Windows Registry’s original purpose was to store Component Object Model (COM) information, which was ultimately tied in with the interface, and how programs would interact with each other.

At the time, many programs also used .INI files for configuration settings. When Windows 95 and Windows NT were introduced, a few new features were added to the registry, one of which was intended to eliminate the need for so many .INI files that took up a lot of cumulative space. Several other features were implemented as well, and also drastically improved how windows functioned as an operating system.

Instead of being a single provider for COM Information, the registry was now being used to configure applications, hardware, device drivers and various aspects of the operating system. It also allowed administrators to examine data on another computer over the network. Windows 95 also automatically backed up the registry in case of disaster, even though in a few rare cases, it only made matters worse, depending on the situation. Usually, the user could choose to start windows using the last good configuration. Also, a control panel was introduced that allowed administrators and users to edit specific areas of the windows registry without having to worry about accidentally mis-configuring settings.

The registry tended to change with each release of Windows. When Windows 98 was released, even more improvements and features were added to the windows registry. According to Microsoft’s own documentation, the windows registry services themselves used less memory and had improved caching support, which directly translated to faster start-up times for applications and windows itself.

Windows 98 also automatically detected registry corruption from a variety of sources and runs the registry checker to find and fix any corrupt registry entries and errors. If no problems were found, windows 98 would automatically back up the registry in addition to removing unused space in the registry, which trimmed down the size of the registry and additionally improved system performance. Since the registry could also be accessed from a central point on the network, multiple users can have personalized system settings when logging in from any computer. It should be noted that the registry setup for Windows 98 and ME are pretty much identical, whereas the registry for Windows NT4/2000 starkly different. While both registry setups were different, they performed much the same tasks. The real difference was that the NT based registry style was a bit more organized and had a lot more hierarchy.

With the advent of Windows XP, the registry underwent a hybridized style of managing data that was conducive to both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 users. The reason for this was because Microsoft wanted the transitional upgrade to their new operating system to be smooth, entirely reverse compatible, and with as few problems as possible in the process. The only way to do this was to create a system registry that handled both general releases. The windows registry still continues to change, but at this point, it now controls nearly every aspect of the Windows OS, and how it interacts with the user.

One of the most sensible parts of the Windows operating system is the Windows registry. Due to temporary data, settings and references left behind by most software packages that have been installed or uninstalled on a PC, the Windows registry is in many cases one of the answers for the question “Why is my computer so slow?”

In order to properly address Windows registry problems, certain software support is required, in order to avoid risks that can arise as a result of any manual Windows registry modifications. One of the primary utilities used in this direction is PC Health Advisor, the award winning software provided by Paretologic.

PC Health Advisor is capable to scan, identify and properly fix Windows registry problems such as program shortcuts and invalid references, invalid class keys and shell extensions as well as empty registry keys that slow down generic operating system access to the registry database. With a fully customizable scheduling feature, PC Health Advisor can perform both manual and fully automatic Windows registry maintenance tasks.

While most advanced users that operate PC Health Advisor choose to benefit from the manual customizations that are possible as part of each Windows registry maintenance routine, less experienced PC users will surely enjoy the comfort of working with the automatic maintenance routine that is built-in in the default installation of the software package.

Regardless if the PC user prefers to benefit from customizations of scanning and registry repair procedures or sit back and relax while PC Health Advisor does everything automatically, constant Microsoft Windows operating system maintenance is required in order to benefit from the entire set of features, at the best quality that it can provide.

Two other issues seem to stand out besides the Windows registry. They are too many programs actively running and not enough computer memory.

Over the course of time as you install more and more programs onto your computer you will notice that the overall performance of the PC goes way down. This is often due to too many programs running that just don’t need to be active. For instance Skype and Kodak Easy share software. Both programs are great but how often do you really use them? If the answer is only once a week then consider taking them out of the start-up menu. They will still be on your computer but they will not auto start and take up that valuable RAM. It is also a good idea to look into purchasing more RAM. Often times this is a very cheap alternative compared to purchasing a new computer.

Over time, the registry starts to get a little overloaded and even corrupt. It’s not a perfect system, so errors start to build up. And that’s where registry cleaner software comes in. These registry cleaners will clear up the errors, allowing your Windows Registry to run smoothly.

If you notice your computer starting to take longer and longer to open . or run programs, it could be a sign that it’s time to clean your registry. Please note that all computers will start to build up registry errors. It doesn’t matter how careful you are, it’s a matter of the Windows Registry. The only way to remove these errors is to either uninstall and then reinstall Windows (which means you need to take everything off your computer and start over) or to periodically run a registry cleaner.

As you can imagine, getting an inexpensive registry cleaner (most are about $20) will be a huge time saver.

If you’d like to review our top 5 picks for registry cleaners, please visit our registry cleaner comparison chart.