Typically, prefaced before anything which requires you to make a change to your Windows Registry, you see a warning which basically says “be careful because if you do something wrong you can mess up your system”. This is absolutely true.
Whenever you make a change to your registry, you should create a backup first. You can do a full registry backup by using System Restore, but in most cases a simple key backup is good enough. This is done easily inside of RegEdit:
- Select the key (folder) where you are making changes in the registry from the left side.
- Select File > Export.
- In the dialog, just enter a file name which is descriptive of the key you are exporting. You can also confirm the location is correct at the bottom of the dialog (Selected Branch).
- Confirm the REG file saved correctly.
That’s it. Now if you need to undo your change you can simply import the file you just created. This is a simple and effective way to help recover simple mistakes if you are dealing with the registry.
Of couse, this method is not 100% fool-proof. For example, if you modify a system value and reboot your system, this method may not be an ample recovery model. However, for minor system tweaks it should be sufficient.
Jason Faulkner is the man who brings you our daily tips. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
What is your opinion of the “Free” Registry Cleaners which are not free of course since maybe 15 of the errors can be deleted while the other 500 errors cannot be until one enrolls in the “pay” version. Are these reliable? Many of them would be very confusing when decisions are given to the user. The explanations are usually way above the heads of most computer operators.
Personally, I don’t like these kinds of programs. Modifying the registry manually I will do because I know _exactly_ what I am doing.
Programs which attempt to detect and repair errors can seriously mess up your system. Granted the odds of this are probably remote, I still avoid them. The reward of a potential few blinks of an eye in performance gain are not worth the risk of seriously messing up your system.
For my part I have used Uniblue Registry Booster without any problems for a while several years ago. Lately I’ve been using PC Pitstop Optimize, which is advertised on this site somewhere I recently saw, and it too is very effective.