One of the Windows components that optimization programs target is the registry which is essentially the “brain” of Windows. Because of the danger associated with this, I very seldom touch my registry and I never run registry cleaners. I know there are claims that cleaning your registry will improve your system performance but I don’t really...

As you may have found out, the Add/Remove Programs functionality of Windows sometimes yields dead entries. These entries can be the result of corrupt installs or accidentally deleted files. While there are lots of programs out there which can clean these entries up for you, you can always delete them manually in the registry. You can can find all the Add/Remove...

When you install certain programs, you may notice that new options are available in your right-click menu on certain files. These options are controlled through Windows Shell Extensions, which are simply registry entries. While some programs give you the ability to control these entries for their respective application, a utility which allows you to modify them...

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...

There are utilities like the freeware CCleaner software that can easily let you list and modify auto-run programs from the Windows XP system registry like this: Above: In CCleaner, click Tools (large icon on left) then Startup (white button in middle column) to see this list. However if you’re the type that would rather do this the "old fashioned...

Whenever you defrag your hard drive (using the tool which ships with Windows), you might notice there is a big green block which not movable. For the most part this green block is your Windows page file. Typically the way to make sure this gets defragged is to simply “delete it” by (steps abbreviated) removing the page file, defragging the hard drive...

Most computer users, with the exception of optimization junkies and advanced tweakers, never dare to tinker with their Windows Registry. As a matter of fact, most users are clueless when it comes to knowing what exactly the registry does, and amazingly, some are even unaware that the Windows Registry even exists. For the most part, computer users are never...