Ah, the almighty Registry... The place where most of the settings of Windows and the programs (and games) we use reside. A magical land of strange parameters that most outside Microsoft don't know what they are and what they are supposed to do. And, at the same time, one of the main clogs that make our computer "tick". Without that it wouldn't work. Windows wouldn't load. Programs and games wouldn't run. Nothing would be usable. That's where a good registry cleaner comes in handy.

Before we talk about Registry Cleaners, it would be better to spend some more time with the "hows" and "whys" that make these kinds of programs useful. Because, by understanding them, we understand why we need them, what they do, how they do it and, at the same time, learn how to avoid the pitfalls that come with them. So, shall we begin?

Gizmos, OSs and other... strange stuff

Computers are a bit more complicated than, say, refrigerators or even TVs - although... they look a bit like one. Inside their case, usually called a "tower", reside many different electronic... let's call them "gizmos". At the heart of them all is the CPU, the main processor, the "mind" that drives the "hive" of all the other gizmos. There's one (or more) graphics card, responsible for displaying what we see on our computer screen, a sound card, a power supply... And a bunch of CD/DVD players or writers, as well as one or more hard disk drives.

All these are "tied" together by a piece of software called an Operating System. Some computers run Linux, others run BSD, Apples PCs run Mac OS (and happen to be called "Macs", although their "insides" aren't that different from a PC)... And then, there's Windows. Windows happens to be the most widely adopted OS on the planet, used by millions and millions of computers. And, as an OS, it's what makes our computer "tick".

You see, all those "gizmos" we mentioned before, the "hardware" of the PC, is actually quite... stupid! It can't do anything until somebody tells it what and how. That somebody, in our case, is Windows. Windows "tells" it how each "gizmo" interacts with each other, Windows "tells" it how to display graphics, play music, load programs, do anything.

We could describe Windows as a sum of many programs that "drive" our computer and make it work in a specific way. Some parts of it (called "drivers") tell the hardware "how to work", others "tie" the drivers together... And then, there's the Registry.

The Registry told me "where"!

After we realize what

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