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The registry is essentially the catalog of all programs or the reference source for your computer. When you attempt to open a program like a word processor, the computer looks up the registry to find where the program is stored. The registry contains references to settings and values for the operating system, the programs, user profiles, document types, property sheet settings, system hardware and ports. Basically, most of what goes into or comes out of the computer is found in the registry. It is the brain of the computer.

If your computer works perfectly then you should not be concerned with what is in the registry. Should there be something wrong with it then you need to sort it out before your computer can work properly again. Since registry is such an important part of the system therefore you are better off not tinkering with it at all. But there may be situations when you need to do that. Indications that something is wrong with the registry appear when you start getting unexplained errors or crashes, sudden restarts, system or drive does not work, programs begin and end without selection, strange downloads, computer "runs" endlessly without reason, etc. Should this happen to your machine then you need to get a registry cleaner to scan and fix the problem or problems.

There are host of registry cleaners available. Just do a search with the word and you will be shown numerous available tools. Some of these tools are free while others come for a fee. Let us see the pros and cons of using a paid and a free tool.

Most of the registry cleaner tools that are free will do a scan for you and also identify the potential problems. But when you ask it to clean the registry then it may ask you for a fee. This can get pretty irritating. There are registry cleaner tools that are absolutely free and do both the scan and the cleanup without asking for a dollar. Unfortunately all of these tools are not above board. Some of these tools are known to install programs on your machine which can give you a headache in future. Once they get access to your registry then your machine is compromised. People also complain that some of the free tools are erratic as they return an inaccurate number of errors each time you run it.

To my mind registry is a critical organ and one should not take a risk with it. You are better off getting a paid registry cleaner for doing the job. In an effort to save some dollars you may end up spending few hundreds. You are better off going for paid registry cleaner. There are several such tools available in the market which are not very expensive and will do the job for you.

Working with a machine whose registry is messed is no good and you have to fix it as early as possible. I strongly recommend using a paid tool as it will prove to be economical in the long run.

Learn more about this author, Saurabh Pal.
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