As the Windows registry increases in size, your OS's performance may be reduced. Third-party registry cleaners may not effectively clean all registries. They perform cleaning tasks based upon a predefined set of rules that may not work in your registry, or even a healthy registry, let alone a bloated or corrupted registry.
However, you can clean your registry manually through the steps below:
Launch the Windows registry editor::
1. Click on the "Start" button, then select "Run...".
2. Type "regedit" inside of the text box.
3. Press "Enter" or click on "Ok".
Backup your existing registry before making changes so that there is no risk.
1. Click on the "File" menu and select "Export".
2. Select "All" in the "Export range" panel.
3. Choose a location for the backup and then enter a name.
4. Click on "Save".
Browse to remove old applications. Remove any application listings which have already been uninstalled.
1. Expand the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" key (looks like a folder) by clicking on the plus (+) sign next to it.
2. Expand the "Software" key.
3. Look for keys that contain either the application's name, or more commonly, the application's developer (company name).
4. Highlight a key for the application.
5. Press "Del" to delete it.
You can search applications by their name, executable name, and/or folder name. Remove any application listings which have already been uninstalled.
1. Press "Ctrl" and "f" to open a find dialog.
2. Enter the text used to search for the application's listings.
3. Click on "Ok" to search. The key or value should be highlighted when found.
4. With the proper key or value highlighted, press "Del" to delete it.
5. Press "F3" to find the next result and repeat.
Remove any unwanted start-up items. To delete these:
1. Expand keys (as done previously) to get to the following location: My Computer\ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ Current Version.
2. Highlight the "Run" key.
3. Look for values inside of the left pane. These will be shortcuts to executable files.
4. Highlight a value to remove. If you're not familiar with these, or are unable to guess which ones correlate to which applications, Google for it or use a process search engine such as Process Library
5. Press "Del" to delete it. To select multiple entires to delete, hold down "Shift" or "Ctrl" while clicking.
6. Repeat this process for the same key path inside of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER location as well. If an application installs for "all users", it will put these startup items inside of the the local machine folder. For current user or single user software installs, they will be put into the current user folder.
