Help! I have over 1000 registry errors!

"Help, I have over 1,000 registry errors!" said an email I got recently. The person had been running one of those Windows cleanup tools that scan the registry for errors, scan the disk for junk files, and produce long lists of errors. These tools often say that the hundreds or even thousands of errors that are found are slowing down the computer or causing problems and it can be frightening and very worrying for many users to see all these errors on their computer.

The software being used was Auslogics BoostSpeed, and version 5.2 was released just a few weeks ago. I like this program and it contains many useful tools, but using it, and the many other registry and cleanup tools like it, can be alarming to many people. You need to know what these errors are and what they mean.

The registry is basically a database that is used to store configuration settings for Windows and for the software you have installed. Errors can occur in the registry for all sorts of reasons, but many are not serious. In fact, after a clean install of Windows Auslogics BoostSpeed detected 86 problems. How can this be?

Let's take a look at an example of a common registry error. Suppose you install a program, such as a to-do list organiser, and it saves files of the type .tdo like MyTasks.tdo. A registry entry is created that associates .tdo files with the to-do list organiser. This enables you to double click the MyTasks.tdo file in an Explorer window or on the desktop to open it in the application.

Now suppose you decide you don't want the to-do list organiser any more (it may have been a freeware or shareware program you tried). You uninstall it. It's quite common for uninstallers to leave behind registry entries instead of deleting them, so suppose the association between .tdo and the organiser remains.

A registry cleanup tool will examine the association between .tdo and the organiser and realise the organiser no longer exists. It is therefore flagged as a registry error. However, you will never use .tdo files again after uninstalling the organiser and Windows will therefore never have any need to access that registry entry. Although strictly speaking it is an error, it is simply a registry entry that will never be used. This means that it is doing no harm, it is not causing any error messages, and is not slowing the computer down. It's just an unused registry entry and the registry is just a database. It's like a contact in your contact manager that has moved away, but if you never call them anyway, what does it matter?

This is just one type of error, but hopefully it illustrates the point that some types of error are not serious and Windows will run perfectly well with dozens or even hundreds of them. They are just registry entries that are no longer used. If Windows doesn't use them,what does it matter?

This isn't always the case though and some registry errors really are serious. The problem is that many registry cleanup tools do not distinguish between serious and non-serious errors. They just report the number and this can be frightening.

Should the person with 1000+ errors go ahead and let BoostSpeed (or any registry cleanup tool) fix all those problems? There's no way I'd let it or any other a program do this. They are not perfect and on rare occasions they can actually cause problems. This isn't a criticism of BoostSpeed, which I like, but of registry cleaners in general.

You should select a small number of problems and fix them. Make sure the computer is running OK by using it for a couple of days, then you can run the utility again and select a few more errors to fix. It is essential that you create backups each time so that you can undo the changes if a problem arises. Most good registry cleaners do this automatically, but it is worth checking before you use it.

The reason for fixing just a few errors is that it i easier to solve problems. If you fix 1000+ and discover that something went wrong, you don't know which of the 1000+ is the cause. Fixing a small number at a time means you can narrow down a problem to just those few errors that were fixed. You can then investigate further or undo the action without having to undo the lot.

Registry cleaners like BoostSpeed are useful, but just remember that not all registry errors that they find are serious. Fixing some registry errors has little or no effect on the stability or performance of Windows.