How To Diagnose And Restore Windows Registry
A clean registry is imperative for any computer to perform at its optimum levels. The computer stores all your usage patterns, settings and log files in the registry. Your computer refers to the registry every time you launch applications. It even refers to it every time you start or shut down the computer, hence an efficient registry is very important for good computer performance.
Registry entries accumulate over time and it takes at least a week of normal use for any kind of substantial junk to accumulate. This is the reason computer experts advise scheduling registry fixing routines every week. Once the windows registry is cleaned and compressed, the PC gets back to performing at its best. Not only does it aid in fast performance, it also protects your PC from potential crashes due to direction-less links, corrupt DLLs, error keys etc.
So, how do you diagnose a corrupt registry? Simple! If your computer acts unstable and seems bottle-necked, then there is every chance that your computer is suffering from registry clogging and corruption. Once the diagnosis is made, the next question that arises is how do we solve this? Do you need to constantly call you computer maintenance guy? Absolutely not! Try one of the free scans provided by most professional registry cleaning software, and once you confirm registry corruptions, purchase the license and run the registry program. There are many registry fixing tools available today that are efficient and affordable.
I'll also give you a brief overview of how to restore the registry manually. Please do remember that this process if fraught with danger. The windows registry has a host of flags and keys which link to a plethora of features within the OS. Clearing corrupt registry entries involves removing entries or setting flags on them, one mistake can lead to an un-mountable volume, hence, ideally only experienced computer technicians should meddle with the windows registry. In any case, here is a gist of the manual method of the registry recovery process, and you can also get the detailed process in any windows manual.
Manual method to restore Windows Registry:
The process involves you replacing the existing registry files with the registry files located in system32/Config. This forms a fresh registry log. Remember this is the registry state that was created and stored by default and you can use this to start Windows XP.
- Insert Windows XP startup disk and restart the computer.
- Once the 'Welcome to Setup' screen appears, go to the recovery console by pressing R.
- If you have multiple OS installed, select the appropriate OS from the list.
- Now type in the administrator password and hit ENTER
- The recovery console should pop up. Now type the following command and press enter after each one.
The below given commands copies the current registry to temp, thus creating backup:
copy c:windowssystem32configsystem c:windowstmpsystem.bak
copy c:windowssystem32configsoftware c:windowstmpsoftware.bak
copy c:windowssystem32configsam c:windowstmpsam.bak
copy c:windowssystem32configsecurity c:windowstmpsecurity.bak
copy c:windowssystem32configdefault c:windowstmpdefault.bak
The next few commands deletes the current registry:
delete c:windowssystem32configsystem
delete c:windowssystem32configsoftware
delete c:windowssystem32configsam
delete c:windowssystem32configsecurity
delete c:windowssystem32configdefault
Then we proceed to copy fresh default regustry entries:
copy c:windowsrepairsystem c:windowssystem32configsystem
copy c:windowsrepairsoftware c:windowssystem32configsoftware
copy c:windowsrepairsam c:windowssystem32configsam
copy c:windowsrepairsecurity c:windowssystem32configsecurity
copy c:windowsrepairdefault c:windowssystem32configdefault
This will restore the registry to the state it was in when you first installed the OS. While this is fine to restore the registry, editing the registry manually requires good technical knowledge and must be avoided by as much as possible.
