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Computer Protection: Computer Registry

Re-optimizing your computer after the theats have been eliminated


An example of what your computer registry looks like (pardon the spanish!)

All computers running Windows have something called a registry. You can think of your computer registry as a living archive, constantly updating and keeping track of everything. Its knowledge ranges from everything about what you installed, ran and scheduled to all of your user accounts and passwords needed to log on to your machine.

We read something about the computer registry a while ago, and the author used a great analogy that we would like to share with you: if we think of computer infiltration as a game of capture-the-flag, there is no doubt that the computer registry would be the flag. As you may have already guessed, the computer registry is one of the primary places intruders go to learn about your machine and figure out its weaknesses. Not only this, but with the appropriate privileges, intruders can modify your computer registry, which could lead to a variety of things such as removing evidence of their presence on your computer to corrupting programs or even your entire operating system.


So, what can you do to protect your computer registry? Well, that's a difficult question to answer. For starters, it is strongly advised that you do not mess around and alter things in your computer registry unless you know what you are doing. Altering your registry with the assumption that you are fixing your computer could lead to the exact opposite in terms of results. This is the unfortunate thing when it comes to computer registry modification: both manual and automatic methods can cause false-positives, meaning that you could remove essential information while thinking that you are removing entries affiliated with malicious software (malicious software is a broad categorization of viruses, Trojans, worms and other forms of programs that damage your system); consider yourself warned.

With the above in mind, the first thing you should do is the following:

BACKUP YOUR COMPUTER REGISTRY BEFORE YOU DO ANY MODIFICATIONS TO IT!

To backup your registry, do the following:

  • Click Start, then Run...
  • In the new box that opens, type "regedit" (without the quotes) and click OK. If by chance regedit doesn't work, try typing in regedit32 for older versions of Windows.
  • You are now in the registry. Now click File, and then Export...
  • Enter a name and directory where you want to save your registry and click OK.
  • Go to File and Exit to exit out of the registry.

We will not describe how to manually do anything with your computer registry because it is a very sensitive and dangerous thing to mess around with if you do not know what you are doing. The best thing to do is use automated tools that have been specifically designed to modify your registry without damaging it. Make sure to check out our recommended tool for fixing and optimizing your computer registry.  It will take care of everything automatically!