What do you need to do if your Windows machine is running unusually slowly or is having an unusual number of errors? After checking for and removing any malware (adware, spyware, viruses, or similar), you need to make sure your registry is clean. To do this, you should use Windows registry cleaner software.

What is the Windows registry? It is an internal database of information the Windows operating system, and many programs running under it, use to keep track of program locations, other file and directory locations, and various (other) settings (like those set via the Control Panel). This registry is changed on a wide variety of occasions -- when you install or remove software, when your computer is infected by malware or you remove malware, and at many other times.

Unfortunately, the Windows registry often does not get changed correctly. Old entries are left in place, slowing down your computer when it searches for valid entries (or even resulting in crashes by confusing the computer programs looking for information). Entries that should be present have incorrect information, like locations for programs (or files needed by programs) that are incorrect. How may this information be incorrect? The programs or files may be someplace else. The files may be corrupt. Or the files may be missing altogether.

Registry cleaner software gives you a clean registry by locating and fixing problems like these. Yes, someone could go through and manually fix the registry, but this requires much more expertise. Even someone with that expertise may want to use registry cleaner software, given the sheer number of errors that may be present. Manual checks may therefore take forever (costing you more money if you have hired the person), may miss some errors, and may (given the tedium involved) result in mistakes (worsening matters) that are hard to trace back and fix (because they are not the usual sort of registry problems, for instance, or because of all the other changes taking place at the same time).

Good Windows registry cleaner software will give you a choice of what it should do to fix the bad entry when the problem is more complicated than a simple blank entry needing deleting. It can also help you know more about a problem and what is needed to fix it even if it cannot fix a problem itself because a file is missing and cannot be found.