Maximum PC

I am a novice (obviously) and I read a lot about my registry cloging things up and slowing down my PC. Is that true and if so is there a way to clean or whatever to speed things up? I see a lot of "for sale" software programs advertised but I am sure there is a better way. Anyone want to give me 'Registry 101'?

The surest way to clean out your registry is with a fresh install of your OS. It is not, obviously, the easiest way.

Registry 101: when an application is installed on your system, it registers itself. That is, it makes a record of what it is, where it is found and what it does. This may include things such as setting itself up as the default app (eg., for CD burning or web browsing or playing mp3s), additions to the context menu, etc..

When a program is uninstalled, these things are supposed to be removed from the registry. This doesn't always happen. Sometimes, things get left behind in the registry. This is what is called 'registry bloat'.

I recommend CCleaner to get rid of these left-overs.

I will give the CC a shot and see if there is a difference. Thanks for your help and advise. I ran one of those 'free' registry tests and it showed I have a thousand errors that they want to sell me a program to deal with. Will CC do the same thing?

No ... it'll do it properly.

Be careful with registry cleaners.

Sometimes these can cause more harm than good.

You aren't going to see much of an improvement if you haven't had the operating system installed for several years, installed many programs, etc. So I wouldn't expect a drastic improvement.

CCleaner shows only "safe" entries that won't bork your system.

Other more advanced/detailed/etc... will also show "Unsafe" and "Unknown" entries. These have a chance to bork your system if you just clean the callously.

They really aren't for speed increase but for leftover entries made by programs. For example, a leftover file archive left its commands in your right-click menu. This would fix that.