How to Backup and Clean Windows Registry?

Windows Registry is a database or repository for a big volume of data about your computer. It stores information about the DLLs that are shared among applications in the PC, listings in menu shortcuts, application settings, driver information and Windows settings. Basically it records any action you perform in the Windows operating system. The Windows registry therefore consolidates all Windows system settings across all applications in use.

Why Should You Clean Windows Registry?

Apart from providing a repository for all user settings, the registry is read into the Random Access Memory (RAM) during boot time. That’s said, why do we need to clean Windows registry? If you take a sneak peek into the Windows registry, you’ll discover that it gets cluttered over the period of time and usage. This is because Windows registry doesn’t clean up automatically and efficiently. It consistently creates new files but hardly ever removes old entries that are no longer required. Most of the applications when removing from the PC also do not remove all registry files that they created during installation.

The result is a bloated registry that ends up slowing down your system. This creates the need for a registry cleaner application to declutter your registry.

Free Registry Cleaners for Windows 10/11

There are a few free registry cleaners one can use to clean up old entries from your PC’s registry. Among the best free registry cleaners include:

• CCleaner registry cleaner
• Auslogics registry cleaner
• Eusing free registry cleaner
• Jet Clean
• Slim Cleaner

In this article, we’ll take you through how you can clean registry to ensure the system runs smoothly without any errors. But first, let’s see how you can access the system’s registry.

Accessing the Registry Editor

You can access Registry Editor in Windows PC using the following method:

Press “Win + R” shortcut keys to open “Run” dialogue box. Type regedit.exe and hit enter.

A user control window will pop-up requesting for your permission to access the registry editor. Select ‘Yes’ to proceed further.

Finally, you will see the Windows Registry Editor. Be sure to notice the main registry folders or nodes at the left pane as shown.

To reveal more, you can click on the arrow beside the icon which will collapse and reveal more sub folders. You can learn more about registry in this complete guide.

How to Clean Windows Registry Entries?

As mentioned, there are many registry cleaners available in the market for free as well as premium. In this tutorial, we see how you can go about cleaning the registry using Auslogics registry cleaner.

Auslogics Free Registry Cleaner

Auslogics is a certified Microsoft gold application developer. If you have a specific registry key that’s a pain and preventing other applications from functioning as they should, then this is the most ideal registry tool to handle the situation. It gives detailed information for every registry key and provides backup and recovery options. It’s deemed as the best tool one can use to clear or purge invalid registry entries from the PC.

It’s an easy and intuitive registry utility tool to use. You can choose a specific registry key to scan, which is ideal if you are having an issue with a recently installed program. By default, the registry is backed up and can be restored in the event anything goes wrong using the “Rescue Center” option. It’s very detailed and the utility tool can allow you to see which registry keys are going to be deleted before proceeding. It can also display error alerts about a specific registry key. Arguably it’s the best free registry cleaner for Windows 10/11 and other versions of Windows, both 32 bit and 64 bit.

You can go the Auslogics official site and download Auslogics registry cleaner. When launched, you’ll see a window displayed as shown below prompting you to scan your Windows system. Click on ‘Scan Now’ to begin scanning the registry for errors.

The tool will show the progress of the scanning when it runs.

After few minutes, you can see the result showing problems along with the severity of registry error. Select one or all problems and click on “Repair” button to remediate the issues.

Important Note on Using Registry Cleaners

Installation and running of registry cleaners on your PC is not recommended. This is because registry cleaners have the potential of doing more harm than good. Most cleaners are likely to pose a risk to your system and wreaking havoc to your registry keys.

Should you decide to use a registry cleaner, it’s recommended that you first backup your registry keys so that in the event anything goes wrong, you can restore the registry keys. Equally important, is the creation of a system restore point so that the system can be rolled back in the event of a catastrophe.

Backing Up Registry Entries

You can easily download and backup the registry entries from registry editor. To perform the backup process, click on the ‘File’ tab in the registry editor and select ‘Export’.

In the dialogue box that appears, type the preferred name of the registry and choose the location where you want to save the registry backup. Finally click ‘Save’. The registry backup file will be with the extension “.reg” which can be restored through “File > Import” menu in the editor.

Conclusion

First we don’t recommend to play around with registry keys in Windows as many of the tutorial articles suggest you to do so. If you are clearly understood the impact of what you are doing then it’s a good idea to backup the registry before touching the default entries. You can use on of the cleaner tool to scan and remove the errors. Microsoft has disapproved the use of any Registry cleaners and in fact has not released its own version of a registry cleaner. This points to the high likelihood that things could go wrong when registry keys are corrupted at the mercy of registry cleaners.