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Securing Microsoft Windows NT Installation

As long as the Registry exists, you’re going to have a need for Microsoft registry repair. You may know that the Windows registry is not the best example of coding the world has ever seen.

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In fact, one expert (Bob Rankin) says it is “a hideously complex ball of string, rubber bands, duct tape and bailing wire”.

So why is the registry important?

The registry is a database that Windows uses to keep track of the way in which, and your software, your hardware and your operating system work with one another.

It is absolutely critical to the proper operation of your computer.

However, as you surf the Web, add and remove programs, and generally use your machine over time the registry collects all sorts of rubbish. The registry becomes fat and bloated, orphaned entries multiply and your problems start.

In really bad cases, your computer will die altogether and only a complete reinstall will get it working again.

No one wants that to happen, and many experts suggest you should clean the registry once a month.

So that’s why most of us find that a Microsoft registry repair must be part of a regular maintenance program.

The problem might not be the registry, but if …

The computer takes much longer to start up than before

When it does start it runs slower than before

You keep getting error messages

The system often freezes or crashes

Internet pages open very slowly

You may have a registry problem.

There’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that unless you know what you’re doing, don’t try to fix the problem by hand.
The good news is that a fix can be a relatively simply three-step process.

If you suspect you have a corrupt registry, here’s what you need to do:

Step 1. Make sure the Registry is the problem

Close all open programs.

Defrag of the hard drive.

Use an adware checker and a spyware checker and virus checker, to ensure you don’t have any nasties lurking in your system.

If that does not fix the problem, go to step 2.

Step 2. Make a Windows registry backup.

This might be a quick process – or it could take some time, depending on your operating system.

With the earlier operating systems (Windows 95, Windows 98, ME, Win2000 and Win2003) go the Microsoft site, find the right tutorial, and back up your system.

Of course, with the right registry repair software you back the system up automatically.

If you have WinXP or Vista, you can create a system restore point.

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For WinXP –

Go to Start > Accessories > System Tools> System Restore.

Select “Create a Restore Point”, follow the prompts and create the restore point.

For Vista –

Go to Start > Control Panel > System > System Protection.

Click “Next”, choose the correct hard drive, click the “Create” button and then follow the prompts until you’re done.

If you want an even more protection, you could use the Emergency Recovery Utility NT (ERUNT), a very good free utility you can find on numerous of sites on the Web. Just Google ERUNT.

Regrettably, you can’t use ERUNT for Vista; users have reported problems when running this utility with Vista.

See if your registry cleaner makes a backup of the registry before starting work. If it does, then your registry repair will be a two-step process and you can go on to Step 3.

If like belts and braces, then do both.

Step 3. Repair the registry.

Decision time – do you repair the registry by hand, or use specialized software to do the job?

The registry contains a number of “hives”. The first registry had only one hive, called HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, that stored relatively little data.

Nowadays the registry has more hives that rejoice in such user-friendly names as “HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESAM, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESecurity, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftware, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystem, HKEY_USERSDEFAULT”.

If all this makes sense to you, go ahead and have fun with Regedit.

But if does not, you’d be wise to stay out of those files.

Fire up your registry cleaner and make yourself a cup of your favourite beverage. The program will quickly scan your system, tell you what the problems are, ask if it can fix them, and do so once you tell it to carry on.

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About the Author

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