registry clean-up, need advice!

helpmeplease

Is it risky for me to run a registry clean-up program on my PC? I don't know anything about computers (in a technical sense). Is there a danger I could ruin my PC?
At the minute, it is running incredibly slow. I have an external hard drive (1tb) and I regularly run disk clean-ups and anti-virus programs. Should I run a registry clean-up? I heard that there are programs designed for the average computer user but I don't want to rick making a bigger mess.
Can anyone give me some advice? Would be much appreciated.

Shane St.

Just make sure you have a back up. Most registry cleaners on the market have a back up feature enabled. There are few risks. Run it

phelixoflaherty

http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Check if you have unused programes running in the backround too.

Darkphenom

I had problems like that with a computer before but the trick was a memory upgrade. Tell us your o.s. and how much memory you have.

onq

helpmeplease wrote: »

Is it risky for me to run a registry clean-up program on my PC? I don't know anything about computers (in a technical sense). Is there a danger I could ruin my PC?
At the minute, it is running incredibly slow. I have an external hard drive (1tb) and I regularly run disk clean-ups and anti-virus programs. Should I run a registry clean-up? I heard that there are programs designed for the average computer user but I don't want to rick making a bigger mess.
Can anyone give me some advice? Would be much appreciated.

Cleaning out your registry may help, but slow running can often be traced to unregulated activity on your PC. Virus checkers are notorious for hogging CPU cycles and memory. Bring up your task manager. On a Windows XP system right-clicking on the taskbar [bottom of the screen] will bring up a context sensitive menu: 'Task Manager' should be just above 'Lock the Taskbar' and 'Properties'. Click on it. Go to 'View'->'Select Columns...' and make sure 'Mem Usage' and 'Peak Mem Usage' are ticked. Click on these tabs to arrange the 'Image Names' in order of increased memory usage. I can almost guarantee your anti-virus solution will be top of the tree when your PC is running slow. 'x' out of it. Try scheduling it to run over night. If its ZoneALarm - goo luck with that!

ONQ.

silversurfer

Registry cleaners do involve some bit of risk, but most available these days have never caused me any problems on the loads of PC's I've fixed. I usually use Regvac.

Some things to be done to cleanup and speed up your PC

1. do disk cleanup, use CCleaner - free program
2. scan pc for malware - Malwarebytes - free program
3. Use something like regvac to clean up your registry and do an optimise if available
4. Defrag the hard drive or drives, use defraggler - free program.
5. check your startup programs, the programs that load at startup, use Startup Inspector - free as far as I know. with this you can turn off the extra programs that load at startup and if you don't know what some are, google for more info.

If you have less than 500Mb of ram, it might be an idea to invest in more ram, for laptop or desktop. I've noticed lots of people complaining of slow PC's and a bit more ram usually sorts this out
If you use Belarc Advisor - another free program, this will tell you what's in your computer and if you google your motherboard or use one of the RAM suppliers on line check against your motherboard to find out what ram you'll need (Personally I'd try Crucial, as they've never let me down)

marco_polo

silversurfer wrote: »

Registry cleaners do involve some bit of risk, but most available these days have never caused me any problems on the loads of PC's I've fixed. I usually use Regvac.

Some things to be done to cleanup and speed up your PC

1. do disk cleanup, use CCleaner - free program
2. scan pc for malware - Malwarebytes - free program
3. Use something like regvac to clean up your registry and do an optimise if available
4. Defrag the hard drive or drives, use defraggler - free program.
5. check your startup programs, the programs that load at startup, use Startup Inspector - free as far as I know. with this you can turn off the extra programs that load at startup and if you don't know what some are, google for more info.

If you have less than 500Mb of ram, it might be an idea to invest in more ram, for laptop or desktop. I've noticed lots of people complaining of slow PC's and a bit more ram usually sorts this out
If you use Belarc Advisor - another free program, this will tell you what's in your computer and if you google your motherboard or use one of the RAM suppliers on line check against your motherboard to find out what ram you'll need (Personally I'd try Crucial, as they've never let me down)

Actually CCCleaner now has a Startup program manager and registry cleaner so it is a good 3 in 1 deal, if the OP doesn't want to install alot of different programs.