What Is A Registry?

Before you learn about registry cleaners, you’re going to have to know what exactly a computer registry is. So we will be going over what a registry is now.

The registry is a very integral part to the Windows operating system. In fact, Windows wouldn’t be able to run at all if there wasn’t a registry. The registry is a place where Windows stores certain data and information. It puts it there so it has easy access to it whenever it needs it.

Without getting too technical, the items which are most often stored there include the following:

  • Hardware drivers,
  • System settings,
  • System preferences,
  • System configurations,
  • Information about applications that run at start up,
  • Software shortcuts,
  • Software installation information, etc…

The more you use your computer the more files and data get put into the registry. When you delete software or programs, you probably think once you delete it, it’s gone. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes when you delete files or programs they still have registry information stored in the registry. This data and information is useless. It doesn’t exist on your computer anymore, but it is still occupying valuable space in the registry.

While your registry tries to cope with all of this, eventually it is going to have some adverse effects on the operating system. Your computer may start producing problems that you never encountered before. In the next post, you’ll learn exactly what kind of problems you may experience when things aren’t right with your registry.


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