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Where is the Windows 7 registry located and how to clean it. Fixing slow PC loading. We remove everything unnecessary

Everyone remembers very well how fast the computer worked immediately after installing the OS: instant boot, easy installation any programs, high FPS (frame per second - frame rate). But even with the most careful use, his efficiency decreased, strange errors, spontaneous crashes to the desktop and random reboots. What to do? You can reinstall Windows 7 again, but if you don’t have a few “extra” days, it’s worth trying less expensive methods. Cleaning the registry of accumulated garbage is one of them. In many cases, this procedure takes a few minutes, allowing you to return the computer to its previous operating speed and significantly delay re-installation OS. In what cases does such work make sense? The list is quite extensive, but the most obvious reasons are not complete removal previously installed software, optimization of automatically launched programs and cleaning system registry. Let's look at all three cases, and to solve the first two problems there are no additional programs we don’t need it, since everything we need is built into the OS. We will also try to understand how the corresponding specialized utilities work, for which we will install the program on the computer Reg Organizer.

Manual cleaning (uninstalling programs)

Complete and comprehensive uninstallation standard means Windows cannot do this, so you will have to take on some of the work yourself. For example, let’s look at how you can manually completely remove Internet browser Firefox, if for one reason or another standard utility it works incorrectly.

  1. Let's launch standard editor registry To do this, press the +[R] key combination on the keyboard and enter the line regedit in the window that appears.

  2. Select the “Edit” menu item, “Find...” item.
  3. The general rule for completely removing the remnants of installed software is to search the registry both by the name of the program itself and by the manufacturer. Therefore, you will need to enter two words one by one into the search bar: “Mozilla” and “Firefox” and click the “Find Next” button. Important Note: We first work with one search query, and only when the procedure is completed do we move on to another.

  4. Next you will have to be patient, since there can be quite a lot of “tails” left behind. The search results are presented in the form of a list containing a list of registry branches (left window) and their values ​​(right window). Each occurrence found should be treated as carefully as possible. If you are sure that the parameter value is no longer needed and the cursor selects a line in the right window, press “Del” on the keyboard. In the case when the entire branch turns out to be “superfluous”, press the “Tab” button on the keyboard (not an individual value, but a node element in the left window will become highlighted), and then press the “Del” button.



  5. After this, either sequentially select the “Edit” / “Find Next” items in the menu, or press the F3 button on the keyboard and return to item 4.
  6. When the message “Search in the registry is completed” appears on the screen, you can move on to the next word (in our case, “Mozilla”).

Manual cleaning (autoload cleaning)

It is no secret that many programs like to automatically launch without any permission when the PC starts, which reduces the speed of its operation and significantly slows down the initial startup. This can be dealt with on our own, because all that is required is to delete the corresponding entries from the system registry.

The only difficulty is that programs can be launched from several places (registry keys) when the PC starts:

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

Therefore, we will have to look at each registry node and make the necessary corrections.

  1. Let's launch standard remedy working with the registry (for details, see paragraph 1 of the previous section).
  2. We open each registry node in turn, for which we either double-click the left mouse button on the name, or once on the small triangle at the beginning.

  3. When everything is ready, in the right window you will see a list of programs launched from this registry branch. To delete unnecessary ones, you need to highlight the corresponding lines and press the “Del” button on the keyboard. If a security warning appears, click Yes.
  4. After this, repeat the procedure (points 2 and 3) for each element of the list above.

Video instructions for cleaning the registry in Windows 7

Semi-automatic cleaning (Reg Organizer)

Despite the effectiveness of the proposed procedures, they cannot be called simple, since the user will have to spend quite a lot of time on them. Therefore, for these purposes, it is better to install a special utility that automates most routine and tedious operations.

  • Current version: 7.15
  • Internet page: http://www.chemtable.com/ru/organizer.htm
  • Russian interface: yes
  • Cost: $39.95

To perform a group search and replace keys, we will need the “Registry Editor” tool, which can be found in the “For Specialists” utility block.

  1. Enter search query in the appropriate field. In our example, these will be the words “Mozilla” and “Firefox” (a line with a magnifying glass icon and the inscription “Search: throughout the registry”).
  2. Click screen button“Start Searching” and be patient: this may take some time.
  3. Look through the found entries at the bottom of the program window and mark those that you no longer need, and if you trust the program, click the “Mark all” button.
  4. When everything is ready, click the “Delete Entries” button. If the program asks you to confirm your intentions (“Delete selected entries from the registry?”), click “Yes.”

Automatic cleaning (Reg Organizer)

If you have the knowledge necessary for success system administrator, manual analysis of registry entries will allow you to solve any problem associated with an incorrect operating system or application programs. What should those who consider themselves humanists and have no desire to sit down to study do? Windows basics? In this case, you will have to trust the automation and use special utilities intended for these purposes.

  1. Let's launch the utility.
  2. In the “Functions for everyone” section, select “Registry Cleaner” and in the window that appears, click the “Start” button.
  3. When the procedure is completed, you can either view the list of errors found by clicking on the line “Show incorrect entries (for experienced users)”, or trust the utility by selecting “Fix”. Since we are now discussing exactly automatic cleaning, we would advise choosing the second option.

The system registry is a special database that is designed to store various information about the characteristics of the computer, program parameters, as well as settings of any operating system. The registry contains data that Windows 7 and installed programs computers are accessed during their operation dozens of times per second during system operation or during boot time. Therefore, a fragmented registry, full of unnecessary sections or entries, can cause a very serious decrease in the performance of the entire computer. Most often, unnecessary entries remain in the registry after uninstalling or installing various programs. These can be either links to non-existent shortcuts or parameters of already deleted programs.

Timely cleaning of the Windows 7 registry will avoid the accumulation of outdated entries, which in turn will speed up the operation of the entire operating system and prevent failures and errors. Despite the regular need to clean the Windows 7 registry, many users do not know how to do it. There are two ways to clear your computer's registry: using a program or manually. Each of these methods is described in more detail below.

Software method for cleaning the registry

As the name of the method suggests, cleaning should be carried out using a specialized software. To do this, we will use the Windows 7 registry cleaning program – CCleaner. After installing the program, if you do not already have it installed, you should open it. After this, you will need to do a number of simple actions, after which the program will perform automatic search unused registry settings and prompts you to fix them. So:


The Windows Registry is a database that contains all the information about your computer and the software installed on the computer. The main task of the Windows registry is to save the configuration various programs installed on the computer, installed software or equipment connected to the computer, and all other parameters entered by the user. In order to configure or change a computer database, you need to have enough knowledge.

It is important to remember that any intervention in the registry is associated with great risk, and if incorrectly edited, it can harm the operation of the system. Therefore, before making changes to the computer database, you must create a backup copy.

Over time with frequent installation and uninstalling software, many unnecessary entries accumulate in the registry, including remnants remote programs, erroneous connections, which point to folders and files that no longer exist, and the like.

After cleaning with an antivirus, traces of the virus remain in the registry, in particular, its launch file, the entry for which should be deleted.

Cleaning is also necessary when you used the trial version of the program, free period which has already been exhausted, then for reinstallation And further use you need to remove its “traces”.

Methods for cleaning the system registry

Cleaning the Windows 7 registry is done in two main ways using:

  • Windows Registry Editor manually;
  • special software.

Manual cleaning should be done more than knowledgeable user who understands this. After all, it happens that when you delete current record from system base, the program will not work properly.

Windows Registry Editor

The first thing you need to do before cleaning manually is to create a backup copy.

In Windows 7, click the Start button and type in the search bar regedit command. As a result of the search, an entry will appear, which you should click on to get to the main editor window.

Then in the “File” menu, click on “Export”. The copy will be saved with the reg extension. Here you can save the registry in its entirety or separately in sections.

To clean up traces of a deleted program, in the “Edit” section, select “Find” and enter its name. If you find an entry with the name of the program, click right click Click "Delete" from the pop-up menu. Next, use the F3 key to search to view the entire registry and delete unnecessary entries.

The best cleaning programs

More in a convenient way cleaning is to use programs designed for this. The best ones are CCleaner, Registry Mechanic, TweakNow Regcleaner and Registry Healer, which can be downloaded from the official website for free.

You can also use the Privazer utility, which is also free. It not only cleans the registry, but also frees RAM and hard drive space from unnecessary files.

All of these programs work on the same principle - they scan the registry and remove errors, including references and entries to missing files. As a result of scanning, the program will display a list of entries that can be safely deleted. Some programs, such as Registry Mechanic, automatically create backups not only the entries being deleted, but also the registry as a whole. Thanks to them you can easily restore previous state, if suddenly something does not go as expected.

Interested in cleaning the Windows 7 registry? Then you've come to the right place.

Windows Registry - hierarchical base data, for most MS Windows operating systems, containing parameters and settings for hardware and software, presets and user profiles.

The creation of the registry in Windows was intended to organize information that at that time was stored in many INI files, as well as to provide a unified mechanism for reading and writing settings.

The creation of the registry made it possible to get rid of the problems of short names, lack of access rights and slow access to INI files stored in the FAT 16 file system, which has performance problems when searching for files in directories with their big amount.

All the problems that MS Windows developers solved using the registry disappeared with the release of the NTFS file system, but the registry remained in all subsequent versions of this OS.

On this moment there are no real prerequisites for use similar mechanism and the only system that uses the registry is MS Windows (and its free software clone, ReactOS).

The register is formed from various data. During installation and subsequent Windows setup files are generated in which information about the system configuration is stored.

During the process of loading the operating system, as well as logging in and out of its users, a certain abstract, virtual entity called the “registry” is formed.

Thus, one part is static and stored in files, and the other is dynamic and formed in the process.

Disadvantages of the MS Windows Registry

The method of storing operating system settings using the registry has a number of significant disadvantages. Below we list the most significant ones.

    Relatively low fault tolerance. One wrong byte in the hive file (a registry branch similar in nature to the root directory in file systems) when you try to load it, it crashes the OS.
    This problem V modern versions MS Windows is solved by using two-level logging, and in case a situation arises where the registry cannot be repaired, the system can reinitialize damaged registry entries during boot.

    Selectivity when saving system settings to the registry – means that not all system settings are entered into the registry. Because of this approach, transferring system settings by copying its registry is impossible.

    During the operation of the operating system, the registry undergoes fragmentation, which leads to a gradual slowdown in access speed.

    In addition to settings, the registry also stores other system and application information, which leads to a gradual increase in the size of the registry. This problem can be partially solved with the help, which we will talk about in the next part of our article. By the way, in our material you can read about the five best free programs to fix Windows 7 errors

Cleaning the MS Windows 7 registry manually

    Let's move on to directly deleting information about programs , which have been removed. To do this, go to the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER” section (which is located on the left side of the registry editor window), open the “Software” subsection and look for the name of the software developer company or directly the name of the program that was deleted.

    To delete, select the entry by clicking on it and pressing the “Del” key on the keyboard.

    You can also search for a program automatically using the search function. To do this, press the key combination Ctrl + F and in the window that opens, enter the name of the program and click “OK”, after which all found entries will be selected.
    If the found highlighted record is correct, i.e. belongs to a remote program, press the Del key on the keyboard and press F 3 to go to the next entry.

After deleting unnecessary entries, close the registry editor.

Cleaning the MS Windows 7 registry using programs

Software registry cleaner is intended for beginners, as well as users who want to save their time. manual cleaning, as it became clear in the previous section, is a rather painstaking task.

Let's consider the 3 most popular programs to optimize and clean the system.

Reg Organizer


This program has good functionality and, in addition to actually editing the registry, allows you to search and replace its entries, completely remove installed software, create and compare snapshots of registry keys, as well as manually and automatically clean it.

Additional features The programs include the function of fine-tuning the OS, editing configuration files and the ability to clean disks from system garbage.

Note! The free version of the program only looks for registry errors; to fix them, you need to purchase it; the license price is $10.

Advantages:

Multifunctionality.

Russian-language interface.

Ability to work at 64 bit systems.

Flaws:

Paid.

CCleaner

This utility is no less multifunctional and registry cleaning is here as one of the many options of the application, but unlike Reg Organizer it is free for non-commercial use.

Functionality free version not cut down, and the only difference is the lack of priority technical support.

The program is very popular; at the end of 2012, more than 1 million downloads were made from the official website of the program.

Published every month a new version program, and you can find out about updates by clicking on the “Check for Updates” link in the lower right corner of the program.

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From time to time, every PC user using Windows OS may encounter a situation when the system begins to crash, freeze, and create other problems. Of course, in this case it seems that the most the best option is to reinstall it.

However, there is another solution this issue– you can clean the OS registry. Let me make a reservation right away: cleaning the registry can be done in two ways, using programs such as CCleaner or Advanced System Care, and manually.

The latter method requires certain skills and knowledge. In addition, it is used quite rarely, but sometimes this option can help with their solution. This article will discuss exactly how to clean the registry on Windows 7 manually, on your own.

Before you start cleaning the registry, it's worth making a copy of the files that you don't want to lose. After all, there is always a possibility that something could go wrong. Only after this manipulation can you start cleaning the registry.

The next step is to find the registry itself. To get into it, you need to open a system window to perform a search by simultaneously holding down the “Win ​​+ R” keys.

In the window that appears you need to type with Latin letters the word “regedit”, just without quotes and click on the “OK” button.

The “Registry Editor” will appear in front of you. It is in this system window and will go through all the operations necessary to clean the registry.

I’ll warn you right away, in the “Registry Editor” everything will be written in English language, but it's not scary. A copy of the data in this system window is performed as follows:

  1. First you need to click on the file. It is in the upper left corner.
  2. Select "Export".
  3. Next, select “Entire registry” and save the data. This will be useful in case something goes wrong and you need to restore the registry.

Then you can place the created copy on your PC desktop and load them onto a flash drive or disk. I would like to warn you that the folders will have names written in Latin. I think it’s worth clarifying right away that individual folder elements will be displayed on the right, and folders on the left.

Cleaning the registry

After entering the registry and saving all the required data, you should start by uninstalling programs that have the status of “deleted programs”. This is a rather complicated procedure, since you will need to remember everything that was installed on the PC.

To start cleaning “deleted programs”, you need to click on the folder called “HKEY_CURRENT_USER”. From the list that opens, select the “Software” line.

I must reveal myself to you big list all programs that have ever been installed on a PC. From the list you need to select all folders to be deleted and press the “Delete” button to do this.

This is how it is removed from the list of “deleted programs”.

You can also search for programs that need to be removed from the registry by their name. Press the keys on the keyboard “Ctrl+F” at the same time. In the window that appears, enter the name of the application and delete it.

The final stage

On final stage, it’s worth looking into the OS startup list. To do this, you will need to open a folder called “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”. From the list you need to select the “SOFTWARE” folder.

After that, find and open the lines “Microsoft”, “Windows”, “CurrentVersion” one after another. Next, go to the “Run” folder and delete all files.

After that, go to the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER” folder and select “Software”.

In it, you also open the folders “Microsoft”, “Windows”, “CurrentVersion” one after another and, having reached “Run”, again delete all files from it.

After carrying out all the manipulations, you need to restart the PC. Thus, there will be more space on the hard drive, which is also an important point for normal operation computer.

How to clean the registry on Windows 7 manually, summary

As you can see, if you are interested in the question of how to clean the registry on Windows 7 manually, then it is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance, it just takes a large number of time.

When working with the registry, you need to be careful and delete only those files that you really consider unnecessary. You can also use for these purposes special programs, which can help significantly save time or, if necessary, seek help from specialists.