You may have been hearing a lot about "Registry Cleaners" lately. It seems like wherever you go on the internet these days, you see an ad to scan your PC's registry.

But who are the companies that make these registry cleaners, how long have they been around, and why do so many of these tools report very different results?

It seems as if there is a competition on who can report the highest number of so-called "problems". It may leave you wondering whether these are actually errors or something being falsely exaggerated to make a fear-based buck. Even more concerning, you may wonder what this so-called "registry" is, and whether it should be meddled with at all by these suspiciously confident programs. It's almost as if they've become the virtual hair tonic and snake oil of the internet age.

THE WINDOWS REGISTRY: YOUR PC'S NERVE CENTER

One thing is true: the registry is critical to the health of a PC. It holds key information about every program on your system, every file you've opened, and every camera or USB device you've ever plugged in.

As you install and uninstall software, add new printers and hardware, and perform other normal activities on your PC, the registry holds all this information. Over time, many of these settings become inaccurate and start causing the system to get slow and confused, often resulting in mysterious crashes and software errors.

Performance suffers because every time you start your computer or launch a program, Windows has to load, process and respond to each bad registry entry. Additionally, due to its design, the registry is always expanding as it accepts each new bit of data about your PC. As it expands it becomes bloated and fragmented it eats up more and more memory, which robs your system of vital resources and causes additional performance slowdowns.

CLEANING IS ONLY ONE THIRD OF THE JOB

Is cleaning your registry the solution? Well, it's a start. The problem is that with most simple registry cleaners, cleaning (if done safely) is exactly what you get, and nothing else. The registry can still be left with severe bloat and chronic fragmentation, which translates into the potential for ongoing performance bottlenecks, reducing operating speeds to a snail's pace over time.

THE RECOMMENDED SOLUTION

How do you get rid of registry bloat and fragmentation? First and foremost, it is paramount that the product you choose comes from a reputable company, preferably one that's been around for at least 5-10 (in other words, they've already worked the bugs out). Look for software that's been recognized by trusted reviewers such as magazines and websites that specialize in software evaluation. Finally, search for a registry optimization product that provides a true complete solution, including cleaning and fixing, as well as bloat removal (compacting) and defragmentation. These last two operations are missed by most ordinary registry cleaners and will really make a significant difference in immediate performance gains as well as long-term maintenance.