In today’s newer, larger operating systems, registry corruption is a very real problem. Because of this, the registry should be cleaned periodically. Some think registry cleaning is not a needed operation because in years past a PC’s performance never deteriorated due to registry corruption. However, registry corruption in Windows XP and Vista cause a significant drop-off in performance.
Every command a computer operation carries out must travel through the registry. In the registry, each operation finds pointers that direct it where to go to carry out its command and then return the information it has gathered from that operation.
Registry Corruption Causes Slowdowns
In a very simplified sense, registry corruption is nothing more than pointers that leads to either the wrong place or no place at all. With the older smaller operating systems the amount of time it took to carry out a few false operations was negligible.
In the new, very large operating systems, one false pointer can lead the operating system hunting for a long time before it discovers the hunt will bear no fruit. Multiply this type of useless operation by thousands, maybe even millions and you will have an idea of the effect registry corruption has on your computer’s speed.
So you can see, the overall effect registry corruption has on a computer is that is slows down its operations. Sometimes this slow down will not be too noticeable. However, it is possible for registry corruption to slow the computer to the point it makes it difficult to use the computer at all. Registry corruption also makes a computer prone to errors and even the blue screen of death.
Viruses, Spyware, Registry Corruption May All Look the Same, But…
Registry corruption may make a computer behave in a similar fashion to the way a computer operates when it is infected with spyware or a virus. Like registry corruption, spyware and viruses can also make a computer slow down and be error prone. However, where registry corruption makes the computer preform unnecessary operations, spyware and viruses steal the computer’s resources.
Though your computer has many more resources than just the CPU, opening up your task manager and looking at your CPU history will give you a very good idea how much of your computer’s resources are being used at any one time. Sometimes it is possible the CPU will be at 100 percent usage when the computer is just sitting idly. This could happen because spyware was using all your CPU power to do its misdeeds.
With a lot of your computer’s resources being eaten up by spyware, your computer would be unable to perform such simple tasks as opening up the Web browser. It may eventually get your browser open, but you would notice it would do so abnormally slowly. This is the way a computer would act if it had spyware infecting it or if it had a corrupt registry.
To summarize, spyware and/or viruses will make your computer slow and prone to errors and crashes. However, a corrupted registry will make a computer act in the same way.
It is important, but not enough to keep your PC free of viruses and spyware. On occasion a computer’s registry needs to be scanned for and cleaned of corruption. Doing this will insure your computer will run without producing errors and it will always run at its peak speed.
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