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Today we will look at the TOP 5 best programs to clean the registry on Windows 7 and 10. See which one suits you best (liked it) and go ahead and use it;)

Manually cleaning the registry is an operation that requires great care and competence in the operation of Windows. Therefore, even experienced users are recommended to use special programs to remove unnecessary entries.

But when searching the Internet for registry cleaning utilities, you may come across meaningless and even dangerous applications. Below you will find 5 programs that clean the registry and do not harm your computer. The presented programs work on all current versions of Windows, from “seven” to “ten”.

Wise Registry Cleaner

Utility Wise Registry Cleaner deals only with cleaning and optimizing the registry, without being distracted by other functions. Offers three scanning and cleaning modes.

After scanning, a report appears indicating the number and type of errors. You can fix them by clicking the “Fix” button.

In addition to cleaning the registry, the program offers to defragment it. The advisability of this procedure is questionable, since sometimes after compressing the registry, problems arise in the operation of the system. Therefore, it is better to limit yourself to only deleting unnecessary records. For convenience, you can set up regular computer cleaning.

Along with Wise Registry Cleaner, the SpyHunter utility is installed on your computer. This is a useful program that helps find and remove adware applications, but using an installation that is invisible to the user does not do its developers any credit.

Auslogics Registry Cleaner

The Auslogics Registry Cleaner utility has a simple interface. When launched, a diagnostic page immediately appears where you can specify scanning parameters. The registry analysis is started with the “Scan” button. By clicking on the checkbox, you can select the “Scan and Fix” mode.

If you only ran a scan, the program will display the detected errors and their severity upon completion of the analysis. To clean the registry, click "Fix".

The program automatically creates a backup archive. If, after cleaning the registry, errors appear in the system, you can go to Rescue Center (File menu), select the latest archive by creation date and click Restore.

The only drawback of this program is the intrusive advertising of another utility, Auslogics BoostSpeed. The offer to download an application to optimize the system pops up after completing each action.

CCleaner

CCleaner is a universal system optimization program that offers deleting temporary files, cleaning the registry, uninstalling programs, configuring autorun and performing other operations.

1. Launch CCleaner. Go to the Registry tab.
2. Click "Scan for Problems" and wait for the scan to complete.
3. Click Fix to fix any problems found.

The program is distributed free of charge. When you make changes, CCleaner prompts you to make a backup copy. At first, it is better to agree to this proposal in order to be able to quickly roll back changes if Windows work errors will appear.

SlimCleaner

SlimCleaner, like CCleaner, allows you to remove unnecessary files, optimize startup and, of course, erase unnecessary or erroneous entries in the registry. By default, the components that will be scanned are marked in the main utility window. If you want to clean only the registry, uncheck all the checkboxes, leaving only the checkboxes on the “Registry” tab. To start scanning, click “Analyze”.

After the scan is complete, click “Clean” to fix detected errors and clear the registry of unnecessary entries.

The registry is a large database that stores all the parameters necessary for normal operation operating system. You can view it through the registry editor, which is available in Windows. Any user can log in if their account has administrator rights.

And if you made any changes, or the computer turned off by itself, for various reasons, or you accidentally pressed the wrong key and deleted a parameter or an entire registry branch, then this may not have the best effect on the operation of the computer.

And yet, if this happened, let's figure out what ways to recover Windows registry 7 and Windows 8, for normal computer operation.

Using a backup

As you probably guessed, this method is not suitable for everyone. If you previously created backup copies of the registry through “File” - “Export” - read on, if not - move on to the next method.

So, you have a backup copy. Press the combination Win + R, the “Run” window will open. In the “Open” field we write regedit and click “OK”.

The Registry Editor window should appear. In it, go to the “File” tab and select “Import” from the menu.

Explorer will open, find the previously created backup in it and click “Open”.

Wait while the files are copied.

Using System Restore

System recovery can be done using restore checkpoints. You could create them earlier, when the system was stable and you were satisfied with everything. Or they could be created automatically by the system: when making changes to the computer configuration, before installing drivers, etc.

Let's first consider how to restore the registry if the operating system boots. In Windows 7, go to Start - "Control Panel".

Here we are interested in the point "Recovery".

In the next window, click "Run System Restore".

Now you need to select a restore point. If there are several points, and you are in doubt, look at the date the point was created - did your computer work normally on these dates?! - choose her. Clicking "Search for affected programs", you can see which programs will be removed as a result of recovery. Click "Next".

We confirm the system rollback to the selected state by clicking “Finish”.

All data, including the registry, will correspond to the state that was at the time the selected recovery point was created.

If you have Windows 8 installed on your computer, read the article: Windows 8 restore point and system rollback. There you will be interested in the second part. The steps you will need to perform are the same as those described above.

If the OS does not start

Restore the registry if the computer does not turn on It's also possible. In the Windows 7 operating system, when booting the computer, press the F8 button at intervals of 1 second. A window will appear "More download options". In it, use the arrows to select the item "Troubleshooting your computer".

In the next window, select your language and click Next.

Select your account, it is better if it has administrator rights, then enter the password if you have one set when logging in, and click OK.

The following window should appear, select the item in it "System Restore".

A recovery window will open, click “Next” in it and repeat the steps described in the paragraph above.

If you have Windows 8 installed on your computer, you can press F8 or Shift+F8 when loading, but you are unlikely to see a window for additional download options. It is best to use a system repair disk or bootable USB flash drive. You can create them on any other computer with Windows 8 installed.

Follow the link and read the article on how to restore Windows 8. Everything is described there in detail. You should see the following window. Then follow the path: “Diagnostics” – "System Restore", and select the desired restore point.

Via command line

In Windows, the files that are responsible for the operation of the registry are stored in the following path: C: (your system drive letter)/Windows/System32/config. There is also a folder RegBack, it stores backup copies of all registry branches. They are updated automatically by the system, depending on the settings, every 5-10 days.

We need to do the following: delete the files DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE, which are located in the config folder, and replace them with similar files from the RegBack folder.

We will not be able to do this in the operating system, since we will need to replace the files responsible for its operation. Therefore you need to use additional parameters download and open command line.

In Windows 7, press F8 when the system boots. Then you need to do everything as described in the paragraph above. In the window "System Recovery Options", select item "Command line". As a result, the command line will launch as administrator.

In Windows 8, you can open the command line using the combination. This is described in detail in the article: Windows 8 Safe Mode. Read the point: enter safe mode using the Shift+reboot combination. When the following window appears, select "Command line".

If the computer does not turn on at all due to changes in the registry, then read the paragraph: enter safe mode using a system repair disk (you can create it on any computer with installed Windows 8).

So, we launched the command line. Now enter the following commands line by line. At the end of each line, press Enter. First, let's create a badreg folder on the system drive and copy all the files of our non-working registry into it. Then we safely delete the files DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE from the config folder, because we have copies of them. And lastly, copy the backups from the regback folder to the config folder.

MD c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\badreg

delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software

copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\default c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\sam c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\system c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\security c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\software c:\windows\system32\config\
exit

After you enter the exit command, the command prompt window will close and the computer will restart.

I hope one of the methods will help you restore the registry in the Windows 7 or 8 operating system.

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Discussion: 14 comments

1. I enter the commands in the line as shown, for some reason it says: “the system was unable to find this path,” what should I do?

   Answer

   1. Most likely, your DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE folders are located in a different path, but not c:\windows\system32\config.

      Answer

As we mentioned earlier, in some cases when inconsistencies are detected in the registry, for example, incorrect data was recorded, the system will attempt to self-heal during the boot process.

Poorly written though software or the driver does not actually pollute the registry, they, with their chaotic areas, which, when available, create system problems, lead the registry to an unstable state. To help keep the registry in a reliable state, Windows provides several useful tools, including System File Checker, Chkdsk, System Restore, and Driver Rollback. You can also use third-party utilities to repair, clean and defragment the registry.

System File Checker (SFC), a fairly old tool that is still used on modern operating systems, uses an administrative command line to operate. SCF checks the integrity of every existing one within the installation Windows system file including Internet Explorer.

A damaged Windows system file leads to system instability and security vulnerabilities, as well as suboptimal performance during normal operation.

To call SFC, follow these steps:

• Insert DVD from Windows installation(but don't run it).
• Open an administrative command prompt.
• Type sfc /scannow and press Enter.

SFC comes with all versions of Windows, but if you are trying to run SFC on a system updated with one or more service packs, you will have to prepare a DVD (or ISO image) with the installation Windows files, which include service patches. This is necessary so that SFC checks and uses SP versions of system files to replace damaged ones.

Attention. The SFC check takes a long time. SFC, to ensure the integrity and restore the found damaged system file, checks each file in the system.

SFC is not intended for regular troubleshooting use, only consider it when you encounter system instability issues.

Another well-known tool is Check Disk (ChkDsk and Chkntfs), which scans computer hard drives for errors and fixes them. The tool requires administrator credentials to run because it runs on low-level hardware and must have special disk access if installation issues occur.

To run ChkDsk, open an administrative command prompt, type the following command and press Enter.

Running the ChkDsk program on the system drive will schedule the task the next time the system is rebooted.

Any HDD, which stops reading or writing data correctly will most likely lead to corruption of files on the system. Typically, if the system detects corrupted data files, it will result in some data loss and ultimately require the user to restore their files from a backup or file history. You should be interested in saving your registry files carefully, as this will cause your system to hang or, worse, crash.

Whenever Windows tries and fails to read data from a corrupted system file, page file, or registry, Windows displays an error message commonly known as blue screen of death. If this happens, you should immediately determine whether this is an isolated incident or whether the blue screen is an early sign of a likely disk failure, which will lead to rapid spread of file corruption and Windows instability. A media failure may seem catastrophic, and it is, but typically it will display the above errors for a while, which is a typical symptom of failed unusable sectors. Most bad sectors are the result of physical damage such as overvoltage, physical damage or manufacturing defects.

Software tools such as ScanDisk and CHKDSK are offered to the user to attempt data recovery. Typically identified once bad sector, the system marks it as bad and excludes its use for recording data.

In Windows 8.1, Chkdsk runs automatically in the background and actively monitors the health of NTFS volumes.

If the system detects a damaged file, NTFS running Windows OS independently solves most problems without requiring additional special tools, such as a recovery disk.

Attention. Under normal operating conditions, if you are using Windows 8.1, you will not need to run Chkdsk, since the operating system itself monitors the file system for damage and the hard drive for damaged sectors and eliminates problems in the background.

CCleaner

Although we have already talked about the popular CCleaner tool from Piriform, in this article it is worth recalling it again in relation to solving general registry corruption issues.

As previously mentioned, if any software application or device driver, problems with remaining fragments of incomplete or outdated records are inevitable.

CCleaner will perform some or all of the following activities:

• Scan the registry for unwanted/malicious entries
• Remove unwanted/malicious entries to combat registry bloat
• Remove or replace outdated files
• Create registry backups
• Remove incorrect file and program associations
• Restore the registry if any maintenance task fails
• Defragment the registry to remove any free spaces
• Repairing or removing system files such as unused or shared DLL files is no longer found necessary drivers devices and old ActiveX files
• Creates a scan schedule to ensure the registry is scanned and errors are automatically repaired.

Many third-party registry cleaner utilities remove unnecessary bloat and keys that are no longer relevant to the current system, and then defragment the registry files.

Windows Repair (All In One)- free all-in-one recovery tool that allows you to fix a large number of known Windows problems, including registry and file permission errors, as well as problems related to the Internet Explorer web browser, updates Windows Update, Windows Firewall and much more.

Malware and installed applications can change system default settings. Using Tweaking.com - Windows Repair can be restored initial settings Windows OS.

The purpose of the program is to provide a recovery tool that can save users from having to reinstall the Windows system. The tool helps users who are not strong enough in computer technologies, and, of course, to experienced users and specialists in their work.

Key Features of Windows Repair (All In One)

Reset all permissions in the Windows registry
Resetting file permissions
Registering system files for repair possible errors
WMI recovery
Recovery Windows Firewall
Internet Explorer Recovery
MDAC and MS Jet recovery
Recovering the Hosts file
Removing restrictions imposed by malware
Restoring shortcuts
Restoring Winsock and DNS Cache
Recovering important Windows Services
Deleting temporary files
Restoring Proxy settings
Showing hidden non-system files
Recovery Windows updates Updates
Fixing missing CD/DVD and operation problems
and much more

Features of Windows Repair (All In One) Pro version

Automatic program updates.
Advanced Windows Cleanup.
System performance tweaks.
Tweaks for speeding up system shortcuts.
Add your own custom scripts and registry files to run after the restore operation.
Automatically apply system tweaks after recovery is complete.
Lifetime license within the main version. For example, for all versions within v3, and after the release of v4, a discount on the upgrade will be offered.
Access to all pro features, tools and capabilities that will be released in the future.
Change the logo in the main window to your own company logo.
Help in preparing for free recovery.

Using Windows Repair (All In One)

Attention! Read these instructions before use Windows utilities Repair (All In One).

When you first launch the program, you will be presented with a wizard that includes 5 steps that you must complete before performing the recovery operation. It is recommended that you complete these steps before starting recovery from using Windows Repair.

Step 1. Important - Reset the computer system power

Important instructions on how to properly reset the power to completely de-energize your computer system. This allows you to clean up volatile memory and rid the Windows system after startup of possible memory leaks, resource shortages, or other problems that may arise before recovery.

A proper power reset is easy to do. Turn off your computer/laptop and unplug the power cable/remove the battery. After this, press the power button several times - this will completely turn off the power to the equipment. Connect the cable/insert the battery and start the computer/laptop.

Step 2. Clean Your System Of Infections - Cleaning the system from infections

Trying to fix a system that is currently infected is obviously a very bad idea and can only make things worse. Active malware can take control of your computer and prevent some recovery tasks from performing correctly. Since only a portion of the recovery tasks will be completed, other unfinished operations may eventually cause problems. First, make sure the system is clean. Even if you think that your system is not infected, it is recommended to check it using an anti-virus scanner.

Step 3. Check File System - Check file system

You need to check the hard drives on your computer. The function, after rebooting the system, will launch a Windows tool to check the file system on the hard drive and fix any problem found. Damaged files can disrupt many operations, including recovery. Thus, checking the integrity of the file system is a must.

Step 4. System File Check (SFC) - Checking system files

Integrated in Windows tool System File Checker checks Windows OS files for integrity, possible damage, and correct versions. Before you perform a system restore, you must perform an operation to repair system files that are damaged and could interfere with recovery tasks.

Step 5. System Restore & Registry Backup - Create a system restore point and backup the registry

At this point, you can make a system restore point before performing any repair tasks using Windows Repair (All In One). If any unexpected problems occur after completing Windows tasks Repair (All In One), you can return the system to its original state using the created restore point. This step is especially recommended.

Tweaking.com - Registry Backup tool for Reserve copy registry is also included in this program.

Note. Free version Windows Repair (All In One) offers all repair features and is available for both personal and commercial use. The paid Pro version has additional options, settings and tools.

The Windows 7 registry is a specially ordered system database that stores hardware profiles, boot and operation parameters of the OS itself, data about user accounts, information about software, etc. The “seven” registry consists of several sections, which are mainly partly dynamically created from the default, sam, system, security and software files (without extension) stored in the C:WindowsSystem32config folder. The presence and safety of these files ensure the functionality of the registry, without which Windows 7 cannot exist.

The registry is one of the most important “organs” of the operating system, but at the same time it is completely open, that is, any user with administrative rights can make any changes to it. What about the user, every program that is installed on a computer writes and reads data from the registry. But among the programs there are a lot of unwanted (for example, advertising) and downright harmful (viruses and Trojans). They also “do not disdain” to leave their autograph in the system registry, ensuring automatic startup without the user’s knowledge or disrupting the performance of Windows.

Because of this openness, Windows 7 has fairly robust registry protection mechanisms. This:

• creating system restore points (automatically and scheduled), where a copy of the registry is saved;
• creating a backup copy of a disk image with a working registry;
• also, once every 10 days on a schedule, a backup copy of the five main files is created system registry– it is stored in the C:WindowsSystem32configRegBack directory.

Programs for working with the registry and restoring it

Regedit (Windows Registry Editor)

There are a lot of different software to access and edit the Windows registry. Windows 7 also has its own utility for this - Regegit.exe, with which you can copy both the entire registry and individual sections and subsections in order to use them if recovery is necessary.

• To create a backup copy of the entire registry, open the utility by typing the command in the Start search bar regedit and running the found file. To proceed further, your account must have administrator rights.

• Expand the “File” menu and select the “Export” command from it.

• In the Explorer window, in the “Registry range” section, check the “Entire registry” checkbox. The copy file will have the extension .reg - this data format will allow you to restore the registry with one click on this file.

The disadvantage of this method is that recovery is only possible when the system boots normally. The next tool we'll look at can repair the Windows registry when it starts up corrupted.

ERUNT program

The ERUNT utility has slightly greater potential than the previous one. With its help, you can save and restore the registry regardless of whether the system is booting or not. To restore Windows 7 that won't boot, you will need an external emergency boot disk, for example, BartPE or Alkid LiveCD. But you can also use the recovery environment. In these cases, the program must be installed on the hard drive in advance, and a backup copy of the registry must already be created.

Creating a registry backup

• Download, install and upload ERUNT. Mark the registry keys that you want to create copies of (it is suggested to save system and user data or some other branch). Specify the save location (by default this will be the ERDNT folder in C:Windows) and confirm your choice.

• The backup process will take a few minutes.

Restoring the registry from a backup in a running Windows 7

• Open the folder where the ERUNT program saved the created copy (C:WindowsERDNTdate) and run the file ERDNT.EXE as an administrator.

• Confirm that you agree to restore, select the partition you want to restore, and then click OK.

Recovery using ERUNT when Windows 7 won't start

• Boot the computer from the media on which the portable Windows version. If the partition letter of the system partition that needs to be restored has changed (this is most likely the case when booting from external media), open the folder where the registry backup and the recovery component ERDNT.exe are located. Find the ERDNT.inf file here and open it with Notepad.
• If the letter of the Windows 7 partition on your hard drive has changed, for example, to F, correct all paths from C:Windows to F:Windows in ERDNT.inf and save the file.

• Run ERDNT.exe, select the partitions you need to restore and click OK.

Restoring the registry using ERUNT from the recovery environment

If the system does not boot and you do not have a suitable rescue disk at hand, you can use the environment Windows recovery 7. The ERDNT graphical shell does not work in this environment, so the program will have to be launched through the command console.

• To load the recovery environment before starting Windows, quickly press the F8 key several times. From the boot methods menu, select Troubleshoot your computer.

• Follow the instructions and log in as an administrator.

• Select Command Prompt from the list of options.

• Enter the command: cd C:WindowsERDNT(after cd you need to specify the path to the folder where the ERDNT program is located). After this and each subsequent command you need to press Enter.
• If the registry backups are in separate subfolders, enter the command dir to display the entire list of subdirectories of the ERDNT folder in the console.
• Enter the selected subfolder by entering the command cd folder_name, For example, cd 1.09.2014.
• To start the recovery process, enter the command batcherdnt.con, a few minutes after this, the program will restore the registry and restart the computer.

• If you had the boot backup option enabled (in ERUNT), use the command cd autobackup the program will restore one of the last backup copies registry

The ERUNT program is a reliable and time-tested tool for saving and quickly restoring the Windows registry. Many users prefer to replace the standard system restore function with it, since it practically does not crash, does not consume system resources and does not require a large amount of free space on the hard drive. Quite a reasonable decision.