Cleaning the registry is not advisable. Removing unused entries will not, on a functioning PC, have any measurable effect. You can not sort the registry, the system maintains it in the most efficient order, which in not alphabetical, since the registry is accessed using a hashing algorithm.
You could try editing the Registry, possibly removing some specific software keys, but you must be very careful when doing so. You must make sure that you only delete what you are sure you don't want anymore, and that you don't delete anything else. I do not advise it, unless you have worked with it before, but exporting the whole registry or creating a restore point will be able to fix any mistakes in deletion of registry keys/strings/values.
Anyway, the software registry keys are only loaded for the bits of software when they are loading themselves, not at startup.
There are certain programs like
Ace Utilities (very useful tool) and
RegClean (no longer supported) that can check your registry and computer files for any invalid keys - this should speed it up a bit.
It is more likely that a slow computer is due to programs hanging or outdated drivers.
msgale
2 Intern
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2.5K Posts
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August 10th, 2005 18:00
Cleaning the registry is not advisable. Removing unused entries will not, on a functioning PC, have any measurable effect. You can not sort the registry, the system maintains it in the most efficient order, which in not alphabetical, since the registry is accessed using a hashing algorithm.
Robert Cathles
239 Posts
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August 10th, 2005 19:00