Conduct a Comprehensive Windows Registry Scan

Whenever you are burdened with a tough computer problem and you tried all the tools available in Windows to fix it with no avail, the next best thing is to post in the many support forums that deal with these issues and ask for advice on how to fix the problem. Once you give it some time for other people to check out your post, you will realize that one of the common pieces of advice tells you to conduct a comprehensive Windows registry scan. Since Windows doesn’t have any capability to scan the Windows registry, you will have to perform the following easy steps to check your registry.

1. Find and Download a Good Windows Registry Checker

You will need to resort to 3rd party programs to check your registry and fortunately there are several good registry scanners that can handle the job well. Conduct a web search to find the most popular registry scanners available and then do a more direct search to make sure that these programs do well as they claim. Look for testimonials and comments made by real users so that you can be convinced that this registry scanner will conduct a comprehensive scan. Start by downloading a few trial versions from leading developers to work with and install them all. Make sure that you download the registry scanners with backup functions to ensure that they are risk-free.

2. Try the Quick Scan First

Depending on how fast your system is and how big your registry is, a full registry scan may take long and may not even be needed if your computer is suffering from minor issues. The quick scan is supposed to be an intelligent scan that analyzes the common areas of the registry where problems are present. This is often the safest form of scanning too as other areas of the registry may be marked as bad by the scanner, but is actually needed by the programs that the entry is linked to and may cause minor problems if changed by the scanner.

3. Restart your Computer and Try Out your System

You won’t be able to notice the changes in your system until you restart your system. Observe if there are any changes in performance and check if any of the problems that you experienced in the past are solved. Also try to launch all of your favorite and frequently used programs and see if they still run properly. If you are still experiencing problems, you may need to do a full scan.

4. Conduct a Full Scan

This scan takes a bit longer and may cause unpredictable results depending on how deep the problem is. But if you have a registry scanner with backup support, there is generally nothing that you need to worry about. Simply select the full scan and let the Windows registry checker work its magic and then repeat step 3.

If that still doesn’t solve the problem, try other registry scanners and do another comprehensive Windows scan. In most cases, registry scanners should solve most problems with slowdowns and stability problems and some of the side-effects done to other applications can be resolved by simply reinstalling the application affected.