| the registry is composed of keys and values that you should be very careful with. it is the place on your comp that information about what hardware is attached, settings, memory, and programs installed. Edit the wrong one, and icons will disappear or worse, your comp wont start. so. before you do anything, and as part of your regular maintenance, you should back up the registry. Best tip we have for your registry? BACK THAT THING UP! here is the simple way to do that..... this is for 98 and WinMe... - Click Start, click Run, type scanregw, and then click OK.
- When you receive a prompt to back up the registry, click Yes.
- When you receive the "Backup complete" message, click OK.
For WinXP check the M$ help site.... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;308422 about once a month or so, i personally export my registry. i do alot of work daily, and play alot online, so you may only want to do this a few times a year..... but exporting the registry after a virus scan, win updates, and a good scan disk and defrag, will give you a good working registry.. a time when your computer worked well and had all the items in place. To EXPORT the registry, we open the registry editor by clicking start, run, typing REGEDIT. then we click on the MY COMPUTER ICON, and then SELECT REGISTRY from the top menu. Select EXPORT REGISTRY FILE, name it... select the export range of ALL.... then click on save. Let it work.... and you should have a nice BIG file on desktop... My registry back up was 10 MB..... just a warning...you will have to burn to a cd ~ to large for a floppy. this file tho can be used to restore your computer at a later date by following the same directions, and selecting IMPORT registry instead. |
