What exactly slows down a PC over time? How does reading an extra few lines in the registry slow a computer down so much? I understand the how/why of defragging and cleaning up the internet cache, but what about the speed of the boot up? Everytime I use a third party program like System Mechanic or Norton Utilities it wants to delete all types of registry entries but makes sure that I check to see if they are actually invalid. How the hell am I supposed to know? Isn’t there an easier way to safely delete unneeded files on my computer without worrying about deleting critical files? Also, can you recommend a book that will catch me up on what I need to know to make decent decisions about this stuff and about the registry/dlls/activex, etc? Thanks
A few extra lines? First time I defragged my registry with System Suite 2000 it went from 3 megs to 1.5 megs…thats a lot of lines.
Because Windows processes the registry upon boot-up, so a smaller registry means a faster boot time.
No. There is no way for a computer program to tell if a particular .dll file is needed or not after the fact. <em>Cleansweep</em> took an interesting approach: it took a snapshot of the system before and after a program is installed, so there is a much better chance of it knowing what program needs what files and registry entries.
This is one of the fundamental design flaws of Windows - lumping everything together.
You don’t specify which version of Windows you are running, but I highly recommend the Windows XX Annoyances Series, author David A. Karp, publisher O’Reilly. They have editions for 95, 98, Me and XP, not sure about NT or 2000. His style is light yet crusty (like a good pastry) and there is a wealth of useful info on how to make your computer look and act as close to how you want/expect it to as is possible. The books are also pretty amusing in their dissing of the Microsoft Empire.
Did you just delete everything it found as a “bad entry?”