The Windows Registry Checker

The Windows Registry Checker automatically scans your computer's registry for erroneous and invalid entries. The tool's main purpose is to restore a registry backup if faulty or invalid entries are found. You can do this by running the scanreg /autorun command from a command prompt. The Windows Registry Checker tries to repair the registry if no recent backup is found, similar to when you type scanreg /fix from a command prompt.

The Windows Registry Checker is also used by Windows setup to scan an existing registry for damage before an upgrade. If the tool detects registry damage, it attempts to fix it..

However, the Registry Checker was only used in Windows 98 and Windows Millennium and has been abandoned in all current versions of Windows, including Vista and Windows 7.

Computer users with a current system who want to check and repair their registry need to have an alternative tool, and this is where 3rd party software known as registry cleaners come in handy.

Such modern registry cleaner tools are usually far more advanced and have more options as opposed to the plain command line tool scanreg. While the scanreg registry checker in Windows 98/Me was rather limited in its capability to find errors and to fix them - no such problems exist for the current top of the line registry cleaners. Therefore, a registry cleaner software is a "must have" tool for any serious PC enthusiast. Needles to say that those tools do all and much more what the Windows built in registry checker tool did.

A registry cleaner will

scan the registry for faulty and invalid data
remove obsolete and outdated entries
shrink and compress a bloated registry
fix errors and wrong system references

Such software usually also provides very important means to backup and restore the registry data before any operation. You see, a computer's registry is crucial and without it no Windows based PC would function. Accidental damage caused by any registry software could be fatal. It is therefore of uttermost importance that the registry cleaner has such a backup and restore function.

In addition, before any such critical operation like using a registry checker and repair tool it is also advised to create a system restore point. If you want to be on the safe side you might even want to create a complete backup of your system. Better safe than being sorry, even if the actual chance of something going wrong is rather small.

Registry cleaners are very powerful tools, they can fix a slow computer and can get rid of crashes and errors, but such a powerful tool needs to be used carefully and responsibly.

Source: http://goo.gl/hbpra