Caution: What You Must Know Before Starting Any Windows Registry Repair

Registry repair is not to be handled lightly. Moving, editing, or deleting just one wrong entry can cause programs to fail or your whole system to crash. Worse (you mean there's something worse than crashing?), making a mistake cleaning your registry could end up causing you to permanently lose precious data. Then what do you do?

Fortunately, it's not difficult at all to protect yourself from these perils - you just have to be vigilant that you (or your software) do it - each and every time you intend to change your registry. What's "it"? In a word (and a familiar one at that, we're sure) - Backup.

Almost every program for registry repair and cleaning (including the Registry Editor that comes built into Microsoft Windows) contains a Backup function for backing up all the data in your registry as it currently appears before you begin scanning, editing, and deleting any entries. The thing is, most software solutions for assisting in registry repair do not do this automatically.

You must know where the "Backup" button is in whichever product you're using and you must remember to click it before you ever make a single change to your registry.

This is why we've taken such care in all our reviews to list Safety information for each product. Under this heading you will find out whether the registry repair tool reviewed includes the minimal Backup and Restore features, and which products go above and beyond the call, offering even more safety protections.

Some products break down the list of a scan's results into degrees of risk (safety levels, priorities - call it what they will), so you can immediately hone in on the most pernicious errors first, then move down the line handling lesser threats only after the greater threats have been dealt with.

It's also worth the added expense to find a product that goes into enough depth in describing each flagged entry that you can adequately determine whether or not the entry is vital to your system or a needed program's proper functioning. Registry repair products that fail to adequately describe each entry leave you vulnerable to damaging your system in your efforts to improve it.

Of all the conveniences registry repair products may dangle in front of you in the name of Safety, our pick for the most valuable is Automated Backups. Programs that automatically back up your registry data before any changes are made offer the most protection.

But don't simply rely on your purchased registry repair software to back your data up for you. Take the initiative yourself and make a hard copy backup of your registry on CD.