Windows Startup Errors

Windows startup errors happen when your computer’s registry is in need of maintenance. To keep them from happening, you need to do regular registry maintenance. Here’s what you’re looking at and how to make it stop.

What the Windows Registry Is

Your Windows registry is an area in the Operating System that stores the command files for all your programs, including Windows itself. The reason the registry was created was to keep these files organized and in one area so technicians could work on them more easily if needed.

If you want to see what it looks like, click “Run” in the Start Menu and type in “regedit.” Browse around all you like by clicking on the folders and subfolders, just don’t accidentally delete anything. You could cause some serious damage to Windows by doing that.

A History of Registry Maintenance

When the registry was first created, registry maintenance was a nightmare. If you looked at even a portion of the registry files, you have a good idea of what it must have been like. You had to go from folder to folder, delete some entries and edit others.

By and large, people either replaced their computers or hired a technician to do the job for them. It was also possible to reinstall Windows, but that meant that any files that weren’t backed up were lost. Either way, it took a lot of time and effort to fix your PC.

Eventually, someone had the idea to create programs to assist with this process. At first, the programs only showed you all the registry files in a list. This eventually became more sophisticated. These programs began providing legends so you could tell what the registry entries were for. This helped greatly with spyware and virus removal. It wasn’t until recently that programs became sophisticated enough to tell if a file was “corrupted” or “orphaned.”

Problems Caused by Corrupted Files and Orphaned Files

Corrupted files and orphaned files are the main cause of system errors. Corrupted files are ones that Windows has damaged by normal use or by malicious software. A portion of the code that makes them work is lost while it’s being used. It’s like having an instruction manual where one or several pages are ripped out of it. This causes error messages to appear, and your programs (including Windows) to stop working.

Orphaned files are ones that are in some way not associated with a program. Usually, they’re there because a program has been uninstalled, and it left the files in the registry. This causes registry clutter, which can slow your computer’s performance and eventually cause system errors. Basically, their presence makes it harder for Windows to find the files it needs to run your programs, and it may not even be able to find them at all.

To make all these problems go away, you just need to run a registry cleaner program every month or so. This will end all your Windows startup errors, and any others that may be lurking in the background.