Complete and partial scans

In the Registry Scan screen, you will notice a list the various sections of the registry that can be scanned. By default the Perform a complete scan of your registry checkbox is ticked and so RegistryBooster will perform a complete scan covering all sections of the registry. However, if you do not want to scan certain sections of your registry unselect the check boxes next to those sections. Alternatively unselect the Perform a complete scan of your registry checkbox and then manually select those sections you do want to scan.

The following explains what each scan option does:

ActiveX, OLE and COM objects

RegistryBooster will search for currently installed COM and ActiveX objects. RegistryBooster performs complete heuristic analysis of ActiveX, OLE, COM sections as they are interlinked and interdependent.

Invalid file associations

Sometimes a file association is created but the program to be opened is removed or deleted. RegistryBooster will search for and remove such invalid file associations.

User software settings

RegistryBooster will search the software settings of the currently logged user and then remove any invalid entries.

System software settings

RegistryBooster will search the system software settings for all users before removing any corrupted content.

Shared DLLs section

RegistryBooster analyses your registry to detect and repair entries that refer to shared control files or Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) that are not or were never on your hard drive.

File extensions

RegistryBooster fixes all the file extensions that are no longer associated with applications installed on your computer system. Many application uninstallers remove the main program files and directories from your hard drive, but do not remove the associated file extensions from the registry.

Startup sections

Some applications may be configured to run as soon as you start up Windows while others may automatically configure some processes to run automatically at start up. As applications register themselves with the Windows registry, they also indicate references to the processes and locations that the operating system needs to run upon start up. RegistryBooster analyses the Windows registry to find and remove any problem entries.

Sound and App events

Windows provides the facility to associate an application event with a certain sound (eg the ring sound when message boxes appear). If a sound file is missing Windows is unable to handle the event resulting in problems. RegistryBooster repairs references to sounds and other events that are missing or nonexistent.

Uninstall sections

Uninstalled applications may continue to be recorded in the registry and in the Add/ Remove section of your control panel. RegistryBooster will report all such errors and remove them.

Fonts section

Windows stores each reference to a font in the registry. Some of the installed font faces may not appeal to all users and consequently are removed. If the font section is not cleaned regularly, Windows can start showing different font faces instead of those intended.

Help Section

All applications following Microsoft standards must register their help files to the Windows registry. RegistryBooster looks for missing, erroneous or orphaned links.

Application paths

Sometimes when program executables are moved to some other location on your hard-drive, their associations are not updated properly, cluttering the registry. Whenever you launch a program, Windows first searches the Application Paths Section and missing entries will only delay program launch. RegistryBooster search and removes such entries.

System drivers

Symptoms of having invalid device drivers include messages upon startup similar to: "This file is either referenced in your Registry or your Win.ini ... You should either remove this reference or reinstall this file's associated application...". Sometimes if a problem is too serious Windows can fail to start up normally. RegistryBooster analyses your registry to detect and then remove the causes of such errors.

Shared folders

RegistryBooster scans through shared folders registry keys and checks if these folders link to valid paths. If the reference does not exist then the entry is removed since this is considered to be an invalid entry.

Invalid shortcuts

In this section RegistryBooster scans through the registry keys of any shortcuts on a PC to check if the shortcuts link to a valid location in the system, such as, for example, a shortcut on the desktop that points to winamp. Now if you remove winamp and the shortcut remains, this is considered to be an error in RegistryBooster and is removed by this option.