Your computer’s registry is one thing that most PC users never think about. The registry is necessary, but quite often houses all sorts of junk that just ends up slowing down your computer and causing all sorts of other problems. In other words, a jammed up registry equals an unhappy computer and an unhappy user. PC Tools’ Registry Mechanic is one of the weapons we can use in our war against jammed up registries.
Getting started, I found PC Tools’ Registry Mechanic to take a bit longer than other software to install, but I was using a computer that I knew was in dire need of a clean-up, so that may have factored into the increased installation time. Either way, it wasn’t so long that it was bothersome; it was just something I noticed.
Registry Mechanic automatically starts scanning your registry
As soon as you get it installed and running, Registry Mechanic automatically starts scanning your registry, if you click “Yes.” This is what you bought it for, so no big deal there. The scan took about as long as you’d think. You actually want a registry scan to take its time, as you want it to be thorough.
After the scan, I looked to see what it had found. It had found over 350 errors on this PC! I knew it was in dire need of a scan, but I didn’t realize how bad it really was. All you have to do is click the “Repair” button and away you go, or rather, away all that bad stuff goes!
Registry Mechanic monitor’s your PC to protect it from future problems
Once you have repaired your registry and gotten rid of all that junk, you can have Registry Mechanic monitor your computer to protect it from future problems. I chose to have it do so, and found that it ran silently in the background and didn’t cause any problems after observing the PC’s performance for a few days.
Detect gaps and wasted space in your registry
Another cool feature is the ability to compact your registry. Registry Mechanic will automatically detect gaps and wasted space in your registry and give you the ability to compact it. This frees up more space and allows your PC to run just that bit faster, so I went ahead and told the program to do it.
After compacting, this PC had saved an additional 5% of space. Hey, every little bit counts! After all this, you’ll have to reboot your computer once or twice to finalize everything, but with your shortened start up time, this won’t be too much of a headache.
PC Tools Registry Mechanic Summary
Overall, I found PC Tools’ Registry Mechanic to be a very handy weapon to have in my arsenal. It’s just $30, which is very reasonable and is pretty much the standard when it comes to these sorts of programs. For $30, you can use Registry Mechanic on up to three computers, so this kind of shows you that PC Tools isn’t trying to bilk every last penny out of you, which is refreshing in this day and age. When doing these reviews, I not only look at the actual software, but the company behind it and I feel like this 3-for-1 deal says a lot about this company.
That aside, Registry Mechanic does exactly what it sets out to do and is quite a deal. I found it very easy to use and intuitive. If you know your way around a computer at all, you’ll be able to follow the step-by-step instructions and get a good handle on this program. You don’t have to be a genius to understand that you need to clean your registry and this is the perfect tool to get it done.