The Windows Registry is the  primary   control center for the Windows OS. It holds data and key values that instruct all the  software on how to function properly. When something breaks or fails in the Registry, your computer can fail completely. The Registry should not be meddled with, unless you know exactly what you are doing. There are many Registry tweaks that add functionality, but be careful when applying any edit that you are not sure of.

If you’re intending to use a Registry cleaner, or if you ever intend to manually edit the Registry, you should be sure to keep a backup on hand. With a copy of the Registry, you can have a little more confidence in case anything bad happens. Backing up the registry is useful in the event of registry corruption, Spyware, Malware or viruses. Below are some quick tips on how to backup the Registry in Vista and Windows 7.

Once you have a backed up Windows Registry, then you can always roll back to the backed up version, in case anything ever breaks. We recommend that you be careful before doing any manual edits to the registry. Small edits can cause complete failure. We don’t really advise anyone to perform any edits to the Registry unless you know exactly what you are doing. The Registry is extremely powerful and it is better left to the experts. If you do intend to cleanup the Registry, leave it to professional Registry repair software such as RegCure or CCleaner. You can read a full RegCure review for further info.

How to backup the Windows Registry:

• Start the Registry editor, type “regedit” in the quick search box
• Click File -> Export
• Give the file a name (eg: reg_backup)
• Change export range to all
• The entire backup should take a few seconds
• Done!

The Windows Registry will now be backed up. We advise that you keep a copy on external storage too. So if anything ever goes wrong on your main hard drive, you will have a copy that you can easily access. Your Registry backup won’t be very large, so it is easy to store on CD or flash drive.