What happens when you install a program on your computer? This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is important because 11-year-old Caitlin Devenish has written in from Shreveport to ask us, and added that while she has no problems installing programs on her system, uninstalling them is a different question altogether. “Whenever I try and uninstall certain programs that have been occupying space on my hard drive, I get these uninstall error messages. Can you help?”

Well, can you? You probably can, if you know that improper uninstalling of a program is most often attributable to a corrupt Windows Registry, but if you don’t know what a Windows Registry is in the first place, you are as lost as young Ms Devenish.

In very basic terms, then, Windows Registry is a vast internal database of Windows settings, which monitors the way your operating system works, and every time you install or uninstall a program, changes are made to the Registry. Virtually all Windows programs, including Windows itself, store a huge mass of information on the database. So when you make changes to the system, they may not always reflect correctly in the Registry, thereby slowing down your PC. As these changes accumulate, the Windows Registry becomes bloated and possibly corrupt.

See, the thing is, when you install software or a program, it copies files to different locations on your hard disk, such as a specific installation folder, or various system directories. It also registers itself and its components on the Windows Registry. So you can see why, if all you do is delete the installation folder, traces of the program will still remain on your Registry, thus clogging it and causing it to function improperly.

Hang on, you say, what about if I remove the program from Windows Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel, would it still leave remnants on the Registry? The sad truth is yes, it will. This is either because the uninstall instructions that you should have received while installing the program were not downloaded in full, or because some files relating to the program are also being used by some other programs, which makes them inaccessible while uninstalling the original program. Also, the Control Panel will not show all installed software, so you will simply not uninstall it fully from ADD/Remove Programs.

So, the bottom line is that you need a slim, trim, and clean Registry for a properly functioning PC, one that will uninstall programs without throwing up uninstall error messages. So download a free Registry cleaner from the Internet and use it without delay. As the ultimate PC optimizer, you can’t do much better than a Registry cleaner. Just make sure you get it from a trusted source, and make a backup of the entire Registry before you commence cleaning.

And finally, remember that a Windows Registry cleaner will allow you to actually use your PC rather than spend time installing and uninstalling programs in an attempt to eliminate uninstalling errors.

We recommend RegCure (direct download link) as the premiere registry cleaner and Windows error repair tool.

For those who know what OLE means in computer parlance, understanding and controlling ActiveX errors should be easy. For those who don’t, ActiveX is a technology (well, not exactly, but we’ll use that term for the present) that Microsoft created to facilitating Object Linking & Embedding (OLE to you) to empower web browsers, particularly Internet Explorer, to display what the “techies” would call ‘rich interfacing activity’ and the man on the street would describe as high-resolution images, 3D virtual reality, or video images.

So the plain fact of the matter is that with ActiveX controls, your web browser can display aforesaid rich interfacing activity and not make a fuss about it. However, it is when you have downloaded web pages with embedded ActiveX components that the problems begin. You see, whenever you download such a page, you also download the corresponding ActiveX controls (packaged as .OCX files) that your Windows operating system will automatically launch. And this causes problems for Windows Registry.

This is just an aside, so those of you who know about this are welcome to move on to the next paragraph. In very basic terms, the Windows Registry is a vast internal database in which all programs that you use, including Windows itself, store an enormous volume of data. Therefore, the Registry represents your PC’s unique configuration so that whenever you make a change to the Control Panel settings, file associations, system policies, or software, the changes reflect in Windows Registry.

You do realize what that means? Windows Registry monitors the way your entire system behaves, and if you download components that clutter it up and slow it down, you can imagine what effect that will have on your computer. Therefore, keeping your Windows Registry clean is vital to both your PC’s well being as well as your peace of mind. Stephanie Walesa, a 33-year-old commercial artist from Philadelphia, was plagued with ActiveX error messages and a rapidly slowing PC until she learned about the benefits of Windows Registry cleaning.

“I would freely download ActiveX controls and then puzzle over why I kept getting ActiveX error messages,” she says. “It was quite some time before I learnt that these controls can choke the Registry with unwanted data and missing components, which slows down the system. So I invested in a Windows Registry cleaner, and it has been bliss ever since.”

A word to the wise: some very high-quality Registry cleaners are available free on the Net, so you needn’t take Stephanie’s ‘investment’ very literally. However, make sure that the site that you are downloading the Registry cleaner from is a trusted one.

Also remember that ActiveX controls are used to create spyware and malware, and many of them can ruin your OS. Microsoft has developed the ActiveX security system embedded in Internet Explorer, whereby Windows Registry will automatically block the download of any ActiveX component not registered with Microsoft. However, that may still clog your Registry with unnecessary files, so Registry cleaning to stop ActiveX errors is still a must.

We recommend RegCure (direct download link) as the premiere registry cleaner and ActiveX error repair tool.