Every time Paul Horowitz, a teacher from Salt Lake City, started Windows, Internet Explorer, or a Windows-based program, he would get the following message: “Runtime Error 216 at Address”. Blissfully unaware of the implication of this particular runtime error message, Paul, who doesn’t use his PC at home too frequently, left the problem unattended until he could barely use his computer because the runtime error messages were so frequent. “It was only one of my students who pointed out that this particular runtime error could indicate the presence of a Trojan virus,” he says, a suspicion that was later borne out.

So if any of you reading this is experiencing a similar runtime error, you know the root. Windows runtime errors typically indicate either that your system has run out of memory, or that a web page has faulty programming (in the case of Internet Explorer), or that you have malware (containing viruses) on your computer that is causing the system to generate error messages because certain applications cannot run properly.

Of course, if there is a virus, you have to take the anti-virus route and clean it up, but did you know that there’s plenty of malware in cyber world that leaves behind traces even when it has apparently been deleted from your system? And these traces clutter the Windows Registry with broken or missing files and other useless data, so that you still get runtime errors or experience system crashes.

Allow us to explain this in some detail. The Windows Registry, as you probably know, is an internal database on your computer on which every program that you run, including Windows itself, stores all its data. Needless to add, this is the most vital part of your computer, but not many people are aware of its existence, which we find astonishing, hence our attempts to make you aware of the fact!

Anyhow, digressions apart, each and every change that you make to your system is recorded in the Registry, which means that the Registry bears records of each and every program that you have installed and uninstalled. Thus, if a program is not uninstalled properly, for instance, you are liable to end up with several useless files that not only occupy disk space, but also bloat the Registry, leading to a slow system and infuriating and potentially catastrophic crashes, and causing runtime errors to occur.

The one-step solution (not strictly speaking, but it sounds good) to this problem is to download a Registry cleaner from the Internet, free of cost, and clean your Registry. So okay, it may involve three steps instead of one, but the fact remains that cleaning Windows Registry is the best way to keep your PC in shape and eliminate runtime errors.

Of course, you can manually clean Windows Registry using Regedit, but we would recommend that only to advanced PC users, because only experts can manually edit the Registry. It is an extremely sensitive and time-consuming process, and amateurs may permanently damage their systems if they try to manually clean Windows Registry. So use a readymade Registry cleaner, and say goodbye to runtime errors, for good!

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