The performance of a Personal computer or PC gets deteriorated after a period of time and the same speed and efficiency once experienced when the PC was brand new was not to be experienced. There are many reasons for the drop in performance.
One of the reasons for the drop in performance is the overloading of the registry in the PC. During the course of using the PC, we tend to download some of the programs and after a period of time, delete the software as the utility of the software was lost or new versions of the software are available. While doing so, most of us delete the directory in which the executable file and supporting files are loaded. The ideal way is to remove the program using the Add/Remove programs in the control panel.
The curious thing is while the outdated or rarely used software is deleted from the system, either directly from the explorer or through the add/remove programs, some of the registry files related to the software, which gets recorded once the software is downloaded, does not get deleted from the system.
Though the size of such files including the registry files and associated *.dll files is very less, these files nevertheless get stored in the registry. These files and the relevant *.dll files will affect the performance in the long run, if they are not cleaned from the registry file at periodic intervals.
A periodic review of the registry, that can be accessed by typing msconfig in the Run command on start up, will be of use to ensure that registry files for software, which was deleted from the system long back, are eliminated. By effectively cleaning the registry from the unwanted files and related *.dll files, the performance of the PC can be maintained at near 100% levels.
The fastest way to speed up a PC would be to simply download a registry cleaner and run a scan. It will clear up errors and instantly speed up application loading and PC boot up times.