If you’re feeling particularly brave and would rather make a manual registry edit than use an automated tool, there are a number of factors that you should be aware of. To manually edit a registry requires great care and attention to details. It’s also a process which can go horribly wrong with the click of a button.

The Windows registry is responsible for keeping all of your system’s key settings and configurations in order. In the same way that we can improve our system performance by making a few clever alterations to the edit registry settings, we can also do twice as much damage. A bad registry edit, for example, could lead to the user being locked out of Windows altogether. Not quite what they had in mind when they decided to manually edit the registry, but the dangers are there for all to see.

To edit the registry, it’s very easy to get started. Go to Start and select Run. In the command box, type REGEDIT and you will notice that a fresh window pops up with a list of collapsible menus. You’ll notice that it looks a little similar to the old Windows Explorer view. Use the expanding icons to select the various parts of the registry and you can delve deeper in to each hive.

A registry edit can be performed across any of the given hives. These hives are simply technical names for subfolders, a way of categorizing what each part of the registry does, and how it should be accessed by the user.

When you apply the new settings with a registry edit, you’ll be required to save your changes and will quite often be asked to restart the system before the new changes can come in to effect. But before you go any further and start committing manual registry edits to your version of Windows, be aware that anything you change can have a knock on effect for other programs and applications that are installed on the operating system. What seems fairly innocuous to change, could actually cause a huge problem in the long run.

This is why we always advise that you make a complete backup of the registry before you even think about going in to make specific registry edits. If Windows refuses the changes are gets progressively worse, it’s definitely a good idea to have a working registry to fall back on.

Manual registry edits are to be performed by people who don’t just think that they know what they’re doing, they have to KNOW that they know what they’re doing. If you aren’t 100% sure that you know the exact registry entry to change, and the effect that its going to have on the global system, you should take a step back and let one of the many free automated tools take care of the task for you.

By allowing software to repair registry edits for you, you cut down on the single most common reason for bad repair jobs, human error. The Windows registry is a very delicate library of files and important settings. Think twice before you make manual registry edits.

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