You can't argue with the wife that a clean house is better than a messy house. However some things are better left 'dirty', like the grease in a motorbike's chain. Likewise with a computer: it makes sense to dust the fingerprint marks off the screen every now and then but cleaning the registry? Whoever had this brilliant idea and thought it would 'speed up' the PC?

There is a range of system optimizer software tools on sale, which I would never use. The operating system is such a complex beast that I bet even the creators don't have a full understanding of the interactions and how to 'optimize' the system. Some things made sense in the past like memory compacting, but nowadays there's no point for RAM optimization — it's like you have a shave trying to lose weight!

I hate registry cleaners in particular. Whatever magical algorithm they use to figure out which registry keys are unused isn't working. I get people complaining that their xplorer² bookmarks disappear and they invariably use registry cleaners. Here we have an example for a so-called optimization that ends up hurting you (and xplorer² support). Somehow they consider the favorites section is junk and delete the relevant registry keys. I even have reports that some advanced uninstallers also end messing up other programs' registry settings while uninstalling unrelated software.

How to protect your bookmarks?

If you insist running such cleaners and optimizers then here's what you can do: take a backup of your xplorer² registry settings so if they happen to be erased again at least you can get your settings and bookmarks back. The procedure has been discussed in an older article but here are the basic steps again:

Create a settings backup REG file   Use Actions > Export settings menu command A file called x2settings.REG is saved in the current folder Keep this file safe   Restore settings from a saved REG file   Make sure xplorer² is not running (use File > Exit to quit fully) Double click on the x2settings.REG file you saved earlier Click yes to import the registry settings (see pic on the right) Restart xplorer² to see all your bookmarks and toolbars back in place

NOTE: If you cannot import your settings it means that xplorer² was running when you d-clicked on the REG file. There may be a xplorer² process running in the background when you set it to replace windows explorer. So either quit xplorer² fully with <Alt+X> or find the xplorer² process using task manager (Processes tab) and kill it, then open the REG file.

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