Why you need a registry cleaner

P

Percival P. Cassidy

And let's not forget Microsoft's other attempts at cleaning the
registry:
scanreg, scanregw and RegMaid.

The need for a registry cleaner is there, and even Microsoft engineers
have attempted it a couple of times.
But they all seem to get pulled if it interferes with any of
Microsoft's revenue producing products :)

Has the Windows registry become too big of a beast for even Microsoft
to manage?
It's basically the "If it works at all, don't mess with it"
philosophy! :)
Click to expand...


That's not how it works when it comes to releasing new versions of
Windows. The philosophy seems to be: "Now that we've fixed the most
serious bugs and security holes in the old version, it's time to release
a new version, collect lots of money form the suckers, then start trying
to fix the new version." (Look at XP and Vista.)

Perce
 
B

bjoey

Percival said:
That's not how it works when it comes to releasing new versions of
Windows. The philosophy seems to be: "Now that we've fixed the most
serious bugs and security holes in the old version, it's time to release
a new version, collect lots of money form the suckers, then start trying
to fix the new version." (Look at XP and Vista.)
Click to expand...

It appears that Microsoft has indoctrinated all their MVPs to
discourage the use of Registry Cleaners.
While an element of risk is there, there appears to be no easy way to
get unwanted entries out of the registry now.

I believe Microsoft should come up with a program to clean the
registry (like they have done in the past).
If some Software Vendor loses their entries in the registry as a
result, they probably didn't conform to Microsoft's vision of what the
registry was intended for.
If Microsoft starts deleting their own entries as a result, maybe they
have no idea how their registry should be used too! :)
 
U

Unknown

You need to rethink the following:
1. Microsoft needs to come up with a program to clean the registry------Of
What?
2.What do you think the registry was intended for?
3. Microsoft can delete their own entries because they know what they are.
Do you know how the registry should be used? I think you're confused.
 
B

bjoey

Unknown said:
1. Microsoft needs to come up with a program to clean the registry------Of
What?
Click to expand...

References to missing DLLs, shortcuts, remnants of uninstalled
products, etc.

Export your entire registry (1).
Install software product X
Uninstall software product X
Export your entire registry (2).

Shouldn't (1) and (2) be identical?
2.What do you think the registry was intended for?
Click to expand...
Maybe Microsoft should answer that.
Recently, it has become a scratchpad for software companies.
3. Microsoft can delete their own entries because they know what they are.
Click to expand...
Actually they don't, or they would not have withdrawn RegClean.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299958

I uninstalled the trial edition of Microsoft Office that came with my
laptop.
(Nothing personal against Microsoft (I've been using MS Word since
Windows 3.x), except that OpenOffice www.openoffice.org was free and
did the job)

So why are there still references to Excel.exe and OFFICE11 in my
registry?
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

References to missing DLLs, shortcuts, remnants of uninstalled
products, etc.

Export your entire registry (1).
Install software product X
Uninstall software product X
Export your entire registry (2).

Shouldn't (1) and (2) be identical?
Click to expand...


I agree with you that it should, but as we both know, depending on
what software product X is, it often isn't.

Yes, there are usually extraneous registry entries left over, but from
a practical standpoint it doesn't matter. There is no performance
penalty to their being there and the amount of disk space they waste
is tiny.

My view is that it's *far* safer to leave any such leftover entries in
place than use some automated tool to remove them, with the attendant
risk that it may accidentally remove something needed. Taking a risk
that provides no potential benefit is a bad bargain.
 
B

Bert Kinney

Hi,

Export and import within Regedit is *not* a good method of backing up the
entire registry. Its value is where you are going to modify a small section
- export that section, then if needed delete it and re-import to put things
back.

First, the backups are text mode, largely in Unicode and are enormous.

Second, there is no proper way to restore it. Import does not replace the
current registry but merges the file into it causing the registry to be come
severely bloated. Thus unwanted additions made since the export are not
removed - which is very often what you want to do.

And third, when you want to use it, it may not be practicable, particularly
if the system will not boot.
System Restore is the built in method of restoring the registry.

ERUNT is an excellent tool for backing up and restoring the registry. And
Erunt can be used if the system will not boot.
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

More information on how to backup the Windows XP Registry?
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/registry.htm

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org
 
U

Unknown

References to missing DLLs, shortcuts, remnants of uninstalled
products, etc.

Export your entire registry (1).
Install software product X
Uninstall software product X
Export your entire registry (2).

Shouldn't (1) and (2) be identical?
Click to expand...

Theorhetically yes! But who knows what program X does to the registry or
other programs.
Program X for example may insert something into program Y.
There are many non-Microsoft programs that leave the registry 'dirty' after
an uninstall.
It is extremely difficult to create a registry cleaner especially when
program X uses a
part of program Y such as in a branch and link command.
Maybe Microsoft should answer that.
Recently, it has become a scratchpad for software companies.
Click to expand...

Best description is a table of constants. If you don't believe that, write a
small program to
accomodate six different users with six different desires of color displays.
Microsoft cannot control what other software companies do. Ever hear of a
monoply?
Actually they don't, or they would not have withdrawn RegClean.
Click to expand...

On the contrary. They do an outstanding job cleaning up their registry.
It is all other companies that don't. Look into the registry and you'll see.
Is Microsoft responsible for Netscape, Symantac, games etc?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299958

I uninstalled the trial edition of Microsoft Office that came with my
laptop.
(Nothing personal against Microsoft (I've been using MS Word since
Windows 3.x), except that OpenOffice www.openoffice.org was free and
did the job)

So why are there still references to Excel.exe and OFFICE11 in my
registry?
Click to expand...

Perhaps they decided to leave the references rather than going to the
expense
of creating a program to remove them. Could be a business decision.
We don't know. However, they don't cause any problem.
Here is a challenge for you. Write a program to remove 5 unused items from
the registry in five different locations.
 
B

bjoey

I agree with you that it should, but as we both know, depending on
what software product X is, it often isn't.

Yes, there are usually extraneous registry entries left over, but from
a practical standpoint it doesn't matter. There is no performance
penalty to their being there and the amount of disk space they waste
is tiny.

My view is that it's *far* safer to leave any such leftover entries in
place than use some automated tool to remove them, with the attendant
risk that it may accidentally remove something needed. Taking a risk
that provides no potential benefit is a bad bargain.
Click to expand...

The issue here was never about the amount of disk space occupied by
the extraneous registry contents,
but by the content itself.
An unauthorized audit of the registry reveals information that the
user might not want presented, especially when the programs had been
uninstalled.
And some of these programs leave a lot of information behind in the
registry with no easy way to delete them.

Cookies don't occupy much disk space, but MS Internet Explorer has a
cookie cleaner.
Similarly, MS Windows needs a registry cleaner.

Given the relative permanence of the items in the registry, I am
surprised the Windows registry hasn't been used more often to maintain
"Tracking Information" by some programs, like cookies do :)
 
M

Me

Given the relative permanence of the items in the registry, I am
surprised the Windows registry hasn't been used more often to maintain
"Tracking Information" by some programs, like cookies do :)
Click to expand...

What makes you think that they don't. There are many areas of the registry
that are not reveled by regedit. An interesting key is named "SECRETS"
 
U

Unknown

What secrets key?
Me said:
What makes you think that they don't. There are many areas of the registry
that are not reveled by regedit. An interesting key is named "SECRETS"
Click to expand...
 
J

John John

Did you read the article that Shenan pointed you to? You have to access
the registry with the System account to see the contents of the Security
and SAM keys.

Another hint: You can use Sysinternals' PsExec to interactively run
processes under the System account. The Server Service will have to be
running for it to work.

John
I work with the registry often. How do I find it? Are you talking about XP
home?.
Click to expand...
 
U

Unknown

Yes, I read it and tried all methods. Cannot find a thing. In
HKLM --security, there is nothing.
John John said:
Did you read the article that Shenan pointed you to? You have to access
the registry with the System account to see the contents of the Security
and SAM keys.

Another hint: You can use Sysinternals' PsExec to interactively run
processes under the System account. The Server Service will have to be
running for it to work.

John
Click to expand...
 

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