Why you need a registry cleaner

[Unknown]

In normal regedit, there is nothing there. I downloaded and installed
'Registrar Registry Manager'. Using that program the 'secret' key appears.
Is it truly there or does Registrar Registry Manager just display and or
build it? Also in HKLM 'sam' has another 'sam' key under it.

How about the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM key? See anything in there?

John

 

[Shenan Stanley]

In normal regedit, there is nothing there. I downloaded and
installed 'Registrar Registry Manager'. Using that program the
'secret' key appears. Is it truly there or does Registrar Registry
Manager just display and or build it? Also in HKLM 'sam' has
another 'sam' key under it.

It *is* there.
Look outside... Do you see Antartica?
No? It's there. Use some satellites right now and you can see live
pictures.

For more information on Antartica, you can read up here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antartica

Also there are many more resources out there...
http://www.google.com/search?q=Antartica

Same with the planets and other galaxies. Without the right
tool/knowledge - you cannot see it.

The registry tool downloaded is *not* just creating it. It is exposing it.

See this google search...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...icial&hs=okj&q=HKLM+Security+Policies+SECRETS

 

[John John]

Instead of using "that other" program you can use RunAsSys.exe, yet
another handy tool to run interactively under the System account.
RunAsSys.exe is available here: http://assarbad.net/de/stuff/temp/ On
the english page http://assarbad.net/en/stuff look for localsystem.zip.
These are free and "safe" to use for experienced users, keeping in
mind that you can do a lot of damage running as the System account,
things that you can't do even as an Administrator. When you launch
RunAsSys a Command prompt will open and run under the System account,
any programs or processes that you open from that command session will
also open with the same System account privileges.

The keys were there all the time, you were just not using the System
account to run Regedit and open the keys, that is why you weren't seeing
anything. The second SAM key is normal, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM\SAM key
is also mapped to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY\SAM key. It goes
without saying that there is a very good reason for heaving these keys
hidden! There is nothing there for users to change and if the keys are
tampered with you might not be able to log back on to the machine.

Finally, you could simply have accessed and read the contents of the
keys by changing the permissions on the keys to give the Administrator
Read permissions, but once again, it is best not to change the
permissions unless you know what you are doing and you should return the
permissions to their defaults once done.

John

 

[bjoey]

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.

Best description is a table of constants.

The Most Recently Used lists are also stored in the registry.
That is almost never a constant.

Here is a challenge for you. Write a program to remove 5 unused items from
the registry in five different locations.

If too many programmers have trouble doing that, it would indicate bad
architecture of the Windows registry.

 

[bjoey]

Me wrote





*grin*
Oh - it's there.

Why does Microsoft enable these things to go on?
If any other company tried that, they would get yelled at or sued.

I see a new breed of applications that don't make use of the
registry : http://www.portableapps.com
But even the U3 http://www.u3.com family of apps that run off U3 USB
drives sometimes leave things in the
registry after a clean eject of the drive!

 

[bjoey]

- The registry editor linked comes in TWO versions - Free "lite" (which

works fine) and Pay. Get the free.

I tried doing a search for "hidden keys" and I got a dialog box saying
something about reverse engineering the (Windows?) product is a
violation of the license agreement!

The more I learn about the Windows registry, the less I like it.
I doubt I will be taking my Windows laptop into another corporate
environment again.

Some of the stuff I use fits nicely on a USB drive and runs fine from
there: eclipse, Oracle's SQL Developer (when will MS SQL Server and/or
Visual Studio come up with a portable developer environment?),
OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox, etc.