Cannot delete Registry Key

[JimG]

(Win XP Pro SP3, Office 2007) In trying to fix a problem with updates,
Microsoft support engineers have told me (to make a long story short) to
remove office
manually.

Part of their instructions is to export the two Office keys in HKLU
....\Software and HKCU ... \Software, and then delete them.

I was able to successfully export both keys and delete the HKCU key, but
when deleting the HKLU key I got the message to the effect, "Key not deleted
key, error in key". The problem is with the Actions\{long number} subkey.
I've tried setting all values to 0 or deleting them. Importing the deleting
the key again, and turning off the Office Engine service. Nothing helped and
I thought maybe someone here might have an answer, otherwise I'll probably
have to wait until Monday to get an answer from MS support. I notice that
Scanreg is no longer available. Is there another similar program for fixing
the XP Registry?

 

[Johnw]

JimG used his keyboard to write :

(Win XP Pro SP3, Office 2007) In trying to fix a problem with updates,
Microsoft support engineers have told me (to make a long story short) to
remove office
manually.

Part of their instructions is to export the two Office keys in HKLU
...\Software and HKCU ... \Software, and then delete them.

I was able to successfully export both keys and delete the HKCU key, but
when deleting the HKLU key I got the message to the effect, "Key not deleted
key, error in key". The problem is with the Actions\{long number} subkey.
I've tried setting all values to 0 or deleting them. Importing the deleting
the key again, and turning off the Office Engine service. Nothing helped and
I thought maybe someone here might have an answer, otherwise I'll probably
have to wait until Monday to get an answer from MS support. I notice that
Scanreg is no longer available. Is there another similar program for fixing
the XP Registry?

Fix a corrupt Registry (part 1)
http://supportpcs.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=126&Itemid=30
http://supportpcs.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=127&Itemid=30
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt

 

[Johnw]

JimG formulated on Saturday :

(Win XP Pro SP3, Office 2007) In trying to fix a problem with updates,
Microsoft support engineers have told me (to make a long story short) to
remove office manually.

uninstall office manually
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=uninstall+office+manually&btnG=Search&meta=

"Key not deleted, error in key".

Error While Deleting Key
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=Error+While+Deleting+Key&btnG=Search&meta=

 

[John John - MVP]

Make sure that you have permission to delete the key, highlight the key
then click on the Edit menu.

John

 

[JimG]

I get "Modify" rather than edit. In any event it appears that I can
modify/delete all the values in the string. Maybe there's nothing wrong with
the key and XP/office just doesn't want me to delete it. Perhaps I should
just ignore it and proceed with the re-intall, do you think? (The word
"error" maybe spurious.)

Jim

 

[John John - MVP]

Click on Edit on the Main menu, at the very top of the Regedit window.
From there you can edit the permissions on the key.

John

 

[JimG]

Yes, I do have full control permissions

Click on Edit on the Main menu, at the very top of the Regedit window.
From there you can edit the permissions on the key.

John

 

[ju.c]

Try deleting the key with reg.exe or RegDelNull.
(Using the command window or the Run box)

----------------------------------------
reg delete "HKCU\Path To\Registry Key"
----------------------------------------
Deleting an undeletable registry key using SysInternals'
RegDelNull:

"This command-line utility searches for and deletes
Registry keys that contain embedded-null characters
that are undeleteable using standard Registry-editing
tools."

RegDelNull 44 KB (Freeware)
Info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897448.aspx
Download: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Regdelnull.zip

Usage:

regdelnull <path> [-s] [-r]

path Registry path e.g. HKLM\SOFTWARE\
-s Recurse into subkeys

Example:

regdelnull -s HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{54955D07-73DF-4592-9A0F-C9D63E9360D2}
----------------------------------------

What is HKLU?


ju.c

 

[db]

one method you can
use is to

delete the office program
folder from the disk.

then run a reg cleaner
like "eusing"

the cleaner will reconcile
every registry key to the
targets files on the disk.

so if there is no office folder
and files on the disk,

then any registry keys that
were targeting those files
will be 'invalid" and you can
simply delete them.

I am a bit surprised that the
microsoft engineers could
not help you with the issue
and it is unclear if their
suggestion "will" fix the
problem.

perhaps, it would be a good
time for them to make a
dedicated "uninstaller" which
can clean up a dirty registry
with orphaned office keys.
--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @hotmail.com
"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[JimG]

I'm sorry, typo, not HKLU, HKLM (local machine).

Thank you all very much for your assistance.

Try deleting the key with reg.exe or RegDelNull.
(Using the command window or the Run box)

----------------------------------------
reg delete "HKCU\Path To\Registry Key"
----------------------------------------
Deleting an undeletable registry key using SysInternals'
RegDelNull:

"This command-line utility searches for and deletes
Registry keys that contain embedded-null characters
that are undeleteable using standard Registry-editing
tools."

RegDelNull 44 KB (Freeware)
Info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897448.aspx
Download: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Regdelnull.zip

Usage:

regdelnull <path> [-s] [-r]

path Registry path e.g. HKLM\SOFTWARE\
-s Recurse into subkeys

Example:

regdelnull -s HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{54955D07-73DF-4592-9A0F-C9D63E9360D2}
----------------------------------------

What is HKLU?


ju.c

(Win XP Pro SP3, Office 2007) In trying to fix a problem with updates,
Microsoft support engineers have told me (to make a long story short) to
remove office
manually.

Part of their instructions is to export the two Office keys in HKLU
...\Software and HKCU ... \Software, and then delete them.

I was able to successfully export both keys and delete the HKCU key, but
when deleting the HKLU key I got the message to the effect, "Key not deleted
key, error in key". The problem is with the Actions\{long number} subkey.
I've tried setting all values to 0 or deleting them. Importing the deleting
the key again, and turning off the Office Engine service. Nothing helped and
I thought maybe someone here might have an answer, otherwise I'll probably
have to wait until Monday to get an answer from MS support. I notice that
Scanreg is no longer available. Is there another similar program for fixing
the XP Registry?

 

[JimG]

Thank you very much for your assistance. I think since I can edit the keys
setting values to 0 or deleting the contents, I can try just leaving the
empty keys and let the installer fill them in.

Would that seem like a plan to you?

 

[John John - MVP]

Your guess is as good as mine. If you are confident that you have
properly removed the broken installation then try it as see what
happens. By the way, there is no Scanreg in Windows XP and there are no
programs for "fixing the XP registry", stay away from "registry fixers"!

John

 

[JimG]

I used to use cleaners regularly, mostly Norton's (I beta tested for Peter in
the '80's), but I don't think they did much good, though I never had any harm
done.

Well, my gut tells me there's no error and the problem is by design, so I'll
do the rest--rename some folders--and do the install.

Thanks very much for helping!

Jim

 

[John John - MVP]

You're welcome and good luck with the reinstall. If you run into more
problems it would be best to ask for help in the the Office groups where
the Office experts hang out.

John

 

[JimG]

Oh they will help, but I needed to wait until Monday, since they don't
respond on weekends and I thought I might get a faster answer here. (FYI in
my message below, I typoed HKLU, which should have been key HKLM.)

Thanks for your help.

 

[Johnw]

JimG formulated on Monday :

Oh they will help, but I needed to wait until Monday, since they don't
respond on weekends and I thought I might get a faster answer here. (FYI in
my message below, I typoed HKLU, which should have been key HKLM.)

I think he was talking about something like microsoft public office
misc

http://groups.google.com.au/group/microsoft.public.office.misc/topics

http://www.microsoft.com/communitie.../default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.office.misc