TBerk said:
What is to be used when you have a corrupted install of a program?
Case in point;
- User has McAfee Home Edition on a Dell system.
- Subscription has expired, wants to change to another application.
- Running 'Add Remove Programs' brings up McAfee version of install;
it fails to complete quoting an error message that this Windows
Installer is corrupt.
btw- the original trouble which brought me into this is the infection
of the system by AntiVirusPro and the user's subsequent attempts to
remove it.
<
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=antiviruspro>
In researching what regcleaners might be suitable for use with XP I
keep getting (what seems like propaganda) messages saying they are not
worth the effort.
Flames not required, useful suggestions encouraged.
'Registry cleaners' are *not* what you are demonstrating in your example.
Spot registry editing - at best - is what you have there.
There was a set of entries left over by the bum install. You needed to get
rid of those because new products saw it and assumed you still had the
product. REGEDIT and the DEL key could have done the same job as quickly
and as efficiently and with much less chance of you deleting anything that
you didn't need to delete.
Here's what I hate about the whole 'registry cleaners' argument... The only
reasons that people give for their existence is incomplete uninstalls, etc.
It seems people are content letting the companies put out products that
cannot clean up after themselves... It's not Microsoft's fault that the
third-party companies put out products that cannot properly uninstall what
they put into place - that would be the software manufacturer's of said
products - right?
The problem is not with the 'registry cleaners' themselves (in some cases) -
but with the usage of them. The number of variables such a product would
have to take into account is phenomenal. So much so that I believe the only
way these programs would be useful is if they were installed before you
started installing all of the many millions of products you could install -
and then it keeps track of said installs just like if you did a
filemon/regmon before/after you installed it - as well as it keeps tracks of
changes every time you utilize/close said application - in case it furthers
where its tendrils goes - and then if you ever uninstall it - it uses all of
that combined information to literally and quite thoroughly wipe your system
of all traces (giving you choices to save certain files - such as those you
CREATED with said product...)
I know of no such product - I know of products that do part of that, but not
everything I gave. A registry cleaner is simply going through and finding
registry entries that it deems shouldn't be there. Users (in some cases)
can review these finds... However - if the user knew what they were looking
for - they would have probably found it and deleted it on their own - why
should they trust this third-party product that tells them a certain key is
unnecessary? Now - you may say, "They can research it" - but if they had
researched it before - they probably would have found the 'manual removal'
instructions on the products support site that tells them JUST what they
need to delete. Most people want the easy fix and unlike they might do with
other items - they choose to trust whatever the computer tells them and just
click "ok". It happens all the time.
Are registry cleaners innately *bad*? No.
Should anyone who doesn't already understand the registry use them? My
opinion is *no*.
It's like giving someone (who happens not to be an auto-mechanic and knows
NOTHING about engines/automobiles beyond using them to get from point A to
point B) a toolset and opening the hood of your car... GO! Yeah - that
might not work out as planned. Might work out fine. Willing to play the
odds?
.