Registry Key

[Ed Pyle]

I have a corrupted registry key that I cannot delete. When I try to delete
it using REGEDIT I get a message to the effect "Cannot delete (key name):
Error while deleting key." Any ideas on how I can get rid of this registry
key?

 

[nettelbug]

did you try to delete it in safemode? What key is it?

 

[John John]

What is the name of the key? That error message doesn't necessarily
mean that the key is corrupt, more likely you don't have permissions to
delete it.

John

 

[VanguardLH]

in message

I have a corrupted registry key that I cannot delete. When I try to
delete
it using REGEDIT I get a message to the effect "Cannot delete (key
name):
Error while deleting key." Any ideas on how I can get rid of this
registry
key?

You don't have permissions. That means you need to logon under an
admin-level account to have those permissions, or sufficient
permissions to change the permissions on that key.

Another cause is the use of non-displayable characters, like a NUL
character, in the registry key's name or the data item's name. That
means you will never be able to delete the item from the registry
because the parser will use the rendered (displayed) value for the
item. This is an old trick to keep a user from deleting critical keys
(for an application) or by malware to prevent the user from cleaning
it out of the registry. Use the SysInternals' RegDelNul utility to
rename these keys or data items so they no longer contain NUL
characters
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897448.aspx).

 

[Ace]

I have a corrupted registry key that I cannot delete. When I try to
delete it using REGEDIT I get a message to the effect "Cannot delete
(key name): Error while deleting key." Any ideas on how I can get rid
of this registry key?

Check the permissions on that particular registry key under the Edit
menu.
If you lack the ability to check permissions in Regedit, try running
Regedt32 instead.
You may still need an administrator account to edit the registry if the
above still fails.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Check the permissions on that particular registry key under the Edit
menu.
If you lack the ability to check permissions in Regedit, try running
Regedt32 instead.

Running regedt32.exe is useful under Win2000. Under WinXP
it provides no additional functionality over regedit.exe.

 

[John John]

Check the permissions on that particular registry key under the Edit
menu.
If you lack the ability to check permissions in Regedit, try running
Regedt32 instead.
You may still need an administrator account to edit the registry if the
above still fails.

On Windows XP Regedt32 is just a stub to Regedit, launching Regedt32
invokes Regedit.

John

 

[Ed Pyle]

Yes. Same result in safe mode. The key is HKCU\Identities used by Outlook
Express.

 

[Ed Pyle]

It is an admin account - full permissions. The key I am trying to delete is
HKCU\Identities used by Outlook Express. Somehow it became terribly
corrupted - subkeys are missing all kinds of information. As a result OE
will not start. I need to delete the key in order to start OE and create a
new identity.

I downloaded the RegDelNull utility. When I executed it I got a screen to
accept the license and after clicking "accept" it just went away. When I
execute it now a dos window flashes momentarily and then disappears. What am
I doing wrong?

 

[VanguardLH]

It is an admin account - full permissions. The key I am trying to
delete is
HKCU\Identities used by Outlook Express. Somehow it became terribly
corrupted - subkeys are missing all kinds of information. As a
result OE
will not start. I need to delete the key in order to start OE and
create a
new identity.

So are you really trying to delete the following key?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{<accountSID>}

If you are logged under the account that created that identity, it
should be listed with full permissions since it is the owner of that
key. If you look at permissions, Advanced, Owner tab, is the owner
listed the same account as you are logged in at the time you are
trying to delete that key?

Are you one of the victims using a registry cleaner but don't know how
to cleanup the registry yourself (i.e., you rely on the registry
cleaner without a clue as to how it works or if what it says it will
change or delete should be allowed)? If so, try using the backup that
the registry cleaner should have offered to perform before making all
its changes.

I downloaded the RegDelNull utility. When I executed it I got a
screen to
accept the license and after clicking "accept" it just went away.
When I
execute it now a dos window flashes momentarily and then disappears.
What am
I doing wrong?

It is a DOS-mode program. That means once it is exited, the console
window for it will also close. The console windows remains open only
as long as there is a shell for the DOS-mode program. If you want the
console window to remain open (so you can see the output from other
DOS-mode programs executed within it) then you need to use something
that remains running to keep its console window open.

Run "cmd.exe" which is the command-line interpreter and which opens
its own console window. Then run other DOS-mode programs under
cmd.exe's shell. When those programs exit, cmd.exe is still running
(until you exit from it) so its console window remains open. Since
cmd.exe's shell is still loaded, its console window remains open, and
you can see the output of other programs ran under that shell.

You can use Start -> Run to run cmd.exe. Or you can use one of the
"Command Prompt" shortcuts provided in your Start menu.