Hi Deb - Glad you're back in operation. Try just re-installing Flash and
see if that fixes that problem. As to RegCure - the following is my
'standard' post concerning Registry Cleaners - I think you'll get a pretty
good idea as to where I (and most MVP's that I know) stand on using them.
In my experience all of these Reg cleaners, even the best, are fraught with
danger. I advise against using them except in one specific instance, that
is when you have one that is capable of doing specific Reg searches, and you
NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of something that didn't
get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have foresight enough to install
it using Total Uninstall, here:
http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/files/tun235.zip, in the first
place.) (As an aside, there are, however, some third party Registry Editors
which can be of great help with both the incorrect uninstall and with
certain malware problems, especially some of theCoolWebSearch types such as
the AppInit_DLLs variant of the about:blank version of CWS, for example. I
can recommend Registrar Lite, here:
http://www.resplendence.com/reglite .)
There are a couple of specific bugs that can cause abnormal growth in either
the System or Software hives; however, they are rare, and unless these hives
in %SystemRoot%\System32\config are very, very large (in the hundreds of
megabytes), then I would council you to leave your Registry alone except for
the special circumstances I mentioned above.
I and most other MVP's that I know believe that Registry modifications of
any type are probably best done manually, very carefully, with a thorough
knowledge of what's installed on your machine, and what you're doing, and
then only when necessary. There's very little (if any!) noticeable benefit
in either space saving or speed achievable by cleaning out the Registry
except in those few cases where there's a specific problem the client is
experiencing (usually uninstall or malware related in my experience) that
needs to be fixed.
Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt, and run it before you do the Reg clean. You'll then have a
true restore available to you. Read below to see why you might not just
using the Reg cleaner's restore:
Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/I've set it up to take a
scheduled backup each night at 12:01AM on a weekly round-robin basis, and a
Monthly on the 1st of each month. See here for how to set that up:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
useful information about this subject.
This program is one of the best things around - saved my butt on many
occasions, and will also run very nicely from a DOS prompt (in case you've
done something that won't let you boot any more and need to revert to a
previous Registry) IF you're FAT32 OR have a DOS startup disk with NTFS
write drivers in an NTFS system. (There is also a way using the Recovery
Console to get back to being "bootable" even without separate DOS write NTFS
drivers, after which you can do a "normal" Erdnt restore.) (BTW, it also
includes a Registry defragger program). Free, and very, very highly
recommended.
FYI, quoting from the above document:
"Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to make a
complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole registry
(for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is saved), nor can the
exported file be used later to replace the current registry with the old
one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is merged with the current
registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of old and new registry keys.
FWIW, the second question I ask clients is whether they've recently used a
Reg Cleaner or tried to restore from one. (The first question I ask is
whether they've any non-commercial Norton/Symantec software installed.
) )
--
Regards, Jim Byrd,
My Blog, Defending Your Machine,
http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/
In Deb <
[email protected]> typed:
|| Jim ,
||
|| Thank you so much it worked all is working (well except the flash
|| player for some stragne reason ) Now ..should I uninstall the copy
|| of RegCure I so stupidly bought ??
||
|| "Jim Byrd" wrote:
||
||| Hi Deb - From my Blog, addy below in my Signature:
|||
|||
||| #########IMPORTANT#########
||| Before you try to remove spyware using any of the programs below,
||| download both a copy of LSPFIX here:
|||
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
|||
||| AND a copy of Winsockfix for W95, W98, and ME
|||
http://www.tacktech.com/pub/winsockfix/WinsockFix.zip
||| Directions here:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=257
|||
||| or here for Win2k/XP
|||
http://files.webattack.com/localdl834/WinsockxpFix.exe
||| Info and download here:
|||
http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html Directions
||| here:
http://www.iup.edu/house/resnet/winfix.shtm
|||
||| The process of removing certain malware may kill your internet
||| connection. If this should occur, these programs, LSPFIX and
||| WINSOCKFIX, will enable you to regain your connection.For XP SP2,
||| you can also use the Run command:
|||
||| netsh winsock reset catalog
|||
||| to fix this problem without the need for these programs. For XP
||| pre-SP2, you can use this Run command:
|||
||| netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
|||
||| Also, one MS technician suggested that the following sequence of Run
||| commands for XP may help in some cases:
|||
||| netsh int reset all
||| ipconfig /flushdns
|||
||| See also:
|||
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/winsock.htm
||| for additional XPSP2 info/approaches using the netsh command. An
||| alternative approach with necessary .reg files which will often
||| work even when the above doesn't is defined here, courtesy of MVP
||| Bob Cerelli:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/ie_tips.htm#winsock_fix
||| Recommended.
|||
||| Remember - you need to do any downloads ahead of time BEFORE you do
||| any malware cleaning.
||| #########IMPORTANT#########
|||
|||
||| --
||| Regards, Jim Byrd,
||| My Blog, Defending Your Machine,
|||
http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/
|||
|||
|||
||| In ||| Deb <
[email protected]> typed:
||||| So far nothing is working but I do really appreciate the help !
|||||
||||| "Elmo" wrote:
|||||
|||||| Deb wrote:
||||||| Ok so I downloaded RegCure, ran it, fixed all 432 problems.
||||||| Then when I re- booted my laptop it kept saying "Windows
||||||| sockets failed to initialize." and I can't get onto the
||||||| internet.
|||||||
||||||| I know it's not a problem with my server; my desktop and my
||||||| other laptop is still connecting.
|||||||
||||||| Any ideas on how to fix this? I am running XP Home edition on
||||||| the laptop with the problem.
||||||
|||||| Click Start, Run, type:
||||||
|||||| netsh winsock reset
||||||
|||||| Press Enter key
||||||
|||||| Restart the system
||||||
|||||| You can also try this software download from a working machine:
||||||
|||||| LSP-Fix
||||||
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
||||||
|||||| --
|||||| Joe =o)
