Cleaning my registry

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Guest

Looking at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE I see some old stuff:
- American Online [I never had AOL, this is from Compaq]
- Apple [the only entry is QuickTime32, but I recently uninstalled QuickTime]
- Apple Computer, Inc. [the only entry is QuickTime, but I recently
uninstalled QuickTime]
- Earthlink [I had them as my ISP many months ago, but I deleted it through
the wizard]
- Macromedia [the only entry is FlashPlayer, but I just uninstalled
FlashPlayer]
- Yahoo [the entries are Companion and Uninstaller, probably from the one
hour I had Yahoo toolbar installed]

All these entries are remnants from old software, right? All of the above
can be deleted, right?

Can someone list a Microsoft support URL that explains the registry? I'm
running XP Pro SP2. Thanks.
 
Pete said:
Looking at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE I see some old stuff:
- American Online [I never had AOL, this is from Compaq]
- Apple [the only entry is QuickTime32, but I recently uninstalled
QuickTime]
- Apple Computer, Inc. [the only entry is QuickTime, but I recently
uninstalled QuickTime]
- Earthlink [I had them as my ISP many months ago, but I deleted it
through
the wizard]
- Macromedia [the only entry is FlashPlayer, but I just uninstalled
FlashPlayer]
- Yahoo [the entries are Companion and Uninstaller, probably from the one
hour I had Yahoo toolbar installed]

All these entries are remnants from old software, right? All of the above
can be deleted, right?

Can someone list a Microsoft support URL that explains the registry? I'm
running XP Pro SP2. Thanks.
Click to expand...
It seems that the uninstaller routines did not touch the registry.

You failed to mention any problem that these orphan entries cause. Hence,
it isn't broken and doesn't need to be fixed.

Sorry, I don't know of any network site that describes very much about the
registry.

My reference is:

Microsoft Windows Registry Guide
Author: Jerry Honeycutt
Publisher: Microsoft Press

This book is big.

Jim
 
Pete said:
Looking at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE I see some old stuff:
- American Online [I never had AOL, this is from Compaq]
- Apple [the only entry is QuickTime32, but I recently uninstalled
QuickTime]
- Apple Computer, Inc. [the only entry is QuickTime, but I recently
uninstalled QuickTime]
- Earthlink [I had them as my ISP many months ago, but I deleted it
through the wizard]
- Macromedia [the only entry is FlashPlayer, but I just uninstalled
FlashPlayer]
- Yahoo [the entries are Companion and Uninstaller, probably from the
one hour I had Yahoo toolbar installed]

All these entries are remnants from old software, right? All of the
above can be deleted, right?

Can someone list a Microsoft support URL that explains the registry?
I'm running XP Pro SP2. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Do a Google for REGISTRY and you'll find lots of data.

Yes, you can delete those, but that is only part of the full list of
locations where things live. It -could- break something or cause errors to
remove things without knowing what you're doing.

If you MUST remove them, Export each key you remove to a safe location so ou
can put it back if you need to!

I would advixe ignoring these entries; they are not causing any prolbems and
aren't important in the over scheme of things.

HTH
Pop`
 
Pete said:
Looking at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE I see some old stuff:
- American Online [I never had AOL, this is from Compaq]
- Apple [the only entry is QuickTime32, but I recently uninstalled
QuickTime]
- Apple Computer, Inc. [the only entry is QuickTime, but I recently
uninstalled QuickTime]
- Earthlink [I had them as my ISP many months ago, but I deleted it
through
the wizard]
- Macromedia [the only entry is FlashPlayer, but I just uninstalled
FlashPlayer]
- Yahoo [the entries are Companion and Uninstaller, probably from the one
hour I had Yahoo toolbar installed]

All these entries are remnants from old software, right? All of the above
can be deleted, right?

Can someone list a Microsoft support URL that explains the registry? I'm
running XP Pro SP2. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Microsoft does describe the registry as a hierarchical database. In such a
database, orphan entries cause no problems.
Jim
 
The problem I am trying to solve is that over the past few months I am
getting more and more (hard to say, maybe five now) very fast popups
appearing at login, and sometimes one or two at logout. I thought that
cleaning up after the installers might help.
--


Pete



Jim said:
Pete said:
Looking at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE I see some old stuff:
- American Online [I never had AOL, this is from Compaq]
- Apple [the only entry is QuickTime32, but I recently uninstalled
QuickTime]
- Apple Computer, Inc. [the only entry is QuickTime, but I recently
uninstalled QuickTime]
- Earthlink [I had them as my ISP many months ago, but I deleted it
through
the wizard]
- Macromedia [the only entry is FlashPlayer, but I just uninstalled
FlashPlayer]
- Yahoo [the entries are Companion and Uninstaller, probably from the one
hour I had Yahoo toolbar installed]

All these entries are remnants from old software, right? All of the above
can be deleted, right?

Can someone list a Microsoft support URL that explains the registry? I'm
running XP Pro SP2. Thanks.
Click to expand...
It seems that the uninstaller routines did not touch the registry.

You failed to mention any problem that these orphan entries cause. Hence,
it isn't broken and doesn't need to be fixed.

Sorry, I don't know of any network site that describes very much about the
registry.

My reference is:

Microsoft Windows Registry Guide
Author: Jerry Honeycutt
Publisher: Microsoft Press

This book is big.

Jim
Click to expand...
 
Pete said:
The problem I am trying to solve is that over the past few months I am
getting more and more (hard to say, maybe five now) very fast popups
appearing at login, and sometimes one or two at logout. I thought that
cleaning up after the installers might help.
Click to expand...

Nope. It is very unlikely that there is any connection.

sysinternals.com have a utility called AutoRuns that might help identify the
cause of the popups.

Harry.
 
Msconfig would give you a better idea of what is happening at startup/logon
but it is very hard for most users to determine the meaning of all those
items. I suggest you try booting into Safe Mode and scanning for Spyware if
you have popup problems. AdAware SE is free and I have had pretty good
results with it cleaning up people computers. If you try it or anything else
be sure to "update" the program's reference definitions files first.

Steve

http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html --- AdAware SE

Pete said:
The problem I am trying to solve is that over the past few months I am
getting more and more (hard to say, maybe five now) very fast popups
appearing at login, and sometimes one or two at logout. I thought that
cleaning up after the installers might help.
--


Pete



Jim said:
Pete said:
Looking at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE I see some old stuff:
- American Online [I never had AOL, this is from Compaq]
- Apple [the only entry is QuickTime32, but I recently uninstalled
QuickTime]
- Apple Computer, Inc. [the only entry is QuickTime, but I recently
uninstalled QuickTime]
- Earthlink [I had them as my ISP many months ago, but I deleted it
through
the wizard]
- Macromedia [the only entry is FlashPlayer, but I just uninstalled
FlashPlayer]
- Yahoo [the entries are Companion and Uninstaller, probably from the
one
hour I had Yahoo toolbar installed]

All these entries are remnants from old software, right? All of the
above
can be deleted, right?

Can someone list a Microsoft support URL that explains the registry?
I'm
running XP Pro SP2. Thanks.
Click to expand...
It seems that the uninstaller routines did not touch the registry.

You failed to mention any problem that these orphan entries cause.
Hence,
it isn't broken and doesn't need to be fixed.

Sorry, I don't know of any network site that describes very much about
the
registry.

My reference is:

Microsoft Windows Registry Guide
Author: Jerry Honeycutt
Publisher: Microsoft Press

This book is big.

Jim
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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