Registry Cleaners

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Lady
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Paul Lady

Will someone please point me to a resource to help me determine what I'm
getting with these tools?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it seems to keep running through my mind.

Being human, however, it never ceases to amaze me how curiosity still drives
us to the brink of the final leap.

I've tried it twice, and both times have had to fix things afterward.

TIA, pjl
 
Hi Paul - MO, FWIW

First, "If it ain't broke, etc." is pretty good advice.

Second, 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 capabible of doing specific Reg
searches, and you NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of
something that didin't get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have
foresight enough to install it using Total Uninstall in the first place.)

Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt:

Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm 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://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/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.


--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Hi Paul - MO, FWIW

First, "If it ain't broke, etc." is pretty good advice.

Second, 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 capabible of doing specific Reg
searches, and you NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of
something that didin't get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have
foresight enough to install it using Total Uninstall in the first place.)

Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt:

Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm 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://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/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.


--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Jim, I'm on the case, will check it out.

Just FYI, when I looked for my post to see if there was a reply, my post was
not there, but your reply was. What's going on here I'm wondering?

Thx, pjl
 
Jim, I'm on the case, will check it out.

Just FYI, when I looked for my post to see if there was a reply, my post was
not there, but your reply was. What's going on here I'm wondering?

Thx, pjl
 
Hi Paul - Don't know what might be going on. Check to see if you've perhaps
inadvertantly selected a "Hide Read or Ignored Messages" view, maybe?

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Hi Paul - Don't know what might be going on. Check to see if you've perhaps
inadvertantly selected a "Hide Read or Ignored Messages" view, maybe?

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Not that I can see. Just another "funny", I guess. Some times those things
seem to happen.

pjl
 
Not that I can see. Just another "funny", I guess. Some times those things
seem to happen.

pjl
 
Help me out here, please. What's a "real" newsreader? Sorry, but I'm
missing something.

pjl
 
Help me out here, please. What's a "real" newsreader? Sorry, but I'm
missing something.

pjl
 
If all you read are text newsgroups, Outlook Express works
just fine. If you want to download from binary groups, much
better alternatives exist (e.g. Forte Agent).

Rick
 
If all you read are text newsgroups, Outlook Express works
just fine. If you want to download from binary groups, much
better alternatives exist (e.g. Forte Agent).

Rick
 
I've always been a loyal follower of Norton System Works
and have bought it for Three years. It saved me many
times after I "fixed stuff that aint broke."
Also, If you open a *.reg file and click yes to add to
registry, it will overwrite those registry entries. The
same thing happens when you import a .reg. I haven't
experimented with this a lot, but I have never ended up
with 'a mess.' I guess you are right though, import does
not delete anything, it just overwrites if the old has the
same name as the new, so you would end up with some old
suff.

-----Original Message-----
Hi Paul - MO, FWIW

First, "If it ain't broke, etc." is pretty good advice.

Second, 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 capabible of doing specific Reg
searches, and you NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of
something that didin't get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have
foresight enough to install it using Total Uninstall in the first place.)

Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt:

Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-
Click to expand...
online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm 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://home.t-
Click to expand...
online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
 
I've always been a loyal follower of Norton System Works
and have bought it for Three years. It saved me many
times after I "fixed stuff that aint broke."
Also, If you open a *.reg file and click yes to add to
registry, it will overwrite those registry entries. The
same thing happens when you import a .reg. I haven't
experimented with this a lot, but I have never ended up
with 'a mess.' I guess you are right though, import does
not delete anything, it just overwrites if the old has the
same name as the new, so you would end up with some old
suff.

-----Original Message-----
Hi Paul - MO, FWIW

First, "If it ain't broke, etc." is pretty good advice.

Second, 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 capabible of doing specific Reg
searches, and you NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of
something that didin't get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have
foresight enough to install it using Total Uninstall in the first place.)

Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt:

Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-
Click to expand...
online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm 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://home.t-
Click to expand...
online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
 
In said:
I've always been a loyal follower of Norton System Works
and have bought it for Three years. It saved me many
times after I "fixed stuff that aint broke."
Also, If you open a *.reg file and click yes to add to
registry, it will overwrite those registry entries. The
same thing happens when you import a .reg. I haven't
experimented with this a lot, but I have never ended up
with 'a mess.' I guess you are right though, import does
not delete anything, it just overwrites if the old has the
same name as the new, so you would end up with some old
suff.
Click to expand...

..REG file "Import" is _merge_. Merge the contents into the registry.
That may result in a Add, Change or Delete actions. Yes you can
"delete" from .REG files with special syntax.
 
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