Ted said:
Easy: You don't need a registry tool. Any registry tool.
Until recently, I believed this 'Old Wives Tale' myself.
After a spiffy cleaning & compacting of my registry, my computer
boots faster and runs great. Stuff that got cleaned out was basically
several hundred links pointing nowhere (sorta like Ted Zieglar's logic
above) and left-over Zieglars that uninstalls had left behind.
NO ERRORS WERE FIXED ! ... though I did have something in mind. The
anomaly remains. I agree that Reg_Cleaners cannot fix stuff. And of
course, the pucker factor is very high when massaging the registry.
* ERUnt - a great little utility to backup the registry hives before
waxing the floors.
* Disk Image or similar to have a complete partition backup.
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Programs I used in above experiment(under W2k & WinXP):
"Registry Booster"
"Registry Fix" - found even more stuff than Booster ...
"AMUST Registry Cleaner" (2003 Server)
CAUTION & disclaimer: use these tools at your own risk.
The anomaly/glitch I have is probably from deleting CLSID's on my
own, while chasing ghosts.
happy holidays,
- winfield