XP Registry

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Hi there, I want to know about the workings of the registry, I have XP SP2.
I'm aware of the need for the registry & have read a few articles on this
site. My computer experience goes back to Windows 1.1. I have fiddled with
(for want of a better word) with Win InI, etc. I have just downloaded
RegSeeker and notice a lot of instances of "unused open with entry's",
Invalid Active X/Com entry, Extension not used, etc. in my registry. I'm a
firm believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it". I don't have any problems
at the momement but I'm not going to wait until I do to find out more about
the registry.

Could I please have a few suggestions on atricles to read from the internet.

Many thanks
 
Bob Brown said:
Hi there, I want to know about the workings of the registry, I have XP SP2.
I'm aware of the need for the registry & have read a few articles on this
site. My computer experience goes back to Windows 1.1. I have fiddled with
(for want of a better word) with Win InI, etc. I have just downloaded
RegSeeker and notice a lot of instances of "unused open with entry's",
Invalid Active X/Com entry, Extension not used, etc. in my registry. I'm a
firm believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it". I don't have any problems
at the momement but I'm not going to wait until I do to find out more about
the registry.

Could I please have a few suggestions on atricles to read from the internet.
Click to expand...


Of course you can hardly call 1.1 "Windows", hehe :) I take it then that you've made a big leap? Windows has had a registry since
95.

If you just want to learn what the registry is, it's basically a more robust way of keeping settings and configuration data than INI
files were. It works by keeping all the data in a hive (a big, chunk-file) on disk which is read into memory (not all, but enough
to make it much faster than using INI files-well, unless they're cached).

There are books you can read if you want details; usually they just cover specific entries, only giving a brief description and
history at the beginning.

If you are wondering about removing those entries, don't worry. There is a lot of stuff in there which may or may not be useless.
Most programmers don't properly clean up after themselves when they uninstall their programs, and leave traces of files, registry
entries, etc. all over the place. There are usually lots of stuff in the registry which "cleaners" flag as being unused. Some are,
some aren't, it really depends on your system. Take a look through the list and see if there are any related to a program you
uninstalled. If so, then it's probably safe to remove those. If there are some that you don't recognize, it's safer to just leave;
they don't really cause any problems, but removing them might.

I'll take a look at RegSeeker to see what kinds of results it returns and give you specific advice then.
 
Thanks Alec

Alec S. said:
Of course you can hardly call 1.1 "Windows", hehe :) I take it then that you've made a big leap? Windows has had a registry since
95.

If you just want to learn what the registry is, it's basically a more robust way of keeping settings and configuration data than INI
files were. It works by keeping all the data in a hive (a big, chunk-file) on disk which is read into memory (not all, but enough
to make it much faster than using INI files-well, unless they're cached).

There are books you can read if you want details; usually they just cover specific entries, only giving a brief description and
history at the beginning.

If you are wondering about removing those entries, don't worry. There is a lot of stuff in there which may or may not be useless.
Most programmers don't properly clean up after themselves when they uninstall their programs, and leave traces of files, registry
entries, etc. all over the place. There are usually lots of stuff in the registry which "cleaners" flag as being unused. Some are,
some aren't, it really depends on your system. Take a look through the list and see if there are any related to a program you
uninstalled. If so, then it's probably safe to remove those. If there are some that you don't recognize, it's safer to just leave;
they don't really cause any problems, but removing them might.

I'll take a look at RegSeeker to see what kinds of results it returns and give you specific advice then.
Click to expand...
 
Alec S. said:
If you are wondering about removing those entries, don't worry. There
is a lot of stuff in there which may or may not be useless.
Most programmers don't properly clean up after themselves when they
uninstall their programs, and leave traces of files, registry
entries, etc. all over the place. There are usually lots of stuff in
the registry which "cleaners" flag as being unused. Some are,
some aren't, it really depends on your system. Take a look through
the list and see if there are any related to a program you
uninstalled. If so, then it's probably safe to remove those. If there
are some that you don't recognize, it's safer to just leave;
they don't really cause any problems, but removing them might.

I'll take a look at RegSeeker to see what kinds of results it returns
and give you specific advice then.
Click to expand...




Yeah I wouldn't worry too much about the results that registry cleaners give unless you're experiencing some problems, and even then
focus on related entries.

These types of programs almost always generate a lot of false positives. There's many reasons why; they cannot find a file/folder
even if it exists, they make invalid assumptions, they don't know how a program works, they don't know the user's system and their
patterns, they have limited support of formats, and so on.

The most important thing with these is to make sure that they provide an explanation of why the flagged what they did. If they fill
the list up with a bunch of stuff without giving some kind of reason-a detailed explanation of what's wrong with it, not just a
simple one-line reason-then you should avoid removing them unless you're certain of what it is.
 
Thanks Alec, I agree totally.

Bob Brown

Alec S. said:
Yeah I wouldn't worry too much about the results that registry cleaners give unless you're experiencing some problems, and even then
focus on related entries.

These types of programs almost always generate a lot of false positives. There's many reasons why; they cannot find a file/folder
even if it exists, they make invalid assumptions, they don't know how a program works, they don't know the user's system and their
patterns, they have limited support of formats, and so on.

The most important thing with these is to make sure that they provide an explanation of why the flagged what they did. If they fill
the list up with a bunch of stuff without giving some kind of reason-a detailed explanation of what's wrong with it, not just a
simple one-line reason-then you should avoid removing them unless you're certain of what it is.
Click to expand...
 
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