Re: Deleted Registry Lines Reappear/Respawn--How to Permanently Get Rid of Them?

On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:12:42 -0800, Susan <> wrote:

> I think this is the last part of my Registry cleaning technique
> questioning--with any luck...
>
> Is it a weakness of the Registry that it must continue to grow
> without bounds as programs are installed and removed?


First, it's only an occasional program that doesn't get all its
registry entries removed when the program is uninstalled. Many
uninstallations don't have that problem.

Second, if an uninstallation leaves some registry entries behind, it
normally makes a very small difference to the total size of the
registry, so the phrase "grow without bounds" is a great
overstatement. Yes, the registry usually continues to grow as programs
are installed and uninstalled, because not all uninstallations are
perfect, but almost never does it get so big that a problem results
from it.

Other than using a tiny amount of extra disk space, having leftover
unused items in the registry doesn't hurt you at all, and it's
entirely unnecessary to try to remove them.



> The only
> recourse an admin has is to periodically (once a year) do a clean
> install


Ugh! That's entirely unnecessary, and almost always a very bad course
of action for most people. Here's my standard post on this subject:

With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to reinstall
Windows (XP or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG
3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and now
Windows Vista, each for the period of time before the next version
came out, and each on two or more machines here. I never reinstalled
any of them, and I have never had anything more than an occasional
minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost
any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and
reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them. It gets you off the
phone quickly, it almost always works, and it doesn't require them to
do any real troubleshooting (a skill that most of them obviously don't
possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your
programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and application
updates, you have to locate and install all the needed drivers for
your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all your apps to work
the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may
have trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs?
Can you find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data
backups to restore? Do you even remember all the customizations and
tweaks you may have installed to make everything work the way you
like? Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and far
between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only after all
other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have failed.

And perhaps most important: if you reformat and reinstall without
finding out what caused your problem, you will very likely repeat the
behavior that caused it, and quickly find yourself back in exactly the
same situation.



> or restore an image or restore points and reconfigure programs
> and data.


Entirely unnecessary.


> Has MS or a 3rd party written a tool that would load a registry
> binary string, search for and remove certain unneeded parts no longer
> installed or used, and then save the edited binary string otherwise
> intact? Right now, even though I have removed everything I can using
> Registry Scanner that is Symantec or Webroot related, for instance, I
> still have numerous lines of REG BINARY and other Registry lines and
> old Notification Area hidden icons/messages related to the Symantec
> and Webroot products I once ran.
>
> There are way to many lines to manually edit out part of a binary
> string to be practical. Why if a program install can write in binary
> strings can't a program's uninstall remove these same strings?
>
> Thank you.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
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