Question How to COMPLETELY Remove Anything Installed (Drivers/Registry/etc.) From a Peripheral?

[ascendant]

I just finished building myself a new computer last week. I want to do my best to keep the registry, files, and drivers clean.

With that said, I have a wireless headset I want to test out. I don't want to hook up my old PC again, as I stored it away as a backup for now. At the same time, I'm not sure if the headset works right or not, so I need to test it out.

If I hook this thing up to the new PC, other than drivers in device manager, what else gets installed on the PC? Is there files in the registry too? Any files stored on the hard drive? I know it's something extremely small and minor, but I literally just build this thing days ago, and don't want to already start sticking things in device manager and wherever else that I won't end up using.

If it is possible to completely remove everything that gets installed when you hook a new device up like a headset, please let me know what I'd need to do in order to make that happen.

 

[mikeymikec]

There's a lot of misconception in your questions, but I'll try to answer what I can and skip the not-strictly-necessary corrections at this point.

1 - there are no files stored in the registry. The Windows registry is a giant settings/configuration list, nothing more.
2 - A Windows installation will deposit thousands of files on the storage drive.

3 - "If it is possible to completely remove everything that gets installed when you hook a new device up like a headset, please let me know what I'd need to do in order to make that happen."

First of all, why on earth would you want to do that?

I presume it's a USB audio headset (mic and headphones) you want to connect. An ordinary product would should be handled by a modern version of Windows (say 10/11) completely automatically and 99.9% of the time correctly within seconds of you connecting it.

The only sensible alternative - assuming the product was designed for Win10/11 - is that the manufacturer has a strict set of instructions for you to follow when installing their product as well as an installation program from their website to get the job done correctly.

The only slight difficulty I would imagine with a basic USB headset would be to tell Windows that when the headset is connected, that the headphones should be the default audio output and the mic should be the default audio input. Traditionally I would go into Control Panel > Sound and check the contents of two tabs in there to ensure those are set correctly, then what should happen from then on is whenever the headset is connected, Windows should automatically switch the defaults back to the headset.

If it's a headset with two 35mm headphone jacks then even less work is required, it would all be handled by the on-board audio hardware.

 

[mindless1]

This is a really crazy faux-need you have. It makes no difference at all if something hooked up once, ends up having a few lines in the registry or driver files on the windows storage volume. The only real exception that comes to mind is if there is a software install for some helper app and/or helper app update checker app and you won't want those running all the time, long after you stopped using the hardware, but then add/remove programs should get rid of that w/o any hassle.

However there are various programs which can monitor and log changes made to the registry, and files, or you might be able to do some kind of sandbox, or make a system backup and revert back to the prior state, but none of this is worth doing.

Besides, why would you even want to do it? You're trying it (the headset) because you might want to use it, correct? If you want to use it, you need those files and reg entries.

It's not really keeping windows "tidy", this is nothing compared to the clutter that everything else will build up, that you can never reasonably keep under control because things happen in the background every time you launch many apps or just leave windows sitting around to do what it wants to.

However, some people do let their system get bloated beyond reason and eventually want to just make a clean start, but in that case, what I would want is the OS installed, core apps, AND the drivers including that one, THEN make an OS partition image backup that is completely ready to use with all your hardware. You can then revert back to that at a later date, having put all your user generated data on a different logical partition so it remains after the OS partition restoration.

The next stage in doing that would be to personalize windows and apps settings, to get the new rig optimized for most efficient use, and ideally then make a backup of the OS partition again because odds are, that's the one you're going to want to restore some day, and so on, with future changes you make, odds are you will just want to get back to the most optimized running state of the system before *something* went wrong. A few lines in the registry or a few driver files, won't be the thing that went wrong.

 

[ascendant]

There's a lot of misconception in your questions, but I'll try to answer what I can and skip the not-strictly-necessary corrections at this point.

1 - there are no files stored in the registry. The Windows registry is a giant settings/configuration list, nothing more.
2 - A Windows installation will deposit thousands of files on the storage drive.

3 - "If it is possible to completely remove everything that gets installed when you hook a new device up like a headset, please let me know what I'd need to do in order to make that happen."

First of all, why on earth would you want to do that?

I presume it's a USB audio headset (mic and headphones) you want to connect. An ordinary product would should be handled by a modern version of Windows (say 10/11) completely automatically and 99.9% of the time correctly within seconds of you connecting it.

The only sensible alternative - assuming the product was designed for Win10/11 - is that the manufacturer has a strict set of instructions for you to follow when installing their product as well as an installation program from their website to get the job done correctly.

The only slight difficulty I would imagine with a basic USB headset would be to tell Windows that when the headset is connected, that the headphones should be the default audio output and the mic should be the default audio input. Traditionally I would go into Control Panel > Sound and check the contents of two tabs in there to ensure those are set correctly, then what should happen from then on is whenever the headset is connected, Windows should automatically switch the defaults back to the headset.

If it's a headset with two 35mm headphone jacks then even less work is required, it would all be handled by the on-board audio hardware.

Ok, so the reason I have that misconception is over the years, I changed speakers a few times with my old PC, and went through five different headsets (I had the same PC for over 15yrs, just upgraded over those years). But, every time I'd connect new speakers or headsets, those items would remain in the audio controls of the PC. So, even the ones that I was no longer using was cluttering up my audio options. I just didn't want to start out already with an audio option that I might not end up using (if they aren't working properly, which I believe is the case; I just figure I might as well double check and make sure it wasn't the old PC)

 

[ascendant]

Besides, why would you even want to do it? You're trying it (the headset) because you might want to use it, correct? If you want to use it, you need those files and reg entries.

I'm most likely not going to end up using the headset, as I'm pretty sure the issue was the headset. But like I said, I figure I might as well make sure before tossing them out. It's the only wireless headset I have currently, and don't want to buy a new one (or use the wired one) if I don't need to. When I hooked up the wired headset to my old PC, it improved a lot, but occasionally still had issues. So, I know there is a possibility it was a connectivity issue with the previous PC.

Also, in regards to your other remarks... is there any decent registry/file cleaner out there? I used to have Glary Utilities, mainly just to clean the registry, but I was once told (a LONG time ago) that using a registry cleaner like Glary to clean the registry is like using a broom to sweep one parking space of a mall. I can say it did clean a lot of things out over the years, but from what you're saying, the difference was probably negligible anyway, right?

 

[mindless1]

So-called registry cleaners will miss a lot of junk but also potentially remove things they shouldn't. It's like a shot in the dark, and not worth the hassle of potentially breaking something.

Registry entries don't slow down a windows PC. IF they are loading something you don't need, then you can just use one of several various ways to disable whatever is being loaded, if a simple uninstall via add/remove programs doesn't do the trick.

The only file cleaning I use is to occasionally clean out the windows temp and user temp folders. Those files don't even take up much space, but by removing the clutter there, I can better keep track of new files to monitor what is going on.

I have app(s?) somewhere that monitor all changes made during an "event", from when you set it to start monitoring changes, until you select the end point to stop, but I can't recall what they are called, as I haven't used them in many years and may not even be compatible with current win10/11. Otherwise, you can use powertools like Process Monitor to watch registry changes or compare two versions of the registry with something like Nirsoft's RegistryChangesView.

Process Monitor - Sysinternals

Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.

learn.microsoft.com

Compare snapshots of Windows Registry

Compare 2 snapshots of Windows Registry, display all changes, and optionally generate .reg file.

www.nirsoft.net

You could also look over the other sysinternals and nirsoft system utilities (among other sources) to see if anything else they offer has any use to you. For basic tasks like these, there should be freeware available to suit most needs. At least make a backup of registry entries and files before removing any.

I still wouldn't bother, as the only time you'll notice a difference is if you remove something that needs to be there and then something is broken.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ok, so the reason I have that misconception is over the years, I changed speakers a few times with my old PC, and went through five different headsets (I had the same PC for over 15yrs, just upgraded over those years). But, every time I'd connect new speakers or headsets, those items would remain in the audio controls of the PC. So, even the ones that I was no longer using was cluttering up my audio options. I just didn't want to start out already with an audio option that I might not end up using (if they aren't working properly, which I believe is the case; I just figure I might as well double check and make sure it wasn't the old PC)

Are we talking about USB headsets or analog (ones needing 35mm headphone jacks)?

If USB:

I've never done this before, but I wonder if enabling hidden devices in Device Manager would reveal devices that have been connected to the PC and could be uninstalled from there in the usual way, resulting in their presence being removed from what you describe as 'audio controls'.

As Windows isn't my primary OS any more I can't easily confirm this (nor do I have any USB audio devices here), I can't confirm this.