Which registry utility to use? Need to remove uninstalled program references

[slicksilver]

Its all in the title. I've used cleaners like ccleaner and registry mechanic but none seem to be completely removing uninstalled program references. When I search with uninstalled program name in the registry after the clean up they are still there. What utility can I used to find and delete all of them? Sure you can use regedit but then it finds only one at a time and some programs have tens of references.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Nothinman]

Are they causing problems? Then stop worrying about it.

 

[lxskllr]

Are they causing problems? Then stop worrying about it.

Yup, all they do is sit there. It's nothing to worry about.

 

[Modelworks]

Use revo uninstaller when you uninstall applications and it will remove all the leftover junk. Contrary to the other replies there is a reason to keep the registry clean. It is a file that resides on the hard drive, not in memory. When programs need data in the registry they have to load the file and search it, excess junk slows that down. Another reason is that conflicts can appear from old programs that use similar keys.

Revo is free and works well.
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

 

[corkyg]

Revo is a very useful tool, especially for pros who have to clean up client's machines.

 

[Nothinman]

Use revo uninstaller when you uninstall applications and it will remove all the leftover junk. Contrary to the other replies there is a reason to keep the registry clean. It is a file that resides on the hard drive, not in memory. When programs need data in the registry they have to load the file and search it, excess junk slows that down. Another reason is that conflicts can appear from old programs that use similar keys.

Revo is free and works well.
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

And you have real proof of those slowdowns?

 

[Snapster]

Use revo uninstaller when you uninstall applications and it will remove all the leftover junk. Contrary to the other replies there is a reason to keep the registry clean. It is a file that resides on the hard drive, not in memory. When programs need data in the registry they have to load the file and search it, excess junk slows that down. Another reason is that conflicts can appear from old programs that use similar keys.

Revo is free and works well.
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

Registry hives are loading into memory upon boot and are used in memory unless otherwise paged out or a write occurs. Conflicts do cause slowdowns more than enumerating registry entries so the debate over cleaning the registry depends on what is wrong in the first place.

 

[Nothinman]

Registry hives are loading into memory upon boot and are used in memory unless otherwise paged out or a write occurs. Conflicts do cause slowdowns more than enumerating registry entries so the debate over cleaning the registry depends on what is wrong in the first place.

And most apps will be querying just their little section of the registry, not scanning the whole thing.

 

[corkyg]

Doesn't it all get scanned during the boot cycle?

 

[Nothinman]

Doesn't it all get scanned during the boot cycle?

Why would it scan the entire thing? It's just a specialized database.

 

[Pretty Cool]

Even if Registry cleaners were perfect, they could not even remove everything from uninstalled programs because applications dump/alter files all over your hard drive. In theory, the best method to remove leftovers would to use an Uninstaller to track the initial install. Unfortunately, the Uninstallers of today have not impressed me at all.

 

[corkyg]

Why would it scan the entire thing? It's just a specialized database.

So it knows what to do. Is not that the purpose of the Registry?

 

[lxskllr]

My registry's about 570mb. Removing a few kb of entries isn't gonna do anything for performance.

 

[Nothinman]

So it knows what to do. Is not that the purpose of the Registry?

The purpose of the registry is to hold settings for Windows and it's programs, so each individual part of Windows reads it's own keys on startup and does it's thing. There's no reason for Windows to load the whole thing on startup.

 

[corkyg]

Not saying it loads the whole thing - but doesn't it scan through it to find the specific keys to load?

 

[Nothinman]

Not saying it loads the whole thing - but doesn't it scan through it to find the specific keys to load?

No, It's a tree structure so it starts at the root and follows the pointers down to the key it needs. Although there's virtually 0 information on the Internet about the actual file format used, but there's no way it scans the entire hive for every read because the latency for that even during normal usage would be huge.

 

[slicksilver]

My registry's about 570mb. Removing a few kb of entries isn't gonna do anything for performance.

How did you figure out this?

 

[slicksilver]

Yup, all they do is sit there. It's nothing to worry about.

They are not causing problems as such. But I need to get the program's references completely out because otherwise when I try to reinstall the same program back the program acts funny due to the existing references. I used this tool jv16 before and it worked like a charm. I could remove all the program references by searching as a keyword and deleting all references. Unfortunately I do not have the monies to purchase the program and the trial period has expired.

 

[lxskllr]

How did you figure out this?

Opened regedit, then exported it to a file on my desktop.

Edit:
Speaking of Regedit, why not search for the keys that way?

 

[capeconsultant]

Using regedit when there are hundreds of entries is less fun than getting teeth pulled Try finding every Norton marker, for example. Almost impossible to know which one to change/remove/delete.

 

[lxskllr]

Using regedit when there are hundreds of entries is less fun than getting teeth pulled Try finding every Norton marker, for example. Almost impossible to know which one to change/remove/delete.

Depends on what the program is. If you don't have norton installed anymore, you can go through them pretty quickly, and delete them. If you have 3 Adobe products installed, but only want to get rid of 1, it gets a little more tedious.

 

[jalaram]

Is there a way just to get a list of all matches of some search? In my case, I'm testing our software's uninstall. I want to accumulate a list of what we currently leave behind.

 

[Nothinman]

Opened regedit, then exported it to a file on my desktop.

Edit:
Speaking of Regedit, why not search for the keys that way?

That can't be accurate though because the exported reg file will be all text so it'll be bigger than the binary data.

 

[lxskllr]

That can't be accurate though because the exported reg file will be all text so it'll be bigger than the binary data.

You're right, I didn't realize that. If I found all the sections, and totaled them right, I'm getting about 117mb.

 

[Fayd]

i had problems before with programs claiming to be installed, but the drive they were installed to had since died and been replaced.

i had to DL some utility from microsoft to permanently delete the program references before reinstalling would work.