Uninstal tidy up...

[PeterJ]

Could someone please repost the link to Mirosoft's tegistry cleaner, please.

My wife's machine is doing something ugly and keeps referring to a piece of software which is no longer on it. I have serached here for the link but I cannot find it.

Thanks

[cphubb]

Peter,

Are you looking for RegClean? I posted it. My experience is that if the registry is damaged enough that you feel you need this it won't work. However give it a try. It tends to be conservative in its removal.

Chris

[hand471037]

The registry is the single point of failure in Windows machines, and is a major defect of the whole design. As cphubb says, if you're to the point that you really need Regclean, you might want to consiter reinstalltion, if possible.

Every time you uninstall something, it leaves things behind in the registry, things that point to other things that no longer exist or are needed. This 'cruft' builds up on a Windows machine over time, and makes it slower and crapper. When I used to Admin for a small Architecture firm I was interning at our Windows 95 installs only lasted a year before they got to the point of being unusable- and that was just with normal use, with hardly any install/uninstalls!

Your other option (not for the meek) is to hand-edit the registry to remove all references to the old software package. You can use the blunt-force method, and simply search & remove every instance of the name of the software using RegEdit. It's worked for me in the past. But keep in mind that this might kill your computer completely, for if the registry gets corrupted in any way Windows doesn't work anymore.

Follow the steps to back up the registry prior to doing any of this!

Also, just to note, this is one of the areas where Mac/Linux/Unix sucks less. They don't have this problem (but have others instead :) )

[PeterJ]

Thanks for the notes and the file. I had though someone, maybe one of the Scotts, had posted either a download or a link from microsoft, but i will look at regclean in the meantime.

As to Unix installations, Jeffrey, you know I would be happy enough to go over to Linux pretty much office wide if Revit were ported. I'd be an old dog learning lots of new tricks but there is some god in there.

[beegee]

Elise Moss posted this on AUGI :-


Microsoft also provides an Installer Cleanup Utility that helps with uninstalls and reinstalls of software. You have to get the the utility that is specific to your operating system - XP, 2000, ME, or whatever, but it cleans up your registry system and you DO NOT have to reinstall Windows.

For Windows XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

For 2000/NT:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5fed58f0-8b41-4928-8939-328452843bce&displaylang=en


May be of some use ?

[PeterJ]

That's the post I was looking for, thanks beegee.
It does show the credit that I give AUGI right now that I was looking for something I had seen there over here!