jv16 PowerTools 2007 should find all registry junk.

irritateduser

A few days ago, I received a demo copy of another new registry cleaner that I'd not tried before, so I tried it out.

I've learned from experience that the best way to test registry cleaners is to first run the latest version and latest release of jv16 PowerTools. When everything is totally clean and fixed according to Powertools I then run the new registry cleaner and see what it finds over and above this already cleaned state.

Over and above PowerTools this demo cleaner found approximately:

* 10 ActiveX/COM (useless or redundant entries),

* 2 Uninstall (useless or redundant entries),

* 6 Shared DLL (unused entries),

* 130 File/Path (bad references),

* 15 Program Shortcuts (broken links), and,

* 705 Empty registry keys.

Whilst I understand the need to be careful in removing entries, which are apparently 'safe' but which may not be; nevertheless, I still find it annoying that PowerTooks doesn't at least point to them then let me make the decision (perhaps it should highlight such entries in red or something similar).

In the above example I spent at least two hours going though the results of this other cleaner and I found that most of the entries I would have removed myself. And in fact, I did remove about half of them before I got bored (it's very tedious checking so many entries manually).

(Moreover, to make sure that worthless registry entries weren't still pointing to unused program directories (or others such as \Program Files\Common Files or \D&S\Administrator\ Application Data\'program' etc.), they were removed manually to try and force the cleaner to remove them, yet often unwanted registry entries remained behind. Why is this so?)

My specific/main gripe is that say after both removing a program using its usual/own uninstaller then following up with PowerTools to cleanup the remaining junk, I often still find many dozens of entries referring to this supposedly 'uninstalled' program including obvious references to the 'dead' software in useless keys such as HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\'program name'. Why aren't such entries removed?

Clearly, PowerTools is making a definite decision not to remove obvious junk for some reason that's obscure to me.

In future releases, despite the developer's obvious concerns, would it be possible to obtain a complete list of worthless or unreferenced or unused registry entries and then let us users make the decision remove them at our own risk?

(Note: As I see it, it's too bad if unreferenced, yet needed, program entries are removed by registry cleaners, one can always reinstall the application if the program refuses to work. This is a much better option than having to do progressive registry backups (with ERUNT etc.) after every single program install then do registry compares later so as to find out what's going on.

What I want is for PowerTools to be an industrial-grade product where, after being adequately warned, I can override all or any recommended protections. I do this manually all the time now with considerable success. However, I need tools that will help me put some automation into this process. Programs that try to protect me from myself are nigh on useless for this purpose.)

jv16

Irritated User wrote

Whilst I understand the need to be careful in removing entries, which are apparently 'safe' but which may not be; nevertheless, I still find it annoying that PowerTooks doesn't at least point to them then let me make the decision (perhaps it should highlight such entries in red or something similar).

Well, there's always room for improvement but the Registry Cleaner in PowerTools has always been designed to be the safest, it's better to leave hundred invalid registry entries than to remove one valid one.

With what settings did you run PowerTools' Registry Cleaner, by the way?

Also, it has been tried to show also the potentially invalid registry entries to the user by highlighting them with red. The problem is that most users would still select every single item and hit the Delete key in a split second. And then our e-mail would flood with bad feedback. That's the main reason why the feature was left out from PT 2005.

brian49

I was going to raise a similar concern, although in a milder way. Every few months I manually comb through the registry entries under HKCU\Software and HKLM\Software. I almost always find a number of entries for programs which I thought I'd completely removed from my system, after trying them out, uninstalling them in the usual manner and then running the PowerTools registry cleaner. I wonder why the cleaner doesn't find these entries, please? In most cases they simply relate to standalone programs, and as far as I can see can be removed with no possible harm to my system. Needless to say, I have all the relevant options checked in the registry cleaner config. I'm running the latest version of PowerTools 2006 in Windows XP SP1. Many thanks.

jv16

Brian49 wrote
I almost always find a number of entries for programs which I thought I'd completely removed from my system, after trying them out, uninstalling them in the usual manner and then running the PowerTools registry cleaner. I wonder why the cleaner doesn't find these entries, please?

Because it's simply impossible to find all leftover entries from the registry in a safe way (i.e. without ever removing a valid entry or key).

Could you give a detailed example of a key you have had to manually remove because jv16 PT's Registry Cleaner doesn't find it?

If there is indeed a place for improvement in the registry cleaning engine I would of course improve it.

brian49

Thanks for responding. Here's an example of a key I've just found under HKCU\Software, corresponding to a program I recently tried out and then uninstalled. The PowerTools registry cleaner doesn't find it:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Resplendence Sp

With subkey: RootKit Hook Analyzer

With subkey: Settings

The main key and the first subkey have no values set. The second subkey has a series of values set.

You can download the program here:

http://www.resplendence.com/download/hookanlz.exe

Thanks again.

jv16

Brian49 wrote
Thanks for responding. Here's an example of a key I've just found under HKCU\Software, corresponding to a program I recently tried out and then uninstalled. The PowerTools registry cleaner doesn't find it:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Resplendence Sp

With subkey: RootKit Hook Analyzer

With subkey: Settings

The main key and the first subkey have no values set. The second subkey has a series of values set.

If the entire key structure doesn't contain any reference to the software (such as the software's installation path) there's really no way any registry cleaner could safely detect this key to be safe to remove.