Obsolete Software Items NOT Obsolete?

kamyers1

Running jv16 PowerTools 2007 version 1.7.0.422. Registry Cleaner has identified a large number of "Obsolete software items" that appear to refer to valid software that is currently installed on my computer. :( Can you speculate on why this would be, and explain how Registry Cleaner determines what should be included in the "Obsolete software items" list? Here is a list of the items in the list that are actually installed and usable:

Contex (software for a large format scanner)

GnuWin32 (unix style utilities for Windows)

ImageMagick (manipulates graphic image files)

LEAD Technologies, Inc. (LEAD Tools TIFF file tag editor)

Local AppWizard-Generated Applications (appears to refer to BlueView, another graphics utility)

MJTNET (Macro Scheduler, a Windows automation tool)

PCI Geomatics (Geomatica Freeview, a GIS application)

Phoenix Technologies Ltd (WinPhlash, a BIOS update utility)

TIFF-Xchange (a pseudo-printer driver that creates TIFF files)

ToolBoxDebug (uncertain, appears to be modem or communication related)

Tracker Software (another entry for the TIFF-XChange print to TIFF utility)

USB Mass Storage Reader (driver for unknown USB flash or hard drive?)

USBSCAN INFO (NeatReceipts/Plustek scanner)

Windows (Microsoft Windows XP SP2???!!!)

All of the above items were identified using the "normal" Registry Cleaner setting, not aggressive. The above items would have been deleted (right?) if I had followed through with a default fix for all items, which luckily I did not do (yet). I am under the strong impression that all of the above programs would have probably been badly messed up if I had allowed these items to be deleted. Is that correct? If so, then it appears that you have some kind of very significant flaw in your program for it to incorrectly identify this many items on a single machine.

Please let me know if my interpretation is correct, or if I am missing something...

Thanks,

Kevin M.

jv16

Could you please export these items as .reg file and send it here so I could take a closer look? You can export data to .reg file with the right click menu.

kamyers1

Exported registry items are attached per your request, in a zip file. I tried to attach the .reg file directly, and the forum software wouldn't let me (it said the .reg extension was invalid). It also didn't like .txt or .export file extensions. So I put the .reg into a zip file, and that seemed to upload that ok.

Thanks for looking into this.

Kevin M.

jv16

Thank you very much for sending the file, it clears things up a lot.

On more questions, does the following file exist in your system: C:\Program Files\NeatReceipts Professional\exec\bin\drivers\Plustek\Setup.exe

If it doesn't, then all the items included in the registry file you sent look like they are safe to remove. Most of these items are so called empty software keys, these are usually left-overs of badly configured uninstaller applications, therefore they are called as "obsolete software". But sometimes, as it seems to be the case here, software creates some empy registry keys to the registry just for no reason whatsoever, these items are usually safe to remove.

The worst thing that could happen is some of the software in question could stop working, but that would be easy to fix simply by restoring the backup PowerTools automatically creates. But, if you don't want to take the risk, you could simply ignore these items, or hide them using the Never Show Again feature. As these are not registry errors, there's not much harm in leaving them to the registry.