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Download Winkey to test RegSeeker (it's small and can easily be uninstalled later if you have no use for it). Run it, set some keys of your own and test them out. Now run RegSeeker and let it delete all it finds. Reboot and I feel certain Winkey will not work afterwards on the keys you previously set. Put the registry entries back that RegSeeker removed, re-boot and bingo the keys you set with Winkey will promptly work again. RegSeeker (among others) also seems happy to remove registry entries for file types that are associated with crucial system files. This may not actually matter because they probably reform when used. It just worries me somewhat. Like I said on the other posting, I use it but "with care". EasyCleaner seems quite "cavalier" if you look at what it's prepared to delete but I have to admit it has never stopped anything working yet on my machine One called CleanReg managed to hack out my Autoroute Express "from home" - just as well they provide an ignore feature. I quite like RegClean despite it being dropped by MS. It often fixes problems rather than just clearing junk. Even this managed to produce a spurious DirectX error by deleting a key. I have stitched it up using batch & reg files that temporarilly remove the entry it wants to take out, then put it back afterwards. This prevents it reporting the so called error. The only one I feel confident I can just let have its wicked way is jv16 (or RegCleaner in its earlier freebie form). RegCleaner can still be found with some effort - see posting 150487. Both have these have a tick sheet approach, against software types and suppliers - very handy for anyone who is not a "registry person" and wants to remove junk that got left behind after an uninstall. Old fashioned "shut down to DOS" and type scanreg /fix is often quite a good asprin if things go awry. It also compacts the registry. Pity the names of registry cleaners are so similar, it can cause confusion. Derek

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Hi tankre, WhitPhil, darksea, Bryan, hi everyone, Wow! you wrote a lot while I was sleeping! Thank you for all your very good comments! I didn't see http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/150487.html ! I'm having a look there! >The only one I feel confident I can just >let have its wicked way is jv16 I think every cleaner has to be used with caution as some functionalities look weird! So, JV16 wants to delete my .lnk (I'm talking about the shortcuts themselves not registry keys to them). On the same way, using a laptop at work as well as at home, when I'm at home, JV16 wants to remove the keys pointing to the network as my computer is not connected! Well I'll keep the backup file "under the elbow" as we say in French (English equivalent being "on the back burner"). Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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WhitPhil, thank you for taking the time to view that large list. The reference to my CD-ROM at E: Since installing those programs I have added a second hard drive pushing my CD-ROM's drive letter to H: I have had several problems regarding CD games that were originally installed on E: drive. The games can not find the CD. I cleaned the registry of those invalid references and had to reinstall the games. It happened a second time when I added a CD burner. The ROM got pushed out to I: Windows should default the CD-ROM drive letter to be S: or greater when you first get a PC. Re: LMHOSTS. I don't know, so I will have to wait and see. Re: MSMoney; yes, they are back. I did not check every one of them but those I checked have returned. Many of the 900+ entries are references to folders that no longer exist in their original location. Many more were references to MRUs that I could care less about. Derek, I have always liked MS' RegClean but it does not go very deep. It finds ~14 entries. Re: WinKey; I do not doubt that RegSeeker will disrupt the use of this program but in the event that a program has a related problem it is easy enough to return those particular keys that were removed. I am impressed with RegSeeker. >900 entries removed without a hitch for over 7 months on my machine. Wow! Using JV's tool and MS' I have had to return deleted entries and that is not a major project. I do not advocate that everyone should use it as part of regular maintenance but for those seeking or inquiring as to how to eliminate waste within the registry I believe one can not go wrong using RegSeeker. Thanks and regards, Bryan

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Hi tankre, WhitPhil, darksea, Bryan, hi everyone, Bryan, thank you for your post... I'm sorry to say I made a step backward restoring Registries on both Windows 98SE in front of me! I got some troubles with JV16PT upgrade: I asked for upgrade from 1.4.0.238 to 1.4.1.245 and JV16 froze several times! so, I restored (SCANREG /restore) then upgrade went fine! Checking RegSeeker suggestions, I was able to notice keys about OE 5 or others that I don't have any more but I was disturbed by these so many "Invalid ActiveX/COM entry (CLSID)" messages. I will keep RegSeeker and delete selectively! I will also check JV16. Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Hi All Very interesting and useful discussion, I certainly learn't something. I reckon Gérard might have the best last word on this topic, in #8: "I think every cleaner has to be used with caution" Derek

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Hi tankre, WhitPhil, darksea, Bryan, hi everyone, Yes, this is a very interesting discussion and everyone stay calm and write very good points, thank you! As I wrote above, I met a problem with JV16 upgrade which was solved after having restored the registry. I did that because on Friday, I upgraded JV16 on another comp without issue! so, today, I began to have a look at the .reg file RegSeeker had saved but found no 'JV16' string and chose to restore the entire registry! I won't give up with RegSeeker. I intend to "study" it, message by message: (Windows98SE -574 items to delete) -Invalid ActiveX/COM entry (CLSID) -162 in HKCR I think these items are difficuly to check and I will refuse removal and see that later -File or path does not exist ---102 in HKCR ---53 in HKCU ---149 in HKLM ---53 in HKU That's the big family and it's easy to check slowly! I will be thorough! I understood that I had to especialy look at removable units including network paths when I am not connected -extension not used -32 in HKCR 32 is few and I will manage to check every item! I'm going to understand why RegSeeker concludes these extensions will never be used! -Obsolete entry ---2 in HKCU ---12 in HKLM How RegSeeker can judge it is obsolete??? -File type not used -8 in HKLM Very weird! I guess 574 is today's number but I'll get less on weekly scan so that I will manage to learn about what's fine and what's weird with this utility! Derek, what do you trust about RegSeeker when you say you use it but "with care"? Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Gérard I like your style here LOL:- >Derek, what do you trust about RegSeeker when you say you use it but "with care"< Well....RegSeeker can find junk that others can't but it can be wrong too. Bottom of the pile as far as I'm concerned (on safety grounds) but I feel it proper to respect the views of folk who appear to have had no difficulty with it. The front (tick sheet) pages of RegCleaner and jv16 have got to be the safest bet, even for newbies - nice plain language with named software and suppliers. General junk can still remain, so you need to analyse the jv16 reports if you move from its safe Registry Tool to its more ambitious Registry Cleaner option. Derek

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Hi Derek, hi everyone, >I feel it proper to respect the views of >folk who appear to have had no difficulty >with it. "No difficulty"... who knows? we sometimes get minor troubles... "the mysteries of computing"! Sure, RegSeeker will not make the system crash at first reboot!!! but... My JV16PT froze as I asked for upgrade and did so 3-4 times! if I hadn't upgraded another JV16 on Friday, if I hadn't RegSeekered yesterday, getting this trouble, I would have thought of some mystery, I would have uninstalled and re-installed JV16 and everything would have been forgotten! Who has never solved a problem simply uninstalling and re-installing? due to some wrong key in the Registry! due to a corrupted or overwritten DLL! Some portions of the "mysteries" might be here, in Registry thorough cleaning, no? Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Hi everyone, Thanks to this thread, I realize there's a "flaw" in the conception of applications launched from CD-Roms! I know that if I want to move an application to another partition, I will need to re-install (items registered with the former path)! I already read about people wanting to change the letter of their CD unit... I thought it was just a whim! I better realize with the above lines, thanks Bryan! You say Microsoft should have allocated 'S:' to Cds... I would say they should have used %CD% as they did with %WinDir%, no? Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Gérard Yep, take the point in your #14 that it may not always be obvious when a valid registry entry has been removed by an over-zelous registry cleaner. Only way forward (unless you can find a safe one) is to examine very carefully what registry cleaners offer to remove. Could be worth the extra time. From your experiences it looks like I may have had too much confidence in jv16 Registry "Cleaner". I remain happy with the Regsitry "Tool" because its tick sheet only acts in relation to programs that are specified by name - used when programs have been uninstalled but left remnants behind. Interesting discussion on this thread and thought provoking too. Derek

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Frenchie and all, thanks for allowing me to express my opions within your thread. Of course everyone has one. I am not a tech by trade and only know what I have learned over the last 4+ years on these forums from the more knowledgable folks like yourselves. I remember when I first started I was terrified to crawl through the registry. With a good backup my fears have all but disappeared (I use Ghost too). Now when I walk through the registry I am just careful of what I walk upon. The first time I used RegSeeker I did quickly scan for items that would concern me and found none without using a fine toothed comb. I did use a little blind faith when I decided to go for it. Luckily I had no problems. I was prepared for recovery. Thanks for sharing, Bryan

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Bryan Yes, funny old world. When I look at what "EasyCleaner" is prepared to remove I find it hard to believe it has not caused no end of hassle. Yet I have run it for yonks and to my knowledge it has not upset anything. Some folks just let it delete whatever it likes and they seem to get away with it. Just the same Gérard makes an admirable point that maybe we just don't realise when it was a registry cleaner that resulted in us having to uninstall/re-install a dud program.... Oh yes, and don't be so darned coy. I have seen many very good and useful responses from you around this place. Derek

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Hi Bryan, Derek, tankre, WhitPhil, darksea, hi everyone, Thank you for posting your point of view Bryan! I appreciated your lines a lot! Some cleaners are so thorough that they admit they can alter the system! Don't forget that downloading RegSeeker, you also get "FixAddRemove.reg" LOL you might lose Add-Remove Programs! Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Gérard Hey, what the heck is FixAddRemove.reg (I didn't even know it was there)? I don't like the sound of that at all, so for the time being I've renamed its extension to .re- That way I will only use it with some effort and intention (like never probably). Thanx for the tip - how did you unearth it? Derek

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Derek, Response #7... >RegCleaner can still be found with some effort Both RegCleaner & MS RegClean can still be found at SureCool.com. HTH Dave

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Hi Derek, Dave357, Bryan, tankre, WhitPhil, darksea, hi everyone, Dave, very glad to meet you here! ;-) usually, at post #21, there are only the few of us who "My Computing.Net"ed the discussion but I'm glad to see you kept an eye on it! Derek, I downloaded FixAddRemove.reg from http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm! there's a text that says "Note : If after a cleanup, your Add/Remove control panel doesn't work (release 1.05RC3), just download this reg file and merge it into your registry"... there's the .reg file and also, downloading RegSeeker.zip (293 KB), you get 'FixAddRemove.reg'. Here's its content: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htc] "Content Type"="text/x-component" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.hta] @="htafile" "Content Type"="application/hta" In my company, I change the settings of the .reg association to not merge on a double click but 'modify' (just change default) because some users just double click to see what an unknown file is... they don't care as they can call me to fix ;-) Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Hi Frenchie,Everyone, This has been a great thread.You guys have really opened my eyes.I will still use RegSeeker,but with a lot more caution.I guess I've been very lucky.I too am not a tech.Every thing I know I've learned by trial and error and this forum.I have salvaged a few old computers from the dumpster and built my own.I have been able to get them all running and purring like a kitten thanks to you guys and girls on this forum. I Thank You all for the education. -T-

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Gérard Thx for info about about the reg file. I'll still keep it "wrapped" so I don't fix anything by accident that didn't really need fixing. Derek

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Hi Derek, Dave357, Bryan, tankre, WhitPhil, darksea, hi everyone, I would like to add some words... I never read a lot about that. I wonder whether some issues in Windows wouldn't come from antimalwares, some clues: - as written above (response #22), RegSeeker provides us with FixAddRemove.reg to fix possible damage with Add-Remove programs - In a discussion about "Windows Explorer-Left Pane Empty", Mosaic1 (Distinguished Member)(11-22-2001 02:34 AM) suggests "How did you lose it? Good question. Have you recently used any kind of a Registry Cleaning Utility? Possibly it was removed by that."... I guess Mosaic1 knows what he's speaking about! (also left pane in windows explorer) - This web page explains LSP.fix has to be run after Ad-Aware/Spybot... - WhitPhil and Derek (present thread) warn us about leaving RegSeeker operate... What do you think about this? do you have other examples? Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Hi Frenchie and all still following this. Before ever knowing of RegSeeker I used MS RegClean. It too had the ability to remove needed keys. It often killed one sound related .dll. I beleive this is true for any registry cleaning utility. There is not a single perfect tool to clean the registry. Registry cleaners are like getting your hair cut. When I go to SuperCuts sometimes I get a good haircut and sometimes I don't. But, as long as my hair keeps growing back I am happy. (I always thought Mosaic1's name is Carol and only assumed that s/he was female) Bryan

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Hi Bryan, hi everyone, Thanks for your post! Funny!!! >Registry cleaners are like getting your hair >cut. Do you mean that sometimes you get your ear cut as well, like some .DLL being killed? >But, as long as my hair keeps growing back >I am happy. Yes... like your OS booting again! >(I always thought Mosaic1's name is Carol >and only assumed that s/he was female) Ahh... you know savvy people! My fault!... Sorry! I wrongly presumed about Mosaic1's gender! Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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For some one who can spare $19, here is another brilliant registry cleaner 'Registry TuneUp' http://www.acelogix.com