What program can help me identify orphan windows xp registry keys and files?

Over the years I've installed and uninstalled quite a few applications on my pc. I know how to uninstall, as well as, manually remove 'leftover" files from C:\Program Files. I also know to delete the icons from the desktop and how to delete them from the Start Menu.

I was told however, sometimes there are files lingering behind elsewhere on my PC, as well as, registry keys that point to nothing. Interestingly, I've uninstalled half of my applications recently but only saw a 20% gain in hard drive space. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a program that will list registry keys and what they belong to, so I can start a long and painful process of 'clean slating' my pc.

I cannot possibly just reinstall windows. But I'd like to do what I can to just clean up as best I can. I also heard there is a startup cache of some kind in Windows, as well as, things that may be lurking in "other user folders".. anyone with any advice, please share.

Asked by B 49 months ago Similar questions: program help identify orphan windows xp registry keys files Computers > Software.

Similar questions: program help identify orphan windows xp registry keys files.

Get CCLEANER I use ccleaner.com once a week. It's free from their web site and does a superb job. It runs in 2 parts.

First it scans for all obsolete files etcd - you can choose from the menu boxes what you want it to look for. Second is a registry scan to remove all old bits - make sure you say yes to backup before cleaning just in case. The first time you run this you will need to be patient as it will take a while.

Once you have done it the first time, restart your computer and run both processes again. Just run it normally once a week or once a month and you will be amazed at the clutter it comes up with. One tip, when you install deselect the option to add the yahoo tool bar - you probably won't use it!.

No reason to there is no downside to having excess keys in the registry. It does absolutely nothing to help performance. Most programs out there that people will recommend.. are problematic, so you will doubtless lose some keys that you really did end up needing.

Registry files are not worth cleaning up. Other files, you can clear out all your old system restore poitns, which will clear up several gb. You can also delete files in c:\windows\temp also things in c:\windows\$NTUninstall*$ etc .

Proceed with caution There are a handful of system utilities available that will do this, although I recommend reading the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles first. Tinkering with the registry in Windows is dangerous, so you should always set up a system restore point before doing anything with it. Windows registry information for advanced users How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting You’ll probably get a recommendation or two for an application called Ccleaner.

I have no personal experience with this application, but I have not heard any reports of people having problems with it. At one time, I used the Norton Utilities to get rid of garbage in the registry, but this was back in the Windows 98 days when it was common for it to pile up. These days, most programs are much better about cleaning up after themselves, so I don’t use anything on my XP systems.

Norton has been around for a long time, so their products are probably a safe bet - although I still recommend caution. Their current offering is Norton SystemWorks. It isn’t free, but it’s the only one I know well enough to recommend.

One thing to try - if you have any experience with regedit, you can start by looking at the branch HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE. When applications use the registry to store data, some of it’s there. You will also find some things in the branch HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software.

If something you’ve successfully uninstalled has left junk in there, you can safely delete it. Sources: Experience .

This is a free register analyzer It shows you where are the problems in your windows registry and gives you some few options to deal with them. Also, have you try doing a disk defrag? That helps me a lot :) Sources: safer-networking.org/en/regalyzer/index.... .

Tuneup Utilities 2007 Click here for more info and a free trial of the software Sources: tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/ .

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Jim.

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