How To Clean Registry For Uninstalled Programs

[Idara Viengxay]

Theproblem with this method is that if I install more software before uninstalling something, this will also undo the changes the installed software made to the registry, in addition to the registry changes from software that I want remove, which is undesirable.

I think that most people are over concerned with the Windows registry. Problem is, most people shouldn't open that door. Most "registry cleaners" are going to do nothing but damage programs or your Windows Operating System itself. You might not even notice it at first but then when you go to run a program you get the dreaded ERROR message. Most likely it came from deleting registry keys/values/etc.

Revo uninstaller is an excellent application when uninstalling, it enables you to check off what you want or don't want to delete & will even delete to the recycle bin in case your unsure if you should have deleted the entry. To top it off, it will create a restore point before uninstalling just for those catastrophic failure moments.

You'll hear conflicting stories on whether or not to "clean" the Windows registry, in my opinion, don't ever use a registry cleaner. If you need a program to sweep out your registry you shouldn't be cleaning it in the first place. I understand the desire to have a "clean" registry, so after I uninstall a program i do a regedit & manual search for the program name & installer, deleting what is left over.

As far as any programs go, after doing a manual registry search I use a program called "Everything". It's kind of a Windows Explorer replacement except EXTREMELY fast. It tends to find things in places I would have never thought to look, like "AppData\Roaming".

If you want to be completely thorough, you can use Process Monitor to capture the installation (filtering by process name). I don't know of a software to "undo" the changes based on a Process Monitor capture, though.

Someone on another website recommended me to use Revo Uninstaller to uninstall some stubborn program I couldn't manage to remove from my (win10) pc. I have removed program among some others but I have a question:

Should I delete "leftover registry items"? For every program I want to uninstall, it brings up this screen.It does let me create a registry backup every time so I think that's good?Also, should I just delete the items in bold?

You might want to keep the registry settings if you want to reinstall the program at a later time, if there are some user settings or preferences stored inside the registry (they might be stored elsewhere, though).

There is no "need" to delete these registry keys, and the amount of trash they leave behind is very small - however it does become significant with years of computer usage and countless programs installed/uninstalled.

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To add, remove, or change a program on a Windows 2000-based computer, use the Add/Remove Programs tool in Control Panel. Occasionally, a program may not be uninstalled completely and a reference to the program may remain in the Currently installed programs dialog box. Changing or removing a program may result in a number of messages about files that cannot be located, but are needed to complete the change or uninstallation. This article describes how to remove these invalid entries from the Add/Remove Programs tool.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

The following steps remove only the registry entries related to a program as it appears in the Add/Remove Programs tool. To completely uninstall a program that was not completely removed by clicking the Change/Remove button in the Add/Remove Programs tool, you need to clean up the physical directory structure on disk and in the registry also. Use extreme caution when you perform either of these tasks.

To remove a program reference viewable in the Add/Remove Programs tool:

Locate the key to be deleted by locating the key name created by the program. If the name of the key is not apparent, browse through each key and note the value for DisplayName. This is the viewable string in the Add/Remove Programs tool.

You may have to contact the manufacturer of the program you want to remove if you need to clean up the disk and registry entries. The above procedure does not remove all the files and registry entries used by the program, it removes only the reference in the Add/Remove Programs tool.

For example, I updated an app called Quick Media Converter yesterday which went pear-shaped and after trying various options to correct the problem, I finally decided to uninstall the app and remove the registry entries before proceeding with the reinstallation. When I ran ccleaner after uninstalling it via Add/Remove Programs in Windows XP Pro and rebooting, it displayed a number of HKLM entries which I allowed your app to remove.

I then ran a scan of the registry using the "Find" option and was surprised to find a plethora of entries which ccleaner appeared to have missed. I then checked the Application Data in the "Documents and Settings" folder and found a number of entries for QMC which I dispatched to the Windows Recycle Bin. I then ran ccleaner again, but it didn't find anything. Checking the registry once more, I was surprised to find all the keys and subkeys complete with their data still present. Thinking that the Recycle Bin may be the culprit, I rebooted and then emptied that too. No change with ccleaner, but doing a manual search of the registry as before, all the data was still present.

I've attached a few screenshots to illustrate what was found by ccleaner during the first scan. After deleting the relevant "Application Data" mentioned above, the second ccleaner scan found only two problems both of which have nothing to do with QMC. You can see the results in one of the other images. The third image shows a number of entries pertaining to the PC SOFT key which is part of the QMC installation.

Why don't you try uninstalling Quick Media Converter with its own uninstaller. You might just find it if you look at Quick Media Converter's Start Menu folder. It may have an option there that says something like "Uninstall Quick Media Converter". Try using that to remove the program and see if it leaves as much in the Registry.

The Registry cleaner of CCleaner is also a "light" Registry cleaner so it doesn't burrow that much deep into the Registry, finding obsolete entries but that in turn reduces the risk of deleting potentially needed keys in the Registry.

Yes, I use Revo Uninstaller too. Its a powerful uninstall utility. Not only does it remove many of the program's remnants in the Registry but it also has the ability to take care of remnant files and folders that the program leaves behind.

Sorry, but I don't quite get your drift. I'm talking about ccleaner not removing registry data, not about another utility which may or may not do the same job. This is the ccleaner support forum is it not?

My observations - and that's all they were- are simply about ccleaner not doing the job it's supposed to do where it relates to registry data. I have no problems whatsoever uninstalling anything on my system and if you'd had bothered to read my initial post properly, you would have seen that!

If ccleaner requires that the user installs another third party utility in order for it to work, then that should be explained in the release notes. Since it isn't, I assumed that it will do the job it's supposedly been designed for.

I think you've completely missed the point Alan made in post #3, so I decided, as an exercise in showing what a lousy uninstaller can do, to install and uninstall Quick Media Converter as this may be useful information for others expecting CCleaner to do the impossible.

Very few programs clean up after themselves when uninstalled, and if you had removed it with Revo UIninstaller you would have seen exactly what this program leaves behind in way of registry entries and files/folders.

As these files are all still intact, CCleaner will not, and should not, remove registry entries associated with these items, as it can't possibly be aware that they are the detritus left behind by a bad uninstaller.

The problem is with the installed program's uninstall routine, and not with CCleaner, and this situation is pretty standard with most uninstallers, especially those belonging to programs with large installations.

As mentioned already in my opening post, I deleted the data in the Application Data folder and emptied the Recycle Bin before rebooting prior to running ccleaner again. So theorectically at least, ccleaner should have been able to identify those items as no longer present on the system and therefore safe to delete.

Although my post was primarily about QMC, if you check out the following key @ HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Startmenu\Programs you'll probably find a ton of stuff pertaining to the Start menu's Programs list which don't exist anymore (having been uninstalled some time ago in my particular case). I would have thought ccleaner would have been capable of identifying those as safe to delete. However, that's just a personal opinion.

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