Windows XP Registry Woe’s

Ever since the Explorer 8 Fiasco a few weeks ago I have been having “quirky” problems with other applications so I decide to check my registry and “bingo” it was a mess. So I sent my buddy Marty, the Cabana Geek an email asking about how he “fixes” his registry or if he had a recommendation for some software that would clean up my registry. He got back to me and said “I manually remove unwanted applications from the registry and would assist me in doing the same if I wanted.” Well, I know one thing and that is if you make a mistake manually changing your registry you can cause BIG problems, problems I don’t even want to thing about. So I answered that I will pass on that and go looking for a registry clean up program on the web. I checked several; and found “Regcure” to be ranked one of the best and found that if I bought now I could get some extras for free. So I bought it and it came with “Launch Data Recovery”, “Drivercure”, and “XoftSpySE”.

So once it was installed and registered I ran the registry clean up and it worked great. It fixed all the current problems, but I found that an immediate fix did not fix everything. What it did was brought to my attention some applications that needed additional attention. As I “fixed” each application I reran the registry clean up and now my P/C had picked up speed and most everything seems to be working.

Then I ran “Drivercure” and to my amazement found several applications that had out of date versions installed. Because this application allows the user to update only the selected “out of date” versions I began going through the list and updating the selections. I did not do one and that was going from Explorer 7 to 8 for reasons already explained.

Then I ran “XoftSpySE” which is an Anti-Spyware program and I did not think it would find anything because I have “AVG Anti-Virus” installed and have not had a problem with any viruses. Well, guess what, it found five “high risk” and several “low-risk” files, all of which I removed with the application. I guess “AVG” does not do everything, but I will keep it anyway.

So now I am feeling good about my new full time job compliments of Microsoft.

Then I see a Java update is required so I go ahead and run the update. I get an error in the middle of the run. Well, you would think you can just go ahead and run it again, but you would be mistaken. I tried to run it again and began receiving and error 25099. So off to the web I go and found that the best way to “fix” this was to remove the entire “Java” directory and its contents. When I attempt to do this I found that I could not use the “Add/Remove” in the control panel because “Java” was not on the list. Ok, I do know how to manually remove directories and there contents so I did that and found that everything except one file could be removed. When I attempted the one last file I received a message that it was in use. A simple CTL + Alt + Delete showed that the file was on the list of applications under the “Process” Tab. I highlighted the task and clicked the “end Process” Tab. Then I went back and the file was manually removed without a problem. Finally I could now go to “Java.com” and do the install, which went fine and is now working without any problems.

I ran “Regcure” again and fixed a few minor registry problems, but nothing like when I started.

One interesting thing I found when addressing the “Add/Remove” problem with applications not showing up on the list is there is a Windows program named “Windows Install Clean Up” that is suppose to clean up this problem. I installed this program, but after reading all the warnings, did not use it. I might in the future, but for now, I will wait until it becomes absolutely necessary and at that time I will confer with The Cabana Geek before I do.

If you’re having registry problems I would strongly recommend purchasing “RegCure” and using it to “fix” your problems. Other than that I have nothing else to say except I can hardly wait until Google comes up with a new Operating System so I can start gaggling.