Good Registry Cleaner Program ??

S

Sneak

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
299
Is there a good registry cleaner program out there that will let me input an application name and have it delete all references from the registry?

Such as wanting to remove all AOL entries.

Am running windows XP SP2
 
As much as I hate to say this... Your going to have a really hard time getting rid of everything that AOL has done to your machine. There is a removal utility (I think) bundled with AOL, but it is not 100% effective. Search through Major Geeks and see if you can find anything there...

I usually just manually remove everything I can, which sucks, but I personally think it is the best way to go about it, of course, if your not comfortable working with your registry, I wouldn't recommend that method...

A fresh install is always an option;)
 
Thanks for the reply. Oh I can sure manually remove the entries. But there is over a thoussnd of them. Would take forever. Looking for a quicker way.

Can't find a bundled AOL removal tool.
 
For XP, I prefer RegScrubXP. As far as a removal tool for AOL, I've never found. It honestly has taken me less time to do a fresh install, than completely remove AOL.
 
Thanks guys :)

Between some maual deletions, RegscrubXP, another cleaner called Winutilities, and Norton Windoctor that registry is all cleaned of AOL entries.
 
That's a battle and then some. Grab yourself a victory beer.
 
I would also relent and just do a format and start over, AOL takes over a computer completely and take loads of time to remove, but can never be removed satisfactorily.
 
I think I mentioned this long ago but it's topic-related so I'll share it again:

A few years ago when I was back home in southeastern VA taking care of my Mom after she began suffering early stage Alzheimer's, I needed a hard drive for a customer's old P2 450 machine. Didn't need to spend an arm and a leg for one, and I knew of several little "Mom & Pop" stores in my hometown so I got someone to take over the watchdog duties for a few hours and headed out.

Got there and the place was just as most "Mom & Pop" shops are: small, with tons of used old hardware all over the place, seems like almost every square inch of space had something crammed into it. I told the guy what I was looking for: just an old 20-30GB hard drive, or maybe even smaller if he had it. First reaction was predictable: "I don't have any old hard drives, but I do have this brand new <insert brand name here> 60GB for $175" etc.

Obviously if it's a repair shop, we all know they've got a box in the back with a shitload of old hard drives they've removed from customer's PCs when they "upgraded" them to those 60GB or larger capacity drives and socially engineered the unknowing customer right out of their still useful old hard drives for no cost whatsoever.

So I kept on knowing he'd pony up a drive sooner or later, and he did. He came out of the work area with a 20GB drive but he was asking $40 for it and I just about walked out, but I wasn't paying for it, the customer was. I just didn't want to ream anyone on the deal, and 20GB for $40 was basically highway robbery but, I was stuck for a solution so I took it.

Upon paying for the drive and then getting the receipt, I was talking to him when I looked down and saw this on the receipt, which was a standard form invoice printed on a laser printer, printed in big black bold letters just above where the customer would sign as proof and acceptance of the terms of sale:

NOTICE: IF YOU INSTALL ANY VERSION OF AOL (AMERICA ONLINE) ON ANY PRODUCTS WE SELL, YOUR WARRANTY IS IMMEDIATELY VOID AND NO SUPPORT WILL BE PROVIDED.

Totally serious, no joke whatsoever. And I started laughing about it, and when the guy asked, I said to him, "It's about time someone took pro-active steps to get it into people's heads that AOL is like the worst thing to ever happen to repair shops and computer technical support."

He smiled back and laughed himself, and I headed home. I'll always remember that visit not because of being jacked on the price of the used hardware but because of that receipt. To this day it's still the only shop I've ever been in (and that's close to a thousand around the US) that went that far to avoid the unnecessary and totally wasted effort and expense of dealing with AOL software in any way, shape, or form.

Sorta wish more support services would do that outright...

Support Tech: "How can I help you today?"

Customer: "Well I just got this brand new Core 2 Duo 2 GHz monster PC with 2 GB of RAM and it was running great till about an hour ago when I installed AOL 10.0 and...<click>

Think how much frustration and time that would save! :)
 
I know that wouldn't be a joke, I told everyone that when I started working on other's computers. If they installed AOL on the box, I wouldn't work on it other than doing a complete format....to date no one has tried to test out the rule. :cool:
 
AIM included in all things are evil from AOL?

I don't personally use it , but am curious to know ..:)

 
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