Manual Registry Cleanup

To switch to the Manual Registry Cleanup mode, click the Manual Cleanup button on the Modes bar in the left part of the main window of Reg Organizer.

In this mode the workspace contains several tabs that provide access to various Windows Registry areas:

• Uninstall
• Software
• Startup Applications
• File Types
• Shell Extensions
• New File Menu
• Open With Menu
• Shell Folders
• Shared DLLs
• ARP Cache
• Application Paths
• MUI Cache
• MSI Installer

Below is the description of the Registry cleanup mode individual tabs:

• Uninstall
  This tab lists all applications present in the Add/Remove Programs section of the Windows Control Panel. You can uninstall the selected applications by pressing the Uninstall button or remove the names of certain programs from the list by pressing the Remove button. This feature can be useful if some application has already been removed from the hard drive, but its name is still present in the Add/Remove Programs section.
• Software
  This is one of the most important features of the Manual Registry Cleanup mode. This tab lists all programs registered in the system Registry. When you right-click the program name to bring up the context menu and select the Show the Registry Keys of... item, Reg Organizer searches through the Registry and displays the list of all Registry keys related to the selected program, no matter where in the Registry these keys have been found. You can delete all keys marked with a check by pressing the Delete Marked button. Important! When you bring up the Information window, all keys are marked by default. You will need to unmark those keys that you want to leave in the Registry. Note: Some applications may incorrectly enter their data into the Registry, so that the name of the software appears in the Developer column. In this case use the Special Search => Search for ... as a Software Name item of the context menu for correct search.
• Startup Applications
  This tab lists all applications automatically loaded on Windows startup. The list contains the applications, references to which are found in the Registry keys responsible for system startup, the win.ini file and in the Startup folder of the Windows Start menu. You can delete any links by marking them in the list and pressing the Remove button. You can also use the Add Entry button to create a new startup entry. In the process of creation of the new element you will be offered a choice of the Registry keys responsible for the Windows startup. Please note that if you place the element in the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\RunOnce" or "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\...\RunOnce" key, the corresponding program will be run only once.
• File Types
  This tab lists all files registered in the system. If the Description column is empty, most likely this file type is no more used in the system and you can delete it by marking the checkbox in the Extension column and pressing the Remove button. You can get additional information on the Registry keys related to the selected file type via the Information on ... item of the context menu.
• Shell Extensions
  The Windows Explorer context menu contains specific commands for each registered file type. For example the text file (.txt) is often associated with the Open and Print commands. The Shell Extensions tab lists all context menu commands for each file type registered in the system as well as the DOS commands associated with the corresponding context menu items. You can delete and modify any records.
• New File Menu
  This tab contains the list of documents (files) that can be created via the New File context menu. Use the Remove button above the list to delete the unneeded document types.
• Open With… Menu
  When you double-click a file of unrecognized type in Windows Explorer, the Open with… dialog appears for you to select the program to open this file with. The Open With… Menu tab lists all the programs displayed in the dialog. You can mark the programs you will definitely never use for opening the unrecognized file types and delete them from the list using the Remove button.
• Shell Folders
  This tab lists the paths to the key system folders (e.g. My Documents, Startup etc.) and contains two sections:
• Current User's Folders
  System folders of the current user. If some folder is marked as a non-existent (Not Exists! in the Status field), you can manually specify a valid path to it in the following way: mark the checkbox on the left of the folder name, press the Change button to bring up the Registry Entry dialog, press the ... button, locate and select the valid folder and press OK.
• Shell Folders Templates
  This section contains templates for creation of the new users' system folders.
• Shared DLLs
  This tab presents the list of shared dynamic link libraries (DLL) and other shared files and specifies the number of applications that use a certain DLL (Host Applications column). Important! Even if some DLL is reported to be used by 0 applications, you shouldn't delete the entry, because in some cases this may cause the system malfunction. You may delete only the entries that have the Not exists status (this means that the entry contains a reference to the non-existent file). Note: Please keep in mind that by pressing the Remove button you delete only the Registry entry, but not the file itself.
• ARP Cache
  This tab represents data stored in a special Registry key. Windows uses this Registry key to store additional information on the ‘Add/Remove Applications’ section of Control Panel. Additional information includes full path to executable file for each application available in the ‘Add/Remove Applications’ section of Control Panel. When you open this tab in the Registry Cleanup mode, Reg Organizer will check each path for availability (i.e. whether the executable file with given name exists on given path). The results of such check are being output to the Status column. If the file listed does not actually exist, the Status column says so, which means the file link can be removed.
  Note: In case that the Status column says N/a, it does not mean the file link is obsolete, rather this means Reg Organizer was unable to check whether the correct (existing) file name is on given path or not.
• Application Paths
  Once Windows user selects Start->Run… from the main system menu and enters program name in the window that appears without specifying full application path (e.g. sample.exe) and then presses OK, Windows would search for this executable file on disk paths specified in PATH environment variable and if the file is not found, Windows would search for this file on disk paths specified for given application in the Registry. Such paths are displayed on this tab of Reg Organizer Registry Cleanup mode. Running applications via Start->Run… menu item is not the only case when Windows would look up paths stored in Registry. The same procedure is being executed each time a program calls the ShellExecute (filename, …) system function. If the argument passed to ShellExecute contains executable filename only and not the full path, Windows would scan paths specified first in PATH environment variable and then paths specified in Registry. In other words, this section contains a list of executable files and the list of corresponding paths where the system may find an executable. Once you open this tab, Reg Organizer scans each path in the list for associated executable file. If the file is not found on given path, the corresponding information is being output to the Status column. For records deemed to be incorrect for any other reason, the Status column would contain Useless entry. Reg Organizer would also check each folder for existence in the same way. If folders specified for a given record do not exist, Reg Organizer also outputs this information to the Status column. Reported records can be removed at your discretion.
• MUI Cache
  Often in this section of the Registry can be stored information about applications that were already removed from the computer.
• MSI Installer
  Applications that were installed with the Windows Installer (from MSI packages) are listed here. Some entries might be obsolete. For example, there can be entries for software that was uninstalled from your computer. These entries are safe to remove.