RegCleaner Readme
Warning
This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe criminal and civil penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under law. You are allowed to distribute RegCleaner on the internet only if you distribute it in it's original package. You must have the author's written permission to distribute RegCleaner on CD-ROM or in any other media other than the internet. E-Mail is acceptable as a written permission.
Disclaimer
This product is provided "as is" without any warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Jouni Vuorio further disclaims all warranties, including without limitation any implied or stated warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and no infringement. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of this product and documentation remains with recipient. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall Jouni Vuorio or his suppliers be liable for any consequential, incidental, direct, indirect, special, punitive, recursive, or other damages whatsoever(including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, personal injury, disruption of family life, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of this agreement or the use of or inability to use the product, even if Jouni Vuorio have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Because some states/jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, the above limitation may not apply to the recipient. Adam Severns, also, is not liable for anything that may happen after to your computer after the use of RegCleaner.
Copyright Notice
This program is called "RegCleaner," Microsoft's registry cleaner is called "RegClean." My program has nothing to do neither with "RegClean," nor with Microsoft. I am ready to change my program's name if Microsoft requests it. Microsoft is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Copyright 1999-2001 Jouni Vuorio All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Introduction What does RegCleaner do? Why should I use RegCleaner? Very important to know
Tabs
Software Tab Startup List Tab Uninstall Menu Tab File Types Tab New File Tab Shell Extensions Tab Backups Tab
Additional Tools
OCX Tools View OCX Entries Convert CLSID to ProgID Convert ProgID to CLSID Registry Cleanup OLE Cleaner Orphan File Reference Finder Automatic Registry Cleaner Do Them All Misc. View System DLL Files View DLL Files View Shared DLL Files Reset Hardware Configuration Modify the Search Menu Modify the Open With Menu Run Regedit
More Information
Command Line Interface Command Panel Batch Files Options Tips and Tricks Frequently Asked Questions Contact Information
Introduction With RegCleaner, you can easily remove obsolete registry entries from software that you may have deleted ages ago. What does RegCleaner do? RegCleaner deletes registry entries. You can delete DLLs with the Shared DLLs feature, and shortcut files with the Startup feature. You don't even have to know what the registry actually is to be able to use RegCleaner. Why should I use RegCleaner? You should use RegCleaner because it's a good idea to keep the registry as clean as possible. Here are some examples to help you understand how RegCleaner can truly help you: 1. Say you've accidentally destroyed a nice shareware program what has a 30-day trial period. Later on, when you notice that it's been destroyed, you try reinstalling it, only to find out that you can't, because the program thinks that you're just trying to get another 30 days. If you first remove the program's registry entries, however, you may very well be able to reinstall the software and recover your trial period again. 2. You've found that your favorite program is an older version, and you want to download the latest whiz-bang version. The program, however, doesn't provide any uninstall utility, so you simply destroy its files and cross your fingers. But, as fate would have it, when you try to install the latest version, you see a dialog box such as this: "Please uninstall the old version of this program before attempting to run this installation." Great, now what? Hang on; you simply remove the old program's registry entries with RegCleaner! Now you can continue installing the newer program version that you wanted to have originally (I'm using the word "programs", but most of these examples will apply equally to games and other software as well). NOTE: Some programs register file types (such as: '.txt'), so when you've deleted the program, Windows reports an error when you try to run files that are registered to that program. RegCleaner removes, when possible, all of the registrations done by that program. Now when you try to run files that were registered to it, Windows will bring up a dialog box and ask what program you now want to use with this particular file type. You can then select a new association. NOTE: In some cases, some programs have made particular file type registrations that aren't written into the registry. In those cases, RegCleaner won't help, but it's not RegCleaner's fault, it's simply the way the programs were written. Very important to know If you are not 100 percent sure that you have the original disk(s) for all items of software on your computer, and then don't remove anything. In theory at least, it's not dangerous if you remove registry entries of most software that you may be using, since likely you'll just lose your settings and some options, but there's always the risk that the software won't work at all any more as well. Also, if you see some 'software' or 'author' like '! @#WFDSf"!4e2e2', you know that it's in the software section by accident, DO NOT REMOVE IT It's most likely some (stupid) program's (stupid) copy protection. Example: Re-Volt and F-Secure's virus scanners do these. NOTE: You must agree to the Disclaimer on the top of this page to use RegCleaner. If you disagree do not use RegCleaner.
SoftwareTab RegCleaner will search the whole registry and remove every entry that is created by the software you wish to remove. Of course, it's impossible to remove all the entries, but RegCleaner removes all entries possible. The main theme is security, there's no risk whatsoever to use RegCleaner. That is, if you use it right. I would like to point out that if you somehow manage to damage your computer with RegCleaner, It's not my fault. Read the Disclaimer for more info. This feature might look like a simple thing, but in fact it's the most advanced feature in RegCleaner. And there is no other registry cleaner that has a function like this one. This is the whole idea of RegCleaner and cleaning the registry with RegCleaner. Registry cleanup and all the other functions are quite simple and they are usefull only in certain situations. Startup List Tab Here lies the list that shows every program that is started from the registry and from start menu at the same time as windows starts. These programs can easily use an obscene amount of your computer's memory and decrease performance. Keep this list as empty as possible. Uninstall Menu Tab Here's listed all the programs that are available for uninstallation through Windows. You can access this list also from Control Panel > Add/Remove programs. The main idea behind this feature is that you can remove the junk from the Add/Remove programs list. Like if you have deleted some program rather than really uninstalling it. It's uninstall stuff is still in that Add/Remove programs list. So with RegCleaner you can remove them from there. You can also uninstall programs with the 'Uninstall' button. File Types Tab Here's listed every file type or file extension. If you have tried some program and it have registered some file types (That means that you can access those files with a double-click. Example: you can view .txt files with notepad by double clicking such file). If you have found that program useless and uninstalled it, but some files are still marked like "Some programs file". With this feature of RegCleaner you can remove those unneeded file extensions. New File Tab Try to click you Desktop with the right mouse button, and select 'New'. There a few files that you can create. Now, with RegCleaner you can remove some file types from that list. NOTE: Example WinZip and Adobe Photoshop add their files ('WinZip file' and 'Adobe Photoshop Image') to that list automatically. If you remove them, they add them in there again. NOTE II: This feature should not work under Windows95. It has been reported that it doesn't work, but I haven't been able to confirm this myself, try it. Shell Extensions Tab Here's a list of all the file associations. Example: If you right-click an mp3 file, there's some special items on the popup menu, with RegCleaner you can remove those extra commands you don't need. Example: If you don't even have a printer you don't need ability to print some files with a right-click. Backups Tab Here lies the list of current backups. If you can't see the sections of text(the lines are too long), you can right-click the item you want to see better and a popup will show it. Click the popup to hide it. This works also in other sections, but there you have to only move the mouse over the popup to make it go away. NOTE: The backups aren't removed even after you have restored them, if you want to delete some backups; you will have to delete them by clicking the 'Remove selected' button. It's safer this way.
View OCX Entries You can view entries of a single CLSID. Convert CLSID to ProgID You can convert a CLSID to a ProgID. With a right-click you can copy the result to the clipboard. Convert ProgID to CLSID You can convert a ProgID to a CLSID. With a right-click you can copy the result to the clipboard. OLE Cleaner Cleans unused and invalid Object Linking and Embedding entries. Orphan File Reference Finder Cleans registry entries that point to a non-existing file. Automatic Registry Cleaner Cleans what ever is possible to clean automatically. NOTE: This can't detect as many obsolete entries as the human eye can by manually checking all of RegCleaner's sections, but on the other hand, this might find some things you can't. Do Them All Does all of the registry cleanings at the same time. View System DLL Files With this feature you can delete obsolete DLL files. The list contains every DLL file, not just the obsolete (because it's impossible for RegCleaner to know which ones are obsolete). You can mess up your system really good if you delete wrong DLLs, so please, leave this alone if you are not sure what you are doing. View DLL Files Allows you to list the information for any DLL file. View Shared DLL Files With this feature you can delete unused shared files. Here's only listed those files that are not used by Windows or another programs, so they should be safe to delete. Please note that RegCleaner will delete the file and the registry entry and then both are backed up. Reset Hardware Configuration This feature is only for Windows 9x. You can reset Windows' hardware configuration so the next time you boot, Windows will re-detect all the hardware. This can be very handy after installing a lot of new hardware or for troubleshooting purposes. Modify the Search Menu This feature is for Windows 2000 only. You can select what items you want to see under Start button > Search. Modify the Open With Menu This feature is for Windows 2000 only. You can select which programs windows suggests to you when you try to open a file of an unknown file type. Run Regedit This option will run Regedit.
Command-Line Interface RegCleaner supports these Command-line parameters: 'Automatic clean,' 'Manual clean,' 'no backups,' and 'one backup file.' You can also specify what kind of Registry Cleanup you want. The options are 'mode:OLE', 'mode:cleanup' and 'mode:orphan', If you don't use any of them then RegCleaner does them all. Example: RegCleanr.exe /automatic clean /one backup file starts automatic cleaning and RegCleaner makes only one backup file. Example: /RegCleanr.exe /automatic clean /mode:ole does an automated OLE cleaning. NOTE: You can use 'no backups' only with 'manual clean'. The parameters are not case sensitive. Batch files You can operate RegCleaner with simple batch files. This is very useful for administrating networks of many computers. The commands are not case sensitive. A batch file is just a simple text file, it can be with any extension. Example: Tab 4 Save list to "c:\filetypes.txt" Exit This would simple save filetype list to a text file and then exit. You can run a batch file with /Batch command line parameter. E.g. RegCleaner /Batch "batch file.txt" or you can use the Command Panel to execute a batch.
Command: | What it does: | Alias(es):
Software tab | Moves you to software tab | Tab 1
Startup tab |  | Tab 2
Uninstall tab |  | Tab 3
Filetypes tab |  | Tab 4
Newfile tab |  | Tab 5
Shell tab |  | Tab 6
Backups tab |  | Tab 7
Exit | Shuts down RegCleaner | Quit, Bye, Terminate
Minimize | Minimizes RegCleaner | Min
Done | Clicks the "Done" button | cd.., cd ..
Mark as old | Marks selected items as old in Software Tab |
Restore | Restores marked backups |
Uninstall | Uninstalls marked programs from the Uninstall Tab | Uninstal
Remove | Clicks "Remove Selected" | Delete
Combine | Combines selected backups in Backups Tab |
Select All | Selects (does not mark) all items | Sel all, Sel *.*
Select Inverse | Inverses selection | Sel Inv
Select None | Clears selection | Sel None
Mark Selected | Marks selected items | Mark
View Shared Files | Does Tools > View shared DLL files | List Shared Files
View Search Menu | Does Tools > Modify the search menu |
View Open With menu | Does Tools > Modify the Open With menu |
Ole Cleanup | Does Tools > OLE Cleaner | Cleanup 1
Orphan Cleanup | Does Tools > Orphan File ref. finder | Cleanup 2
Automatic Cleanup | Does Tools > Automatic Registry Cleanup | Cleanup 3
Registry Cleanup | Does Tools > Do them All | Do Them All
RegEdit | Starts RegEdit |
Automatic Cleanup Mode | Sets Automatic Cleanup Mode |
Manual Cleanup Mode | Sets Manual Cleanup Mode |
Backups On | Sets creation of backup on |
Backups Off | Sets creation of backup off |
One Backup File | Tells RegCleaner to create only one backup file |
Many Backup Files | Tells RegCleaner to create one file per one item |
Normal OLE Mode | Sets OLE Cleaner to normal mode |
Powerful OLE Mode | Sets OLE Cleaner to extra powerful mode |
Pause | Pauses Registry Cleanup |
Resume | Resumes Registry Cleanup |
Abort | Aborts Registry Cleanup |
Close | Closes Registry Cleanup window |
Version | Shows RegCleaner´s version | Ver
Build | Shows RegCleaner´s build |
Help | Opens this documentation |
Refresh | Refresh the current view |
Sort "column" | Sorts the list based |
www.jv16.org | Takes you to RegCleaner´s homepage |
Save List to "filename" | Saves current list to a text file |
Batch "filename" | Runs a batch file |
Find "search word" | Finds and selects items that match search word |
Find Mark "search word" | Finds and marks items that match search word |
Debug Mode? | Tells you if you are running RegCleaner in debug mode | DebugMode?
Admin? | Tells you if you are an Admin in NT-based OS |
WinNT? | Tells you if you are running Windows NT |
Win2000? | Tells you if you are running Windows 2000 | w2k?
Save log to "filename" | Saves debug log to a file. Attach this log to a bug report. |
View log | Opens the debug log to Notepad |
Command Panel Command panel is the blue text box in the bottom of RegCleaner. The idea behind this feature is that you can use RegCleaner with just using the keyboard. You can see the avalible commands from a list above. If you want to set focus to the list you can do that with the Tab key and you can scroll the list with the arrow keys. Note: You can hide The Command Panel from Options>Preferences>GUI>Command Panel Options Marking as old: -Automatic: All entries are marked as old when you exit the program -Manual: You can manually mark entries as old Registry Cleanup: -Automatic: RegCleaner will do an automated registry cleaning when you click the Registry Cleanup button. -Manual: RegCleaner will show you a list of all entries that are found to be invalid and they can be removed, you can then remove them if you like to. One by one or many entries at the same time. When you're done, click the done button on the lower left corner. Uninstall Menu: -Show all software: all software are shown in the uninstall menu -Show only hidden software: only hidden software are shown, by hidden I mean software that is not listed in the Windows' Add/Remove software list. -Don´t show hidden software: All the same items as in the Windows' Add/Remove software list are shown in the uninstall menu. Tips and Tricks If you can't see everything on RegCleaner, you can use the More Info feature by right-clicking the item you can't see entirely. When you have seen what you want, you can make the More Info to disappear by moving the cursor over it. In the backup section it disappears when you click it. If you can't see all the tabs you can double click the caption bar above it and a two navigation buttons appear. You can hide them by double-clicking the bar again. You can view the contents of backup files by right-clicking the backup you want see. You can see what entries would be deleted with right click and Advanced Info feature.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: How do I remove the entries that I want to delete using RegCleaner? A: Simply highlight those entries that you wish to delete (with your mouse "select" key), and then click with your mouse on the "Remove Selected" button in the lower right corner next to the "Exit" button. The entries you've selected will automatically be deleted. Q: What does the age-thing mean? A: It's just a way to point out the new entries. And by new, I mean entries that you haven't seen before. So you don't have to read the whole list, because the age-thing makes the new entries appear on the top of the list. Q: Does the registry cleanup work with every Operating System? A: Yes, it supports every OS that RegCleaner itself supports (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows98 SE, Windows ME, Windows NT4, and Windows 2000). Q: What's the difference between 'Uninstall' and 'Remove selected' button in the uninstallation screen? A: Uninstall button uninstalls the program but the 'Remove selected' button only removes the program from the list. Q: What are those "unknown entries?" A: They can be anything. Might be some copy protection stuff or just some program's settings or something. You see, some programs just add their stuff to the registry but don't bother to actually mark what program added them. Actually quite stupid, but some programs just work that way. Q: Even though I have restored a backup it still is in the backup section, why? A: If you don't need that backup again, then just delete it. Q: Do I have to delete the old version of RegCleaner before I can install a new one? A: You should delete the old version if you are updating from an older version (e.g. 3.8 -> 4.0) but there´s no reason to do that if you are just updating to a newer build (e.g. 4.0.740 -> 4.0.744) nor if you are getting a newer edition (e.g. 4.0 -> 4.1). Q: How do I uninstall RegCleaner? A: Just delete it or use the installer (Options > RegCleaner > Uninstall RegCleaner) Q: Are entries marked with "N/A" always safe to remove? A: No! RegCleaner will tell you if there is some generic rules to find most likely useless entries. For example N/A entries should be safe to delete in File Types-section. Q: Is RegCleaner free? A: Yes, 100% free. No sponsor banners, nothing. A true freeware. Q: Does RegCleaner contain so-called 'easter eggs?' A: Yes it does. Q: What are 'easter eggs?' A: Hidden features, usually something funny. Q: Why doesn't the Uninstall Program or the feature in the Control Panel remove everything that has been installed from the beginning of the system? A: First of all, some of the programs you install don't have an uninstallation program. Most of these applications don't need any special uninstallation, but some do. Many programs leave theirsettings stored in the registry, in case that, the user, some day in the future installs it again, then usersdon't have to set it up, because they did it already. This on one hand is logical, but on the otherhand, stupid. So there was really no point to uninstalling it in the first place. But the vast majority of left-overentries are in the registry because the user didn't use the uninstaller and just deleted the program's folder.
Contact Information
Name | Status | Contact For | Contact | Homepage
Jouni Vuorio | Programmer | Bugs, Improvement Ideas | www | http://www.jv16.org/
Adam Severns | Document Writer | Typos, etc. | E-Mail | http://home.dal.net/aerowinder/index.htm
DO NOT contact Jouni for documentation!!! DO NOT contact Adam for the uses or operations of RegCleaner!!! DO NOT send him language packs either!!! But feel free to give both of us thanks for the wonderful program that RegCleaner is. Happy RegCleaning :)
Copyright 1999-2001 Jouni Vuorio All Rights Reserved