Restoring Registry??????????

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

John - 29 May 2004 03:58 GMT

I mistakenly installed Windows Media Player 9. To remove
it, Msoft conveniently arranged it so I have to restore
the registry.
Msoft bulletin on how to restore registry:
1. Start w/ start-up disk
2. At prompt enter: cd\windows\command
All I get is an "invalid command"
Does someone know how to really do this?

Reply to this Message

Rick T - 29 May 2004 04:31 GMT

> I mistakenly installed Windows Media Player 9. To remove
> it, Msoft conveniently arranged it so I have to restore
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> All I get is an "invalid command"
> Does someone know how to really do this?

If you're running from a Windows EBD and you're trying to run a scanreg
restore then typing

A:\> scanreg /restore

should get you to where you want to be....

but if you want to go with M$ instructions there's probably a

A:\> c:

you have to type first, before

C:\> cd \windows\command

which is before

C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\> scanreg /restore

Though I think the error you received is "Invalid Directory" not
"Invalid Command"... that'd be a totally different problem (if so, your
EBD(startup disk) is broken, make a new one)

Rick

Reply to this Message

John - 30 May 2004 16:26 GMT

Message at bottom

>-----Original Message-----
>
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>
>Rick

Rick, thanks for your help.

I have 3 other questions:
As I was looking through the registry keys, I noticed that
there were keys for applications uninstalled long ago. eg.
I had installed and subsequently removed Real Player from
my machine, yet keys for Real Player remain.

1. Is is okay to simply delete those keys?

2. If yes, is there an order to remove, ie: Start with
HKEY_Current_user first and go to every group and remove,
or will removing from HKEY_local machine take care of all?
3. Related to above, I noticed a key for BDE. The first
time I encountered BDE was in uninstalling another
application, BDE showed up in the application list, so I
deleted it as well. Some time later, after acquiring a spy-
ware removal application, BDE was identified and removed.
The current key for BDE contains .exe files and other
items that look like the types of files you would see
associated with an application in the Programs folder.
Can BDE be removed via deleting the key? My spyware
doesn't pick it up anymore.

Reply to this Message

Rick T - 30 May 2004 17:32 GMT

> As I was looking through the registry keys, I noticed that
> there were keys for applications uninstalled long ago. eg.
> I had installed and subsequently removed Real Player from
> my machine, yet keys for Real Player remain.
>
> 1. Is is okay to simply delete those keys?

I've done it. But with thousands of registry keys, it probably won't
hurt anything to leave them in there.

> 2. If yes, is there an order to remove, ie: Start with
> HKEY_Current_user first and go to every group and remove,
> or will removing from HKEY_local machine take care of all?

Far as I know you gotta do it one at a time. But there are quite a few
"registry cleaner" programs out there whose main task is to clean up
stuff that isn't connected to anything, eg: keys that reference files
that have been deleted. RegCleaner from JV16 PowerTools is pretty good
(but it's payware these days). Some of them cut too deeply though.

<Ctrl-F> = Find

> 3. Related to above, I noticed a key for BDE. The first
> time I encountered BDE was in uninstalling another
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Can BDE be removed via deleting the key? My spyware
> doesn't pick it up anymore.

Never heard of it.... BDE also stands for Borland Database Engine...
deleting *those* keys will cause something to not work.

Whatever changes you make, if they don't work or screw up your system,
you can (almost always) boot from a floppy disk and run SCANREG
/RESTORE, if you notice something's wrong, though personally:

"If it ain't broke..."

Rick

Reply to this Message

Noel Paton - 29 May 2004 09:04 GMT

You don't 'restore the registry' to remove WMP9 - you use System Restore!!
Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools|System Restore

Signature

Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
or
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/Mar01/Mar27pmvp.asp

Reply to this Message