Registry leftovers

[dirkvdp 0]

I downloaded Emsisoft Emergency Kit yesterday, and tried it out on my computer.
Looks like a fine and extremely useful program to carry on my USB stick, but I've got one remark:

When I try out a "portable" program (which obviously comes without an uninstaller) I monitor the first run with Ashampoo Uninstaller. I found out that the changes to the Windows registry (Windows XP SP3) where within acceptable limits, but when I tried to undo the changes with Ashampoo Uninstaller, I discovered that the following registry entries were left behind after running the uninstaller routine: Registry changes.txt. They also appear to be unremovable manually in regedit. I'm fairly sure that these references to the "legacy driver" cleanhlp32.sys are harmless, but as your program was obviously able to enter them into the registry, it appears to me that there must also be a way to remove them. Just out of interest: is there a way to remove these entries? (I'm not unfamiliar with the Windows registry.)

Merely my personal opinion - but I feel that a portable program ought not to leave anything behind on the PC it's being used on (which may be somebody else's...)

 

Tks for you help.

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[Masood 1]

Go to safe mode and see if you can remove them sometimes you can remove registery keys cause a process may have the key open.

[GT500 841]

You're not supposed to remove those entries. Windows expects that LEGACY registry keys will never be deleted.

[dirkvdp 0]

Maybe I could remove them in safe mode, but it might not be awise thing to do, considering Mr Wilkinson's reply..

So be it! But I still think that true "portability" should imply leaving no registry traces behind (except for the normal MRU keys and the like).

 

Thanks both ... and am still interested in other peoples opinion on this item.

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[dirkvdp 0]

I checked some other sources, and to summarize briefly: the keys can be deleted - using programs as PsExec (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx) - but are better left alone...

 

See:

 

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=141555

 

https://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/ControlSet-legacy-entries/td-p/129596

 

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[GT500 841]

But I still think that true "portability" should imply leaving no registry traces behind (except for the normal MRU keys and the like).

Unfortunately, Windows isn't designed that way. At least not when you have to use drivers to perform functions.

If you do want to try deleting the registry keys, then I recommend first creating a new System Restore Point, and then creating a UBCD4Win disk just in case you need to restore the registry. You will need a Windows XP or Windows 2003 disk in order to build a UBCD4Win disk.

[dirkvdp 0]

I'm going to leave the LEGACY keys untouched. I know now that they do serve some purpose in Windows - there not just useless leftovers ("registry garbage").

 

quote

Unfortunately, Windows isn't designed that way. At least not when you have to use drivers to perform functions.

unquote

 

Of course you're right - certainly when sys drivers are involved. But portable software makers can try to be as "clean" as possible. (That's why I appreciate so much what the people on  http://portableapps.com/  and similar sites are doing.) To people who are more or less aware of what windows does "under the bonnet", having a clean registry, appdata folder and the like is not unimportant.

 

As far as I'm concerned this thread can be closed now. Thanks for your reaction. It really helped to make sense of all this.

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[GT500 841]

You're quite welcome. If you need me to reopen the thread, feel free to send me a private message.