Clean register for hardware changed

Point value changed by question poster.

Two softwares come to mind, 1, Norton SystemWorks pro edition 2004 and 2,V-com SystemSuite 5. Both works very well. Nortons you do not have to install on your hard drive, V-com you do.You can buy either one from many computer parts places including Walmart. There is one other called system mechanic, I have not used it enough to say that it works as good as the others. Hope this helps, Frank

Aaron,

Start by ALWAYS opening Device Manager and removing the device before shutting the PC down to remove the hardware.

Next, check Add/Remove Programs, and remove any software installed for the device.

Next, Registry cleaners such as Norton Win Doctor and V-Com Fix-It do a fairly decent job of cleaning up the registry.
V-Com System Suite also has a registry compaction / defragment tool that can be useful.

Still, I have found neither tool to be the answer to clearing all traces of removed hardware.

It's time to learn to use regedit.

CAUTION: Improper use of regedit can disable your PC.
It is "best" practice to make a backup copy of the registry files before editing the registry.

A good guide to the registry is posted at www.winguides.com

Start at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Expand the branch and locate the ENUM key.
(I'm on a W98 box right now, and I know that the ENUM key is at least 2 levels below on a W2K system.)

Expand the branches and look for any hardware that is no longer part of the system. (and that you plan to leave out)
Note the labels of the keys and data for the device.
Delete the key(s).
Now search for other occurrences of the device name and terms. (Edit, Find)
Delete keys as appropriate.
Search for any new terms that you find for the device. (I've done as many as 5 levels of searches.)

After you exit regedit, it may be worth it to run a registry cleaner again.

Then, search the hard drive for driver file remnants.

For sound cards in particular, don't forget to search through the 'legacy' system files.
Autoexec.bat
Config.sys
Sys.ini
Win.ini

You can do this by running sysedit.

Chas

I use two products for tracking and reverting registry changes.

Iolo's System Mechanic, very resourceful and robust. It will track all registry changes and show you exactly what was changed in detail including the values changed.
http://tinyurl.com/2g8rv

I also use ConfigSafe which offer a snapshot ans rollback system, tracks registry changes and reverts back as well.
http://tinyurl.com/3g32s

Great registry tracking and restore tools!

if you go device manager. you can select to view hidden devices also, and remove them.

Also not related to solve the registry problem; why dont you make a image from the machine and when you want to start from scratch you can restore that image ?

Leopold

There is no tool that will remove all the junk that is scattered through your machine after it is orphaned, not totally.

We have tried some of the rollback software but they had their own problems.

I do the same thing. I have a machine setup just for that.

You are right after a while it will consume itself.

When I started up the test machine I set it up to a base configuration. Where I want it to be under normal operation.

Using partition magic 8 I reduced the partition size to 13 gig. I had several spare drives that would hold this size partition.

I copied the base configuration to the spare drive and removed it from the system.

I resize the partition on the main to full size and let the techs loose on it.

Now my techs can play to their hearts content on the testbed. When it gets bloated or we actually kill it, we've done that a few times, we just install the spare drive as the master and reimage the partition to the main drive.

The spare drive actually stays in the machine we just disconnect it.

This actually takes less time that doing a manual removal of most software.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck Lee

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