Microsoft Tools to Get Rid of Registry Keys From a Bad Uninstall

• Even after you uninstall a program, components from that program can still exist in your system, especially your registry. A registry key is a storage container for sub-keys, and these keys won't hold anything if they relate to a program that did not uninstall correctly. Microsoft provides you with free tools that allow you to look for empty registry items and manually remove them.

Add/Remove

• If you uninstall a program, but it's not completely removed from your system, you can use the "Add or Remove Programs" tool to finish removing what's left of it. You should back up your registry before attempting to change it, in case you accidentally delete important data. For this process, you will run the "regedt32" command line tool, which will pull up the Registry Editor. In this window, click the "Uninstall" option, and select "Export" on the file menu. This will pull up the "Export Registry File" dialog box, and you should save this file to your desktop. Find the registry keys associated with the program that you removed. Once you find it, right-click on it within the Registry Editor window, and select Delete. After you delete all of the bad registry keys, go to "File" and "Exit" to quit the Registry Editor. Now, you shouldn't see the file within the currently installed programs.

Autoruns

• The Autoruns for Windows version 10.04 allows you to see all the programs that automatically run when you start up Windows. You can also see all of the registry keys and start-up folders. If you deleted a program that started during the boot up of your operating system, then you can determine whether or not the program is still installed on your system, and see all of the keys associated with that program. This will provide you with a list of the registry keys that you can use to manually delete the keys associated with it.

RegDelNull

• The RegDelNull tool allows you to search for registry keys that either won't delete correctly or that contain embedded null characters, which are often found in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) documents. These characters can evade detection by removal programs. This tool allows you to not only find these bad characters and registry keys, but also delete them. You should back up your registry before deleting any item. This tool can cause programs not to function properly if you delete a key associated with a needed program. This is a command line tool, which means that you run it from the command prompt on your computer.