I'm trying to completely delete a program and find traces of it in the registry. Changing ownership and permissions doesn't work, and neither using regdelnull64.exe works. I'm at a loss as to how to get rid of these several keys.
You have changed permissions in the registery? have you check on the makers site they often have a removeltool for failed removal
I had that problem years ago. Had to load the drive as an external, open the reg hive in a text
editor and delete the keys.
Yeah, I know, not an easy solution.
This is an old out of business company, and yes, as mentioned, ownership and permissions doesn't work
Never tried loading a drive as an external, might be easier to reinstall the OS, as there's not much on the hard drive -- it's a server, with a handful of programs loaded
As this is an old business computer, it may have been used as a part of a domain network and if so a lot of the permissions will have been set from the network servers(s).
There may also be an issue with the OS licencing at some time in the near future as most business computers will use some form of licensing server to distribute licences to the user under the volume licencing system. If this is the case then eventually the system will need to "phone Home" to the server to check it's licencing status.
Due to the nature of ex business systems where you are not in possession of all the system data (user and administrator passwords). I would always recommend strongly that you reinstall with a new licenced OS.
there are of course cases where regular retail copies of the OS are used, which means that the external Server level permissions would still mean that the system needs reinstalling, but the original licence Key could be reused, [after retrieval from the system before reinstall using a suitable tool]
Over the years the computer accumulates a lot of trash all over.
In my opinion you should reinstall Windows. Fist Backup your data as the drive will be formatted.
You probably have two options:
- From BIOS or from Windows launch the factory restore. It will format the C: partition and load an image from the Restore partition. It will end as the laptop came from the factory.
- You probably have a COA sticker under the computer case or inside the battery compartment. You can use the license key to do a fresh win 7 install. If you don't have the disk we can give you a link from M$ so you can download a iso file and then burn a DVD or install it on a USB flash drive.
I wrote about this on my forum. Here is a direct copy and paste.
Do you have malware or something that created a registry key that you weren't able to delete? Well fear no more! There are a couple solutions to this on the Internet, but I will give you my solution that is as simple as pie and should allow you to delete the stubborn registry key.
First and foremost, if you aren't sure if the key is being used or not, give RegScanner a try and see if it has been accessed recently or not. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/regscanner.html
Now for the best little tool I have ever found. This little baby will run things as a system user which as you can expect will give you great power. And like Richard Parker said to Peter Parker, "with great power comes great responsibility."
The tool's name is Runassystem. You can use it to run the registry as a system user, thereby giving you the power to hopefully deleting those stubborn registry keys. The tool is located at this website Free Windows IT admin Tools - AprelTech
Once you run the tool you will have to enter the path to regedit. But who the hell knows that! Not a problem! It's C:\Windows\System32\regedt32.exe
That is the path you would enter in Runassystem to run the registry as a system user. Your path may be different depending on OS. Now just search the registry for that stubborn registry key that won't delete, right click the little bugger and select delete.
I shouldn't have to remind you that you should make a system restore point and/or a registry backup before you make changes to the registry.
There is another tool called Regassassin by Malwarebytes, but that didn't work for me and Runassystem did. If you want to try regassassin, then all you need to do is right click the stubborn registry key, click copy and paste that path in regassassin.
Happy editing!
Also found this in one of my post's on my forum. 4 Ways to Edit Registry Key Values Without Booting into Windows • Raymond.CC
Quote