Solved Any way to automate deleting lots of keys from the registry?

[WebMaximus]

Does anyone know if there's some freeware tool that would allow me to delete lots of keys from the registry under a specific hive containing a string value which in turn contains a specific value?

Below is a short extract from my registry where I exported the hive of interest and as you can see some of the keys contain a string containing the value 'Microsoft Flight simulator X'

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB458B8A779B8B9D6853499E99DC17B6]
"5F30FE2770501684A9449DF94D4C4181"="C:\\Program Files\\Paint.NET\\Resources\\it\\Files.AboutCredits.rtf"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB4C64BA715DB0E45A96CE93457A0ABF]
"3BB6B5B440AD65B4EA71DDFBF3448688"=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB5A057B2C8023D4C88B5811F98BC4C5]
"9040580900063D11C8EF10054038389C"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Office\\OFFICE11\\UCSCRIBE.DLL"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB5A057B2C8023D4C88B5811F98BC4C5\9040580900063D11C8EF10054038389C]
"PatchGUID"="{5798D425-7593-4FE5-BE53-E60DEBB65A53}"
"MediaCabinet"="PCW_CAB_H15000_1"
"File"="UCSCRIBE.DLL_0002"
"ComponentVersion"="11.0.8161.0"
"ProductVersion"="11.0.6506"
"PatchSize"="0"
"PatchAttributes"="0"
"PatchSequence"="10010"
"SharedComponent"="0"
"IsFullFile"="1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB61AF379CDB76047BD6318B9D421FCF]
"694A72599FD5A214DA7C61B85A73C96A"="F:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Games\\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\\SimObjects\\Airplanes\\Grumman_Goose_G21A\\Texture.1\\Fresnel_Ramp.dds"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB6BCDDA824074D448EC6F57C30142DA]
"694A72599FD5A214DA7C61B85A73C96A"="F:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Games\\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\\SimObjects\\GroundVehicles\\VEH_Air_FireTruck_Euro_sm\\sim.cfg"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB6E9B4033F985670CF18C3B9B1A1EE8]
"c1c4f01781cc94c4c8fb1542c0981a2a"=""
"1D7AD0FA68A03E11788E0FD42AA3C585"=""
"b25099274a207264182f8181add555d0"=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB6FEC9342BC5F9439DC375AAE2D7702]
"694A72599FD5A214DA7C61B85A73C96A"="F:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Games\\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\\SimObjects\\Airplanes\\Bombardier_CRJ_700\\panel\\Bombardier_CRJ_700.cab"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB7673335BBD6FF489B241C29C3977FC]
"D3C479BC101D1144F845CDCD85ED8D51"="C:\\Program Files\\Protector Suite\\Interop.WMPLib.dll"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\DB7949BC483A8973F71343A37A9FC425]
"5F30FE2770501684A9449DF94D4C4181"="C:\\Program Files\\Paint.NET\\Resources\\en-US\\Icons.InvertColorsEffect.png"

So...what I would like looking at the example above is to find a tool where I could simply tell it to go through the complete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components hive and delete any keys containing a string value containing Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

Of course I could do this clean-up myself manually but it will take some time considering the number of entries to remove so if there's a tool of some kind that could do this for me I would be more than happy.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[Wandering one]

More than likely C Cleaner will do if the program is uninstalled. Next time Revo uninstaller is better for uninstalling as it also checks for registry left overs. Don't neglect to select reg backup before it is too late.
Art.

 

[WebMaximus]

Already tried CCLeaner but unfortunately it didn't find these keys.

Thanks for the tip regarding Revo.

 

[Ztruker]

Give RegSeeker a try. You can search specific chains, like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE for spoecific text. When done, simply select all then right click and delete. It will also backup the entries before deleting them.

 

[WebMaximus]

Give RegSeeker a try. You can search specific chains, like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE for spoecific text. When done, simply select all then right click and delete. It will also backup the entries before deleting them.

Many thanks, will give it a try!

 

[Pyprohly]

Hi WebMaximus,

Attached is a batch script solution you can try. Running the script will display the keys that will be deleted after matching the given string. Change the "WhatIf" value, in the batch file, to FALSE to instead delete found keys.

Note: Modifying the HKLM hive requires Administrator rights, so the batch file must be run from an Elevated Command Prompt.

Please backup your registry first.


Preview:

@echo off
net session >NUL 2>&1|| echo Error: deleting from the HKLM hive requires Administrator privilages.&& timeout 2 >NUL && exit /b 1 

REM Iterate through %starting_key% and delete any child keys
REM that contain the string %string_to_find% in any value of
REM the key.

::
set starting_key="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components"
set string_to_find="Microsoft Flight simulator X"
set should_recurse=FALSE
set prompt_before_deletion=TRUE
set WhatIf=TRUE
::

set echo=& if /i not "%WHATIF%"=="FALSE" set "echo=ECHO"
set should_recurse=& if /i "%SHOULD_RECURSE%"=="TRUE" set "recurse=/s"
set prompt_before_deletion=/f& if /i "%PROMPT_BEFORE_DELETION%"=="TRUE" set "prompt_before_deletion="
echo This may take a moment...& echo.
for /f "delims=" %%A in (' reg query "%STARTING_KEY:"=%" %RECURSE% ') do (
	for /f "delims=" %%B in (' reg query "%%~A" /v "*" ') do (
		echo "%%~B"| find /i "%STRING_TO_FIND:"=%" >NUL && (
			if defined ECHO (
				echo "%%~A"& echo.
			) else (
				reg delete "%%~A" %PROMPT_BEFORE_DELETION%& echo.
			)
		)
	)
)
echo Done.

 

[WebMaximus]

Just wanted to say thanks to all of you guys for your help and valuable input!

I ended up using a combination of manual cleaning up with help from RegSeeker. RegSeeker to easy find and delete the entries in my example above and manual clean-up of some additional entries. Could have used RegSeeker for those as well but in some cases I found it more easy to manually search the registry using regedit to identify keys and values I wanted to get rid of.