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Used a trial program from Uniblue called Registry Booster, which turned up a whopping 645 problems with my registry. I can probably guess those results are padded out with a lot of benign issues (still typing up the message... guess I haven't imploded yet), but now it's got me all paranoid. I'm looking for something to help me clean up my registry that I don't have to pay for. Any suggestions?

Try Registy Mechanic? http://www.download.com/Registry-Mechanic/...4-10190447.html

Personally, I use RegSeeker. It hasn't caused any problems for me to my knowledge. I'd say feel free to screw with your registry, just absolutely make sure that you take a backup so that you can go back if anything messes up.

Yeah, that's what everyone says. Backup registry.


So, which should I use?

Whovever's word means more to you

Nah, try either, they both sound like they'll work. If one doesn't, then try the other.

Hmm, not too definitive. At least download.com recommends the former. Dunno if that means anything, though. I'll try that first anyway.

Registry Mechanic is awesome, but in order to do anything more than scan, you'll need to pay for it. I don't know about the other one, though.

Crap. See, that's what I want. I already got a scan telling me my registry is messed up. Now I want to do something about it. I don't especially want to wait until I'm able to start paying for things again before I can fix it (otherwise I'd have just bought that first thing that I mentioned up top).

Oy, this is getting on me noives. Trying moose's one now...

Sorry, I wouldn't know ~.~
I don't use "free" versions of stuff, I have other methods that you probably wouldn't want to use.


All the registry cleaners on Download.com are free to try, you can use them and clean like 15 problems, but after that you need to buy the program. So try Moose's


Personally, I don't think you're in that much danger, don't over react to having a bunch of "problems" in your registry.

Sorry lost my temper. Actually this whole mess was started by getting hit by a worm a short while ago. Dunno what it did, and all my scanners are saying nothing's wrong... which makes me even more worried, frankly.

Therefore, registry cleanup is part of my checklist. Finding a gajillion problems with it and not being able to do anything about it without greasing someone's palms, well, isn't.

Go into your Windows folder and delete all the DLL files. After that, start deleting those random folders that you don't really know what they do.

Doesn't SpyBot do a lot of work with registry stuff?

I personally prefer to edit the registry manually. Stated tweaking it around 4 years ago when I first came across Warzone 2100. There was a disabled option that could only be activated by the registry.

Anyway just run an anti-spyware and virus program to clean it up. I personally prefer Microsofts Windows Defender for spyware. In fact thats the only program I use and I can't remember the last time I got hit by anything. I keep good tabs on what program should be running and I can't remember the last time anything was out of place. Windows Defender is free.


Also if your not expericing a lot of problems with your computer don't be worried. If you are truely paranoid, google a program called HiJackThis and then run it and have it create a log file. Copy the log file and paste it here. I'll tell you if any bad or suspicious processes are running.

Well specifically I'm not worried about what's running. I'm worried about what's not running. I haven't rebooted my computer since the worm hit for fear of some possible system damage, or possibly something hiding away awaiting startup to activate. The part that scares me in particular is that I caught the worm only after running a virus scan... and not with the scanner. I knew it was there because my disk drive lights kept going on, which meant something was trying to find some files or drives or something that I hadn't allowed.

Sure enough, I found the worm (a script, actually), and (supposedly) cleaned up all its stuff. However I have reason to believe, after looking at its code, that it cleaned up after itself and now has something stuffed away in my system. Or worse, some part of my system is now damaged, and I won't know until I reboot and my system stops working.


See why I'm a little on edge, right? And yes, I tried the Hijackthis! thing already.

ADDITION:
Moose, your reg program gave me a memory error message in french when I tried to close. I worry when I start seeing error messages in foreign languages. Tell me this isn't a bad thing (I just did a cleanup with it, which seemed to carry though ok, at least).

Go over the basics and remove all unknown software from the startup lists and such. If you have any suspicious files on startup lists, search them in your system and figure out wtf they are and if they are bad delete them and anything suspicious around them. If something is stuffed away in your system and not running then thats ok. What are you paranoid about? That code starting back up? Well let me tell you that if it starts back up it will be because you got hit by the virus again and it wouldn't of mattered if the old bad files were deleted or not. Do not be so paranoid. If no bad process is running then do not be worried.

The registry is only a place to store data. It wont haunt you. I only clean mine up because I am picky about organization and the registry isn't the most organized system in the world...especially when half of the programs don't delete there registry data on uninstall(and I have a habit of uninstalling things manually).

Look if you want a quick free scan with the registry run Windows Defender. It's an excellent tool that you can download at www.microsoft.com.

What do you think is the purpose of a trial program? To get you to buy there full program. So for all you know they could be checking to see if any file string in the registry is not on the computer anymore. Theres a lot of stuff companies will go ahead and do. In fact I wouldn't be suprised if Mcafee and Norton actually helped hackers at times in order to get people to buy there product. Especially with Vista and Microsoft being a bit tight on the kernal.

Well I'll take a look at the startup stuff, but since I don't know what the worm did to me it could very well have modified some of the startup stuff. I probably don't have anything wrong, but I'm not gonna be naive until I've covered all the bases.

Anyway registry is the only main thing I'm not too comfortable with, so when I see 645 things listed as a problem I tend to be a bit concerned.


I looked at the worm's script, and besides doing some registry stuff I couldn't understand, it also apparantly took a few other files that found their way on my system along with it (just innocent-sounding files that don't do anything on their own) and assembled them together and put them somewhere. Whether that somewhere is in one of my DLLs, as a new file, or something else altogether, I can't say. I've run every scanner I can get my hands on to track it down, and so far nada.

Might be nothing, might not. Times like these I wish I finished learning all my windows jazz so I'm not so clueless.

Go to Start -> Run -> Type in MsConfig -> Click on Startup.

Look for anything suspicious and follow it through with a possible deletion. Especially the location part. I'd also google the file before you delete it just to be sure.

Also most viruses don't attack your computer to screw it up, they do it to steal information. Because I could make a program that could really cause some havok. On every exit it could load up a new one of itself(or just load up tons of itself every few seconds or even milisecond), flood your programs menu, flood your startup list, add a ton of tray icons, only be exitable via ctrl alt delete(wont even be able to shut down the computer via shut down menu), flood files everywhere, delete icon files and etc. It's incredibly simple to do, would REALLY piss you off, and would be quite a decent virus, yet I don't think i've seen a virus that does it. I could even throw a keylogger on top of that and it could write everything you type back to a server aswell as every application you have open and etc.. It's really simple to do.

Most viruses are there to steal information and if they were really there to cause damage they could do it in a lot more effective ways than pounding the registry with values that wont affect much if anything.

Well this isn't just any old worm or anything. Not that it's anything extraordinary, either. In fact I can even go as far as to say who made it, possibly, but I won't go further than that without starting a whole new line of irrelevant discussion. Needless to say, I don't trust them, and therefore anything is possible.

I feel dumb enough as is for letting it get me in the first place. Scripts I can handle, but now I got to worry about system stuff, which I'm relatively clueless on.

No time like the present to learn, I suppose.



*deep breath* Welp, it's been nice knowing ya. Time for a reboot!

Reinstall windows.

Viruses and computer problems are a great way to learn how to know an OS inside and out. Trust me, I screwed up computers enough and then I had an older brother who made me fix them else I got punched a few times. Now look at me I can code pretty well in C# and not bad in C++(no GUI's, mostly dll stuff) and im only 16.

If you are't noticing any slowdowns or anything then don't worry that much about system specific stuff. If it went and deleted\replaced all your extension files you'd probably be more pist than right now. What good would it be if all your files were told to open with notepad or all your computers sounds were changed to something horrible or it just sat there and recorded all your info via keylogger and sent it back to a server and they got into everything and screwed up your e-mail, forum accounts, and etc..

Don't think much of it this script. God all this wants to make me write something and put it into my schools system where you can't even use ctrl alt delete to close programs .

Well good news is, I'm still here. The registry cleanup sped things up a bit too, so now I can boot up quicker. Just played a few WC3 missions so I guess everything is fine.

What had me worried about the worm is, knowing the author and his intent, it could easily have been something meant intentionally to cause harm. This wouldn't be the first, too (nor probably the last).


I still don't know what became of it, though...

Yes, Spybot's pretty good with the registry. You still have to know what to do with the entries though, but it's normally common-sense.

As for your other advice...