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#11
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Why does the registry store unimportant file locations
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote in m: Yes, but that's you. :-) For those who are unaware, it's best to follow those "No Trespassing" signs posted in regedit, and stay away. :-) I used to break stuff as a kid. Once you're in (and he's in) there's only one way out. Get familiar so you can come and go without breaking stuff. Think of the registry as like a museum. Imagine fat blue ropes keeping the fragile glass cases safe from close approach. Looking is usually harmless, just got to resist the temptation to touch. Or get a method of reliable backup/restore. Seriously. it wasn't because I wanted to explore that I got Ghost, registry backups, etc. it was because I knew there'd be times when I didn't, and just wanted a safe way to go. Either way, not looking makes no sense. We might see stuff that scares us but we won't get bitten in the arse. I think some of us techies don't mind playing in there, but I still wouldn't recommend it for the newbies. Plus we all have backups, and know how and when to use them, which is not so for the newbies. Plus if I remember this thread right, the OP was only talking about removing some leftover (and harmless) spurious entries, which have no impact anyway. (yes, I know there are exceptions to that, but they are the exceptions). |
#12
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Why does the registry store unimportant file locations
"Bill in Co" wrote in
m: I think some of us techies don't mind playing in there, but I still wouldn't recommend it for the newbies. Plus we all have backups, and know how and when to use them, which is not so for the newbies. Plus if I remember this thread right, the OP was only talking about removing some leftover (and harmless) spurious entries, which have no impact anyway. (yes, I know there are exceptions to that, but they are the exceptions). He's in there. No stopping him. So what do we do? Stand and watch him sink, or throw him a float? One thing's for sure, if he didn't want to be in there, he wouldn't be. The suggestions I made would not arise in a case where someone was totally unfamiliar, and showed no signs of going in for any reason. I'd still recommend Ghost in that case though, because if they can backup the whole OS, they'll never have to endure a breakage for long because they will always have that easy way out, losing nothing but a few recent configs, so long as they know where their files are. Re the files, I know a lot of those who are that bew to an OS don't know where they are. Microsoft hide file extensions and locations, people are encouraged to imaging the file has no existence outside the program that handles it! But this is just irresponsible lunacy, making people beleive that. As kids we don't want to beleive that our food COSTS something, but no- one would argue that kids should reach adolescense still beleiving that. |
#13
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Why does the registry store unimportant file locations
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote in m: I think some of us techies don't mind playing in there, but I still wouldn't recommend it for the newbies. Plus we all have backups, and know how and when to use them, which is not so for the newbies. Plus if I remember this thread right, the OP was only talking about removing some leftover (and harmless) spurious entries, which have no impact anyway. (yes, I know there are exceptions to that, but they are the exceptions). He's in there. No stopping him. So what do we do? Stand and watch him sink, or throw him a float? One thing's for sure, if he didn't want to be in there, he wouldn't be. The suggestions I made would not arise in a case where someone was totally unfamiliar, and showed no signs of going in for any reason. I'd say if he's just going in to remove some spurious entries he doesn't like seeing, and he's not all that familiar with regedit to begin with, to skip it. It's not worth the potential risk, IMHO. Removing some traces of leftover entries isn't a good reason to mess with the registry, UNLESS it is causing issues, which it isn't. I know what can happen when you don't know what you're doing in there. :-) I'd still recommend Ghost in that case though, because if they can backup the whole OS, they'll never have to endure a breakage for long because they will always have that easy way out, losing nothing but a few recent configs, so long as they know where their files are. If he's just messing with the registry, ERUNT might be enough, but a backup image or clone of C: would probably be the best. Re the files, I know a lot of those who are that bew to an OS don't know where they are. Microsoft hide file extensions and locations, people are encouraged to imaging the file has no existence outside the program that handles it! But this is just irresponsible lunacy, making people beleive that. As kids we don't want to beleive that our food COSTS something, but no- one would argue that kids should reach adolescense still beleiving that. The world is full of lunacy. The question becomes, at what point do we enter Don Quixote land. :-) |
#14
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Why does the registry store unimportant file locations
"Bill in Co" wrote in
: I'd say if he's just going in to remove some spurious entries he doesn't like seeing, and he's not all that familiar with regedit to begin with, to skip it. It's not worth the potential risk, IMHO. Removing some traces of leftover entries isn't a good reason to mess with the registry, UNLESS it is causing issues, which it isn't. I know what can happen when you don't know what you're doing in there. :-) I just think he should check back, and post back. He obviously wanted advice, and got some, but I don't have a clue if it helped or not. We all have a fairly good idea of what he saw, but we could still be wrong. He's doing better asking than not, anyway, even if he just asks himself and starts trawling. Ignorance is fine, but willful ignorance causes more trouble than anything short of panic and over-reaction (the main reason people advise againmst going into the registry). He saw something that made him alarmed. I still want to know if he managed to avoid over-reacting to it. Judging by various reg cleaners I've seen, I'd rather trust my own judgement. That's not because I think that judgement is especially good, it's because reg-cleaners are almost always very bad. |
#15
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Why does the registry store unimportant file locations
"Hot-Text" wrote in -
privat.org: I remember my first day as a bull in a Windows-1.0 china shop .. Nice. I get that feeling whenever I look at compilers and header files... |
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