Topic created on: May 4, 2008 13:17 CDT by
shakuni 
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I have a tool that scans(parses) the registry for invalid entries and deletes them.
I looked for things that are considered as "invalid registry entries" and found many things that comes in the criteria, like following-
Missing shared dlls
Unused file extensions
activex issues
COM issues
class (Invalid or empty class) issues
MUI cache
etc.
My question is that how can I determine wheather an entry in a registry is invalid or not according to above criteria.
no way, only heuristics and suggestions. well, some entries are definitely wrong (for example: association with non-existing program, but... what if the directory just temporary unmounted?). normal tool should support interactive mode, telling user what's wrong (well, _probably_ wrong ) and fixing problem after confirmation (of course, we're talking about a smart user).
many tools try to fix registry, but they're very dangerous and have a side effect. some program might not work after fix and you have to test _everything_, every options of every program to be sure everything is ok. maybe, better doesn't install any shit on your primary box and use virtual machines? my base OS has just a few programs: FAR, MS Word, Winamp, IDA Pro, Opera, Fire Fox, SMALL HTTP Server... the rest is under VM Ware and everything is fine. I reboot my PC about six times per _year_
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