Tech Support Forum - View Single Post - Services stopped, cannot restore or run online/offline scans

~~Girderman~~ · 11-12-2006, 02:11 AM

Okay Reg Removal is one of the riskiest endeavors, because a corrupted Registry can prevent the machine from booting. So anything you do with the Registry must be done with the understanding that it is at your own risk.

Given that, I cannot even suggest what I think you should do, I can only tell you what *I* would do in your situation. You will have to decide if you think you can do it successfully, and/or if it is worth the risk.

Having said that, Interent Explorer is a program that can be re-installed right from the XP disk, so any "damage" done to it can be "repaired" simply by reinstalling it. And we (by removing it) are "damaging" it to the maximum. This is the "nuclear" option. We INTEND to delete ALL of it.

The risk is if you delete something that is NOT Internet Explorer.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Registry Entries are all cross-related. One reason it is called a "hive". There are "key" registry entries, and then there are secondary/supporting entries. All are cross-linked, so if one "key" entry is deleted, the rest of those that are related to it are "hanging" without connection.

It is these "hangers" that programs like RegSeeker are designed to find and delete.

This all means that you really only need to delete the "key" entries, and then run RegSeeker to find the rest and delete them automatically. This is safer because you do not have the risk of accidentally deleting the wrong key (meaning one that is not part of IE).

First, I don't think anything to do with IE5 is relevant to this, in fact I have been reading tonight (while working on & thinking about your problem) that there are installations of IE4 that are saved by XP on the hard drive on purpose. (For what purpose I cannot imagine.)

So I would limit all consideration to only IE6 and IE7, and ignore any version older than those two. So since you say you have no trace of IE7, that leaves only IE6 to consider.

The hard part for me here is to communicate how I would decide which IE6 entires are "key" and which are secondary. You will either have to do that for yourself, or you could post a screen shot of the list of keys RegSeeker shows you and I could maybe suggest one or more for initial deletion, with a run of "Clean Registry" to get the remainder.

Have you run the "clean registry" function on regSeeker yet ? If not, you might (possibly) fix your problem by doing that, although I have never experienced or heard of a problem being fixed by a reg cleaning program, I think it's theoretically possible, if something is there that shouldn't be, and it is causing problems.

Finally, even if the worst should happen, it should all be repairable by a repair install from the XP disk, of course providing that you have one. This is a "looming" option anyways, because if the reg deleting doesn't fix it, and malware isn't causing it, a Repair Install is just about the last option before a New Install.

11-12-2006, 02:11 AM	#13 (permalink)
~~Girderman~~ Troubled Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,096 OS: XP Pro	Okay Reg Removal is one of the riskiest endeavors, because a corrupted Registry can prevent the machine from booting. So anything you do with the Registry must be done with the understanding that it is at your own risk. Given that, I cannot even suggest what I think you should do, I can only tell you what I would do in your situation. You will have to decide if you think you can do it successfully, and/or if it is worth the risk. Having said that, Interent Explorer is a program that can be re-installed right from the XP disk, so any "damage" done to it can be "repaired" simply by reinstalling it. And we (by removing it) are "damaging" it to the maximum. This is the "nuclear" option. We INTEND to delete ALL of it. The risk is if you delete something that is NOT Internet Explorer. The other thing to keep in mind is that Registry Entries are all cross-related. One reason it is called a "hive". There are "key" registry entries, and then there are secondary/supporting entries. All are cross-linked, so if one "key" entry is deleted, the rest of those that are related to it are "hanging" without connection. It is these "hangers" that programs like RegSeeker are designed to find and delete. This all means that you really only need to delete the "key" entries, and then run RegSeeker to find the rest and delete them automatically. This is safer because you do not have the risk of accidentally deleting the wrong key (meaning one that is not part of IE). First, I don't think anything to do with IE5 is relevant to this, in fact I have been reading tonight (while working on & thinking about your problem) that there are installations of IE4 that are saved by XP on the hard drive on purpose. (For what purpose I cannot imagine.) So I would limit all consideration to only IE6 and IE7, and ignore any version older than those two. So since you say you have no trace of IE7, that leaves only IE6 to consider. The hard part for me here is to communicate how I would decide which IE6 entires are "key" and which are secondary. You will either have to do that for yourself, or you could post a screen shot of the list of keys RegSeeker shows you and I could maybe suggest one or more for initial deletion, with a run of "Clean Registry" to get the remainder. Have you run the "clean registry" function on regSeeker yet ? If not, you might (possibly) fix your problem by doing that, although I have never experienced or heard of a problem being fixed by a reg cleaning program, I think it's theoretically possible, if something is there that shouldn't be, and it is causing problems. Finally, even if the worst should happen, it should all be repairable by a repair install from the XP disk, of course providing that you have one. This is a "looming" option anyways, because if the reg deleting doesn't fix it, and malware isn't causing it, a Repair Install is just about the last option before a New Install.