Registry deep cleaning

Rigo

Rigo

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Australia
Working on one of my own PCs trying to deep clean any remnants of entries of Brother installation so that I can do a clean install of my MFP as it is failing to load the scanning functions.
There are trillions of entries 🤨
F3-ing is taking ages.
Any tool anyone is aware of that would do a full search and summary from a term to allow full removal?
 
GTP said:
Yes there are plenty but you have to be careful with them.
And please, PLEASE don't use CCleaner! You'll regret it if you do!
Click to expand...
Any of these you're feeling a little more reliable/safe?
I had found that site but well, it's just a general summary of features probably not based on actual try and see 🤔
 
I dont use them. If you screw up you can make the system unbootable so backup before hand if you use one of them.
IIRC Brother had an "Uninstall and Cleanup Tool" that I used on a clients PC with similar problem.
Not sure where I got it now whether download or on the driver DVD.

I remember it did the job though.

Have you checked Brother website for tools?
 
It's rarer than it used to be but I still see situations where some software or another gets stuck in this half-uninstalled zombie state (no longer in the list of installed programs and not detected by things like Revo) and manually deleting folders followed by grinding through the registry and deleting leftover keys was necessary to get the reinstall to work. You have to be careful, of course, but it's still doable and I haven't borked a system with this process yet.
 
IMO registry cleaners for...just the sake of thinking you're keeping things clean, aren't necessary.
Over the decades I've seen/used quite a few. I've found CCleaners to be the "least invasive"...caused the "least amount of problems".

However I see you're specifically trying to clean up an entry...
So for some software that doesn't uninstall properly, there's a good program called Revo Uninstaller.
Various levels of depth you can give it, and it will target what you specify...not only registry entries but files and directories.
www.revouninstaller.com

Uninstall Software, Remove programs easily - Revo Uninstaller Pro

Clean removal of any program from your PC. Uninstall and remove programs and software in Windows with Revo Uninstaller Pro easily!
www.revouninstaller.com

I think they stopped their "free version"...you may be able to still find it online somewhere....
 
I went to link looked up to products found the free version easy enough
www.revouninstaller.com

Revo Uninstaller Free

Download Revo Uninstaller Free helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs easily. Remove all uninstall leftovers and traces
www.revouninstaller.com
 
Thank all of you for the suggestions.
I ended up using auslogic one in the link provided by @GTP.
I think the search function is pretty good.
After the scan and selection of the relevant entries for removal there are options to create backup and restore points before proceeding.
I had cloned the drive before just in case.
And yes clean install of the printer worked flawlessly this time. Couldn't come to term to doing a complete system clean install to just get the scanner working as everything else worked perfectly.
I just used the free version which offers what I needed.
I'll definitely keep this one in my toolbox with option for the paid version for customer's that might require some of the extra options.
 
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I find it annoying with some printer software that one has to remove every single element of the printer program.
Why do they not just have one uninstaller, even using revo all the apps are seperate from the main.
Will use that for Brother @dannyict thanks.
 
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Blues said:
I went to link looked up to products found the free version easy enough
www.revouninstaller.com

Revo Uninstaller Free

Download Revo Uninstaller Free helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs easily. Remove all uninstall leftovers and traces
www.revouninstaller.com
Click to expand...
Revo Uninstaller didn't help in my case. In fact it was pretty useless to be honest. It didn't find any of the entries the Brother Uninstall and Cleanup Tool found.

@ell recently posted about using Revo to uninstall a problematic program. It completely missed the programs folder in Program Files. 🤔
 
GTP said:
Revo Uninstaller didn't help in my case
Click to expand...
Yeah, and there needs to be an entry in the add/remove list to even be able to use it.
No such things for the Brother controlcenter, so no starting point to even try.
Ccleaner used to have a registry search function which they appear to have removed, can only general clean up now
 
Rigo said:
Ccleaner used to have a registry search function which they appear to have removed, can only general clean up now
Click to expand...
You're putting your security at serious risk by using CCleaner, despite what the "experts" on certain forums are saying.

CCleaner was a good cleanup tool until Piriform (the company who created the program) were acquired by Avast.

A few weeks (months?) after the takeover there was speculation and rumor (that ultimately proved to be true) that Avast were adding 'payloads to CCleaner in the form of Malware.

There was some discussion about this on Technibble forums. bleeping computer and many others.

I stopped using it then and never went near it again. I wouldn't trust Avast as far as I could throw my car! All their products are suspect.

There are other cleanup tools that I believe are better such as System Ninja.

I've used System Ninja since I stopped using Avast's malware infected garbage.
 
Last edited:
CCleaner did have an issue with a certain type of corporate version installer....not the program itself, that was almost 10 years ago.
The straight up version is clean, even avail in the Microsoft store for the past several years. There's also a version that runs direct without installing anything.
www.bleepingcomputer.com

Is ccleaner safe? - General Security

Is ccleaner safe? - posted in General Security: I read that there was virus in it but I downloaded some days ago. Should I remove it? Would my antivirus find it as virus if it had one, ? And if its secure, can I use its driver update tool? It seems a bit off to me that it finds drivers in need...
www.bleepingcomputer.com www.bleepingcomputer.com

A few RMM tools out there even deploy it as part of their "cleanup scripts" such as freeing up HDD space.
 
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