Clean the Registry
By: Arie SlobOver time, your computer's registry may begin to contain corrupted, unused, and unnecessary registry keys, especially if keys are not removed when you uninstall a program. As a result, you may begin to experience problems when using OLE to embed objects or Automation to control other programs.
Microsoft's RegClean utility is designed to clean up unnecessary registry entries in your registry. For more information, read a copy of the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 147769.
Download RegClean from here [781 KB] - version 4.1a build 7364.1
What RegClean does:
RegClean analyzes Windows Registry keys stored in a common location in the Windows Registry. It finds keys that contain erroneous values, and after recording those entries in the Undo.Reg file, it removes them from the Windows Registry.
The Undo.Reg files are saved in the in the folder where RegClean was run.
What RegClean doesn't do:
RegClean does not fix every known problem with the registry. It does not fix a "corrupt" registry; it only fixes problems with some of the entries that are in a normal registry.
It is very possible that RegClean will not correct a problem that you have encountered. RegClean will leave any entries in the registry that it doesn't understand or could possibly be correct.
For more information read the readme file.
If you try to run RegClean, and you receive the error message:
RegClean.EXE is linked to missing export OLEAUT32.DLL:421
followed by:
A device attached to the system is not functioning correctly
Resolution
You need to install the update to the OLE Automation system libraries. For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Msvbvm50.exe Installs Visual Basic 5.0 Run-Time Files
VBRUN60.EXE Installs Visual Basic 6.0 Run-Time Files
