erasing all unused registry keys

[boobesque]

the title is a little misleading. im sure the registry keys that i want to erase are doing something. they are preventing me from re using old products. imagine i download a free trial of a game that has a 60 minute limit. after the 60 minutes is over i uninstall the game and remove all references from the pc and registry. when i reinstall the game it still says that my limit has been reached. obviously using registry cleaners does not work, i assume that the registry keys in question are in use preventing me from cheating the system. is there anything i can use that will remove all keys like this? i know that reisntalling windows works well but it takes so long saving all of my files to dvds and reinstalling all old apps etc. any ideas?

[vehelpfulguy]

I test a lot of beta software so I often want a clean image of Windows to install the beta software.

What I do is take an image of my Windows XP system using a product called Ghost.

I do a clean Windows XP install then use Ghost to create an image on to a second hard drive in my PC.

Then at any point I can re-install Windows XP from this Ghost image in about 5 minutes or less.

It does mean you need a second hard drive, but once you have that it is fairly easy.

[peanut]

It may also make a difference what reg cleaner you are using. Have you tried using "crap cleaner"? ive had good luck with that.

[mattfox]

Which games are your trying to play? There are "patches" available for most....

[boobesque]

honestly its not a game that i need to reinstall. it is norton system works 2005. my subscription is about to run out and i will lose my updates : 0

[fo3nix]

Then let it run out and put the free AVG on instead. As I'm sure you've read here, many will recommend it.

[boobesque]

i am currently using both avg and norton. the problem is that avg sometimes allows files through which norton detect and vice versa. i prefer to have both virus programs running to be on the safe side and as symantec is a large company it is duty bound and financialy bound to stay at the cutting edge of the virus detection scene so i feel that keeping norton will benefit me in ways that avg cannot possibly compete with.

[fo3nix]

having two anti-virus programs on your computer isn't great. they often conflict each other, and it'll probably slow your computer a fair bit too.

Plus my experience of Norton, as well as many others', isn't exactly great. AVG is also a for-profit company, it just has a free version of personal use.