Reg Cleaners and the Start Menu

[Perrigo]

I've got several "big gun" reg cleaners as well as several lessor known

reg search and/or clean apps. They all completely fail to clean redundant

Start Menu registry entries.

 

Here's what I mean.

 

You do a fresh install of Windows. Does your Start Menu remain unchanged?

Of course not! Each time I add or remove an app I make some change to

my Start Menu. I might create a new category or subcategory. I'll move

whole blocks of Start Menu shortcuts to a new location within the Start Menu.

Sometimes I make minor or major changes to the shortcut name, even though

the target or command line remains the same.

 

Take a good look at the Start Menu in the Windows registry. The same shortcut

that was added to the Start Menu when you installed an app is still there, as well

as all the shortcuts you moved or renamed. The ONLY THING reg cleaners

check is the target or command line. If it's valid it will never be marked for

deletion. Why don't reg cleaners scan you current Start Menu arrangement

and list every shortcut that is no longer valid, even if the path name is still

correct?

 

Because I'm very comfortable working in the registry, I've managed to delete

many of these redundant entries manually. You can export the entire Start

Menu to a text file and attempt to clean it up. The job is overwhelming!

 

The only Start Menu shortcuts that are ever listed for deletion are orphans that

no longer point to an app. If there is a reg cleaner that will clear out all Start

Menu entries that don't correspond to your current Start Menu I haven't found

it yet.

[Andavari]

CCleaner gets rid of start menu deleted folder references using: Issues

 

Edit:

For instance lets say you installed a program named "Some App" which created a start menu group, and you started Some App via its start menu group which instantly places its start menu group in the registry. You later uninstall Some App thinking it's gone, only to find a start menu folder reference in the registry; so in theory the uninstall isn't really complete. You run the CCleaner Issues to remove the folder reference.