https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/ en Fri, 03 Aug 2012 06:01:40 +0000 hourly 1 FeedWriter https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95633 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 02:01:40 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95633 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95632 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:55:09 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95632 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95631 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:14:13 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95631 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95630 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:32:09 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95630 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95629 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:55:19 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95629 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95628 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:39:56 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95628 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95627 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:34:38 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95627 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95626 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:39:57 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95626 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95625 SysTracer Pro. It's commercial, but a home license is available. For me, it was worth the price for the performance and features. Some freeware options include Regshot (not the Regshot clones which use the Regshot name, they don't work) and InstallWatch Pro. However, those have more bugs, a lot fewer features, you can't get a full trace from Regshot on Vista, a more-or-less full trace on XP is best accomplished by a command file which lets it run with higher privileges, and I couldn't get InstallWatch Pro to work on Vista, and when it briefly did, it was excruciatingly slow. Full traces can show vast differences due to Windows housekeeping and other activity. I can't help you with that, experience and knowledge are required to know what's relevant and what isn't. I'm good at scanning thousands (or many tens of thousands for commercial apps) of changes quickly and spotting what's relevant. #79, Lu Hulu, I recommend Microsoft Sysinternal AutoRuns. The Explorer tab will list shell extensions (most have ShellEx in the key name), and it's generally pretty clear about what product or company they belong to. You have to reboot when you make changes. Shell extensions should be safe to disable, some other things like drivers and services could keep Windows from booting. AutoRuns is like Regedit, it's always "live", i.e., changes are effectively saved when you make them, so pay attention to what you're doing. I'll also post a comment for you in yesterday's offering, Greeting Card Builder. #85, eli, after uninstalling Handy Folders and noting the damage, I tried using the Last Known Good Configuration, but in typical Windows fashion, it didn't use the previous-boot configuration. That's why I use SysTracer Pro, it lets me back up the entire registry and browse and export from it just like Regedit, so I simply exported and restored the relevant Run entries from just before Handy Folders installation (SysTracer can also export selected changes made or selected changes required to restore). I also cleaned up some other garbage Handy Folders left in the registry (the phone number and Messenger related classes, which concern me). #58, justpassingby, that's clever, but in most cases, one can simply boot in Safe mode (some things uninstall easier from Safe mode, some things won't uninstall from Safe mode). While System Restore is useful when it works, it often doesn't. I can't use it, as some software permanently broke my Vista System Restore, and I'd have to reinstall Vista to fix it, which I was going to do a long time ago, but now I'm just going to do a clean install of Windows 7 in a few months when it's released (I placed a half-price pre-order). The proper procedure for doing a System Restore is to uninstall all software installed since the Restore Point, do the Restore, then reinstall any desired software which was affected. That's why it's best to set a Restore Point before every software installation, and to quickly determine whether the software is going to cause problems, as using old System Restore Points can cause you grief. System Restore Points are automatically set if the computer is left running for extended periods, on driver installations, and on Microsoft Installer installations. For most other stuff, you need to set Restore Points manually. #26, janet, regarding AnVir, the key thing is that you're using XP. On Vista with UAC, at least on my PC, the tray icons display tracked programs but not folders, although AnVir is actually tracking folders, since it works correctly when it's available in file open/save dialog boxes.]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:14:21 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95625 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95624 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:30:38 -0400 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/handy-folders/#comment-95624