Deleting registry entries with batch file

[agarabaghi]

How do you do this...

This is my batch and it does not seem to want to work:

regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /d HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5
regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /d HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Dreamweaver

SHUTDOWN -r -t 10

[Norphy]

Have you tried using the REG DELETE command instead?

REG DELETE KeyName [/v ValueName | /ve | /va] [/f]

  KeyName    [\\Machine\]FullKey
    Machine  Name of remote machine - omitting defaults to the current machine.
             Only HKLM and HKU are available on remote machines.
    FullKey  ROOTKEY\SubKey
    ROOTKEY  [ HKLM | HKCU | HKCR | HKU | HKCC ]
    SubKey   The full name of a registry key under the selected ROOTKEY.

  ValueName  The value name, under the selected Key, to delete.
             When omitted, all subkeys and values under the Key are deleted.

  /ve        delete the value of empty value name (Default).

  /va        delete all values under this key.

  /f         Forces the deletion without prompt.

Examples:

  REG DELETE HKLM\Software\MyCo\MyApp\Timeout
    Deletes the registry key Timeout and its all subkeys and values

  REG DELETE \\ZODIAC\HKLM\Software\MyCo /v MTU
    Deletes the registry value MTU under MyCo on ZODIAC

[sparkeh]

regedit.exe only accepts a .reg file to make edits to the registry - where did you get that syntax?

So you could call regedit on an existing .reg file or be a bit smarter and use itself as the reg file so something like this:

REGEDIT4


; @echo OFF
; CLS
; REGEDIT.EXE /S "%~f0"
; EXIT


[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Dreamweaver]

[Steve21]

regedit.exe only accepts a .reg file to make edits to the registry - where did you get that syntax?

Reg is command-line though. ( C:\Windows\System32\reg.exe NOT C:\Windows\regedit.exe )

- Edit: As sparkeh said, regedit only works with .reg files now. You can only use /d in 98/ME

Steve

[mac_shinobi]

Batch files - Use REGEDIT to add, read or delete registry values

Removing registry entries

To remove an entire "tree" from the registry using REGEDIT and a .REG file, just add a minus sign before the tree name:

REGEDIT4[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\DummyTree]will remove the entire tree "DummyTree".
To remove an individual item from the registry, place the minus sign after the equal sign:

REGEDIT4[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\DummyTree]"ValueToBeRemoved"=-will remove the individual value "ValueToBeRemoved" from "DummyTree".
This is demonstrated in the UniqueID.bat example below, a batch file that forces a new LANDesk agent ID.
How to remove an individual registry key or value using *.INF files and RUNDLL is explained by Bill James.

[agarabaghi]

regedit.exe only accepts a .reg file to make edits to the registry - where did you get that syntax?

So you could call regedit on an existing .reg file or be a bit smarter and use itself as the reg file so something like this:

REGEDIT4


; @echo OFF
; CLS
; REGEDIT.EXE /S "%~f0"
; EXIT


[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Dreamweaver]

Do i need the ; ?

[agarabaghi]

also that did not work, and neither did:
REGEDIT4[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5]
REGEDIT4[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Dreamweaver]

[agarabaghi]

REG DELETE seems to have worked, but not for the directory with a space in it. I tired putting it in quotes but still wont delete.

[Arthur]

To delete the registry keys via RegEdit you need to copy-and-paste the following code into Notepad, save it as a .reg file (e.g. Adobe.reg) and then run regedit /s Adobe.reg.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Dreamweaver]

To delete the same registry keys via Reg.exe, you would do this...

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5" /f
reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Dreamweaver /f

Which account are you running your batch file under? If it's the SYSTEM account, there isn't any point in trying to delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key because it won't exist.

Btw, semi-colons are just comments so can be ignored if you want.

[agarabaghi]

There must be something wrong with these images, because I cant get Dreamweaver CS5.5 to show up in the wmic product list

Every other adobe app shows up. When i run a 3rd party uninstall program, i can locate the UUID of the install, but any attempt to modify / repair / uninstall says "This option is only for install packages". Yet when I got to add/remove programs it can be uninstall that way.

Frustrating!

[Arthur]

I can't get Dreamweaver CS 5.5 to show up in the wmic product list

WMIC will only list applications installed via Windows Installer i.e. MSIs not EXEs.

Was Dreamweaver installed as part of the Creative Suite?

[sparkeh]

Btw, semi-colons are just comments so can be ignored if you want.

Not entirely true.
The code I posted above is a kind of reg file/batch file in one. In reg files the ; means a comment, the batch file will ignore the ; and process the commands.
When you run regedit with that code you need the REGEDIT4 line to make it a valid reg file, however when run as a batch file it will throw an error. The CLS line simply clear the error. And you need the regedit line to actually call regedit so that really can't be ignored

[Arthur]

That's a neat trick.

[mac_shinobi]

Not entirely true.
The code I posted above is a kind of reg file/batch file in one. In reg files the ; means a comment, the batch file will ignore the ; and process the commands.
When you run regedit with that code you need the REGEDIT4 line to make it a valid reg file, however when run as a batch file it will throw an error. The CLS line simply clear the error. And you need the regedit line to actually call regedit so that really can't be ignored

Not being brilliant with batch files, how does the last bit of this line point to itself or know where itself is ??


; REGEDIT.EXE /S "%~f0"

[Arthur]

The %~f0 on the end expands to the fully qualified path of the .cmd/.bat file so you don't have to hard-code it in your batch file. There are lots more you can use too...

%~0         - expands %I removing any surrounding quotes (")
%~f0        - expands %I to a fully qualified path name
%~d0        - expands %I to a drive letter only
%~p0        - expands %I to a path only
%~n0        - expands %I to a file name only
%~x0        - expands %I to a file extension only
%~s0        - expanded path contains short names only
%~a0        - expands %I to file attributes of file
%~t0        - expands %I to date/time of file
%~z0        - expands %I to size of file

The modifiers can be combined to get compound results:
%~dp0       - expands %I to a drive letter and path only
%~nx0       - expands %I to a file name and extension only
%~fs0       - expands %I to a full path name with short names only