Program for orhan dll's

Program for orphan dll's

To clarify, I'm not trying to establish a home for orphaned dll's

Wondering if anyone can recommend or discuss a program that located orphaned dll's on a machine. Is it worthwhile maintenance?

Specifically wondering about DLL Archive from AnalogX.

Thanks and regards
OPtigrab

 

I'm not sure if we're talking the same thing, but JV-16 has had for ages a menu function to locate unused DLL's on your system. It's not clear what its definition of "unused" is, but they could well be unused because they're orphaned.

If you happen to have JV-16, it's under File Tools rather than Registry Tools.

Best,
Mike

 

Thanks MikeBCda,

Yes, I do have jv16, and I will look into using it to find "unused" dll's. My question remains, is it worth spending a bit of time (hopefully not a lot) to hunt and eliminate (backing up, of course) dll's that have been left behind by removed applications?

There must be some sort of risk/reward tradeoff (not unlike cleaning one's registry). Does anyone bother to do it?

Regards
Optigrab

 

Thanks for the reply Ronjor!

I figured as much - the AnalogX program apparently creates a backup of dll's it removes to restore if needed. Hopefully that's good enough in case something goes wrong.

I'm using W2K, and I'm not certain I know what you mean by prefetch. I do have a backup routine.

I do defrag the registry occasionally with NTREGOPT, but I wonder how this addresses left-over dll's.

 

That's cool, Ronjor - we all have days like this!


I'll either experiment & clean out some unused dll's (despite your clear and understandable warning) or I'll move on to another curiosity and probably save myself a big headache. If I do proceed despite your warning, I'll report back on my experience.

 

optigrab,hello have you looked at Registry Pruner
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/powertools.asp
ive used it,it makes backups,and never had any problems.

 

edit irrelevant ramblings going off-subject

 

Okay, I've doen some further research. As far as I can tell, these applications find orphaned dll's:

FindOrphans
DLL Archive
JV16

...plus others listed here, such as "DLL Sweeper" and "DLL Orphans", and DLL Informant.

I already perform careful registry cleaning, but I was hoping that deleting unused applications (easy) and unused DLL's (not so easy) could reclaim some precious space on my old laptop (small hard drive).

As in my reply to Ronjor, fear and common sense might not stop me from giving it a try. It doesn't appear that anyone hunts down unused and duplicate DLL's as routine housekeeping.

PS. thank you Iceni60 for the cool link.

 

I've used two of them without any problems for years
The one by AnalogX
The other by Kevin Solway

They both make backups
They reduce the size of some system folders
They NEVER make any mistakes
So you can trust them

I'm on Win98SE

 

Woo-hoo! Now we're getting some recommendations. Thanks! Note: Clean System Directory (Kevin Solway) is not for for WinME, WinNT, Win2000 or XP.