[OldLadyWho]

Hello to all,

This is my first post (anywhere, ever). I'm a little shy about communicating with strangers on the Internet...but you guys don't seem to be any stranger than most folks that I meet every day in "the real world", so what the heck...here I am.

I've been visiting (lurking around) this site for over a year now, but only registered a couple of months ago. Haven't felt the urge to speak till today.

First, I would like to compliment the overall attitude of this forum. Even those who get a little out of line occasionally seem to be treated courteously...whether they deserve it or not...and I respect & appreciate that. It makes me feel that if THEY get treated fairly, then I will too...(Though I rarely get out of line, I may eventually end up asking a dumb question. I'm not always the brightest bulb in the chandelier)...

...And, speaking of being occasionally dimwitted, last night I downloaded & installed a small program called: DiamondCS RegistryProt v2.0 http://www.diamondcs.com.au/web/htm/regprot.htm

And have had an entire day today regretting my impulsiveness. This program sounded like a good idea at the time, and I liked it at first. However, it apparently took a serious disliking to me and my 'puter at some point.

Because of my job I often need to work with fonts. Lots of them. I don't keep a lot of them permanently installed, but have font organizing/viewing software that I use to install, uninstall, or temporarily load fonts as the need arises. I primarily work with Adobe Illustrator 9, and PhotoShop 7...and I am always working with very short deadlines.

In the middle of a job today...while loading some fonts...my computer froze up. Now, this may seem like a small and ordinary thing, but it is very rare for me. I work diligently to keep my computer running lean & mean. I depend on it too much to be careless...

Which brings me back to the dimwitted (careless?) action of installing RegProt last night...what WAS I thinking?...

I got things running again, and got back into my work and once again the computer froze, except this time boxes began popping up from the RegProt program.

Though it's far too late at this point to make this story short, I will shorten the dismal details of my journey through RegProt hell this afternoon, and just say that those pop up warnings from RegProt were not notices of an evil hacker trying to mangle my registry. Apparently the rapid installing, uninstalling, and temporarily loading of fonts makes changes in the system registry. At least that's the gist of what I learned today, I'm not sure I understand the whole process accurately.

In the interests of time (i.e. my swiftly approaching job deadline) I decided to just uninstall RegProt and get back to work. Ha!

Three hours later I finally managed to get rid of the hatefully grumpy little piece of RegProt software. I had run the uninstaller that came with the program, and it ran just fine, but it didn't uninstall it. It SAID it uninstalled it successfully, but it lied.

I finally lost my cool after a while and brutally deleted every particle of it from my machine. Ended up crippling my Zone Alarm, and had to reinstall it, but by suppertime I was back at work...had missed my deadline, but, oh well...

So...because I read about the RegProt on this forum, I felt that it might be appropriate and helpful to relate my experiences with it. Maybe other folks that have used the program successfully will be able to tell me a better way to configure the settings (though I really didn't see any settings to configure), and how they make it run peacefully on their computers. I still think the software sounds like a good idea, in theory, but...well...maybe this will help others to decide whether they want to try it or not.

...and, for a shy person who took a year to finally post anything, I've certainly rattled on a lot...sorry...
Thanks for "listening". OLW

[rugrat]

OldLadyWho


Don't get out of line here!!! LOL
Just a note to thank you for posting your negative experience. It is this kind of feedback that alerts all of us to potential problems with different software. We all appreciate that kind of info. After all, some of us only know enough to get you into more trouble!!!
But, we do try!

SeeYa

PS: This forum is probably the best moderated on the net! And they didn't even pay me to say that

SeeYa

[OldLadyWho]

Thanks Rugrat,

I'll do my best to mind my Ps & Qs when I'm here....well, most of the time, anyway. )

I agree that this is a very well organised & wonderfully well moderated forum. I've been helped with pesky computer problems many times just by reading through the posts. I also send out the TSG link to everyone who asks me computer questions.

As far as the RegistryProt utility goes, well...I'm sure it's probably a good little program. I just hadn't thought about it seeing my font-swapping habits as a sign of danger to my registry. It got totally upset at the whole thing. The program was hard to get rid of, but not impossible...mostly it was the time spent fooling with it that upset me. I think it would be nice if it had a setting (like AVG & ZA have) to disable it when necessary.

However, I should add that I've tried other bits of useful (freebie) software recommended by TSG posters before and have had very good luck with them. WinDriversBackup, ZoneAlarm, Spybot, Regclean, Cacheman, Startman, Popup Stopper, and Grisoft's AVG being my favorites so far. AVG especially has been stable and steady and non(un?)-obtrusive while doing its job well. Have had it for quite a while and highly recommended it to others.

I've also installed AdAware, but it never seems to find anything, so I don't know if it really works or not...but, it doesn't seem to cause any problems either...I figure that's always a plus.

Well, anyway, thanks for takin the time to answer my post, and for helping me to break the ice here...(TSG newbies like me need reassurance, you know )....time for me to head back to my quiet corner and finish my work....Bye for now...OLW

[buckaroo]

Hi OldLadyWho, and welcome to TSG. I recently installed this program after being involved in a thread that you may have come across in your travels here:

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread...523#post586523

It has behaved itself, only prompting for some registry keys when initially installing and nothing since then. I understand your need to remove the program with all the registry changes your applications must make. I was curious about your complaint about the uninstall though. Did you use the supplied uninstaller? What did it do, or didn't do? One thing I really want from any program is to uninstall when I want it to, so I appreciate you taking the time to post your expereince with this program.

Thanks

[OldLadyWho]

What made me uninstall DiamondCS RegistryProt v2.0 was the sudden beginning of (and endless continuing of) a bombardment of pop up boxes requesting confirmation of (or permission to allow?) registry changes that the program was detecting. I had at first thought that once each one had been allowed they would stop "popping", but the same ones popped up over and over and over again.

Certainly a very diligent little program, but Very frustrating when you are trying to work.

To uninstall it I used the "uninstall" that came with the program. It was fast, easy, and "said" the program had uninstalled successfully...

But, when I switched back from Administrator to my regular user mode to go back to work, those pesky popups continued as soon as I logged back in....

Which meant I had to switch back to administrator (where I was met with more popups) and see what was going on....

The popups seemed to be the same 4 messages over & over again.

Anyway, It wasn't too hard to track down the last of the pesky program files, but I didn't want to just delete them, since they were apparently pretty entrenched in the system.

After fussing with it for a while though, and needing to get back to work, I just deleted the darned things, and restored my registry from a backup....

Which took care of that little problem. But, my Zone Alarm had apparently gotten discombobulated by the whole experience. So, I did a quick uninstall, reinstall of ZA, and finally got things back to normal.

It wasn't really all that awful of an experience, but I was in a hurry and grumpy at the time.

I am still not sure why my fonts caused such a ruckus with it, but it sort of made sense once I realised what was happening...I have a cable Internet connection and for the first few minutes thought my computer was under some sort of malicious attack...LOL! From an evil Font Thief, maybe?

Anyway, that was my adventure with DiamondCS RegistryProt (in a W2KPro system). Looking back, it added a little excitement to an otherwise dreary workday. Hope that helps... OLW

[buckaroo]

Thanks for that update. Hopefully when/if that time comes to uninstall I won't have that problem (WIN 98SE). I'll check their web site first for any specific instructions.

Appreciate you getting back!

Take care

[cnm]

I like RegProt, but it should have an Ignore list, for folks like you who normally change the same registry keys often. Why don't you send in a suggestion to them? Now that you know the anti spyware crowd are really nice people

[Rollin' Rog]

Just got around to reading this, and you bet we appreciate the input -- in fact I think this would best be in the "Reviews" forum, so I'm going to "move" it there as well.

[GoneForNow]

OldLadyWho....Allow me to ask an obvious question (and some may think stupid). After you did the uninstall did you reboot your PC? I noted that you switched to administrator but I didn't see anything about rebooting.....did I miss that?

The reason I ask is the program gets down and dirty with the Registry. It may be that when you uninstall it doesn't immediately remove itself because it would make your system unstable. It may complete the unistall upon reboot.

Just a thought.

[OldLadyWho]

That's not a stupid question at all! (Is there such a thing?)

You know, I honestly can't remember when I did the restart. It's been a hectic week since then. But reading my original post, I would be inclined to say that I didn't do a restart until AFTER I had deleted the last of the RegistryProt files.

I only moved from W98 to W2KPro about 4 months. Apparently it didn't take me long to get out of the habit of doing restarts for everything...even when I sHOULD do one.

I was also upset about my work being interrupted, and it's those important little steps that get forgotten when we get grumpy and do things in a hurry.

(sigh)

Which means it was VERY likely my own fault that my Zone Alarm got skunked.

Which also means that by being impatient, I caused myself more problems & lost time.

So, I believe your question was right on target!!

Thank you for asking it, I think we solved the "difficult uninstall" mystery.
OLW

[cnm]

RegProt does not mess with the registry. It just monitors the registry and asks permission if any program tries to change a key.

Programs should always be uninstalled with either Add/Remove in Control Panel, or with their own uninstaller. Simply hacking in there and deleting the program is NOT likely to be a good idea.

As I said before, if you deliberately change registry keys often, this program will not be good for you, since it doesn't have an ignore list.

However for me it is a great program and I wouldn't be without it.

[OldLadyWho]

CNM, I did head for the Add/Remove in Control Panel first thing. However, the RegistryProt was not listed there, so, I used the program's own uninstall, instead.

I believe your comment about "Simply hacking in there and deleting the program is NOT likely to be a good idea" sums things up pretty well, don't you? (a good reminder to us all)

And I very much agree that an option to temporarily disable the program's registry monitoring would be nice...

...however, now I am curious about whether the RegistryProt actually gets "down and dirty with the Registry", as gbrumb indicates, or if it "just monitors the registry" as you say.

With all that said, I guess the basic point of my original post (aside from venting after a frustrating day) was to alert others to the problems I had.

Since even the very best programs may not be right for everyone, it's nice to have bits of extra information so others can make good decisions about installing things.

Who knows, maybe other "Habitual Font Swappers" out there might be helped by my experience.
OLW

[cnm]

I really think you should get in touch with the developer, I bet they could add an option to "Ignore font keys" or whatever. Developers are mostly eager to improve their programs, and take suggestions that are likely to appeal to most users.

Also, the developer is the one to ask to confirm that RegProt doesn't change any keys itself (other than a "run" if you have configured it to run at startup).

You can contact them by sending email to support@diamondcs.com.au

[boyoh53]

I had a look at that myself and shots of it from a link on this forum. I'm not new but know a little if you know what I mean.
I would say the problem for most users would be knowing what
all these things stand for.Registry entries. With the given information from RegProt the ordinary user wouldn't know which choice to make. The pop-ups I seen don't mean a thing to me.

[cnm]

Awre we talkiong about the same program? RegistryProt from www.diamond.cs.au? All it does is permit or block attemptws to change the registry. You can easily halt it, or prevent it from running at startup, by running its Admin.