Install/Uninstall has damaged my Registry/Computer?

[Teanao]

Sorry if this is in the wrong section! I wasn't too sure were to put it!

So recently I have been installing and uninstalling different screen recording software to record some game play but they didn't work the way I wanted them to so I uninstalled them all almost immediately after installing them. (Also, CNET seems to have tagged along and installed various 'Games' that I did not want to which I uninstalled as well/deleted the left over files)(Also the programs I downloaded are Camstudio, Bandicam, xSplit, Media Player Classic)

Then my computer became notably slow so I searched for a solution. I found out that mass uninstalls could leave behind a bunch of junk in the registry so I did a registry clean with Norton 360 a few times and scanned the system for any virus/Malware. Nothing. Stupid me decided to download a bootleg Registry cleaner which would later be uninstalled, to fix the problem (I think it was Regclean Pro?). Didn't help.

So then I stepped into the realms of Regedit. To clean registry manually. I did this rather successfully as I researched each file I was about to delete thoroughly before doing the deed.

Everything is faster now, but it's still really slow compared to a few days ago. Not all images/videos load completely. Websites have to be constantly refreshed to get to. Some images either do not appear and have a small image character in the middle or they load halfway and the rest is green/heavily pixelated. Like this:

I have to refresh videos often to get them to work. Once I press website links they stop loading completely and have to be refreshed to finish the command.

This is happening to all my browsers and the one I am currently using is Google Chrome. I have a windows 8 HP ENVY dv6-7250ca Notebook PC. I don't know if this matters but ZoneAlarm is refusing to detach itself as a homepage on Internet Explorer, even after its been uninstall Please help, I've been researching so much but to no avail.

 

[St1ckM4n]

Lol. That's interesting...

Download Ccleaner, use that in the future to clean your registry and junk files.

Open up a command prompt with elevated priviledges. Type in this command:

sfc /scannow

Download your video drivers again, do a 'clean install'.

 

[Teanao]

Lol. That's interesting...

Download Ccleaner, use that in the future to clean your registry and junk files.

Open up a command prompt with elevated priviledges. Type in this command:

sfc /scannow

Download your video drivers again, do a 'clean install'.

Thank you for responding!

I've done everything except video drivers and 'Clean Install'. I am not sure how to download video drivers again and must I do a 'clean install'? Doesn't that erase everything and return it to factory settings? How is this going to help my computer? You aren't giving me any information :/ I'm somewhat of a noob at this and everything I know thus far is from research.

 

[St1ckM4n]

That's cool, I know I didn't give much information.

Video drivers: do you know if you have a graphics card? This will either be AMD or NVIDIA. To find out, click Start > Run > dxdiag

Hit the 2nd tab (Display) and tell me what's written there in the top-left area.



Edit: your video drivers may be corrupt, showing up glitched pictures. 'Clean install' starts everything with default settings (only on the video driver, not entire Windows!) to make sure everything is OK.

 

[Teanao]

That's cool, I know I didn't give much information.

Video drivers: do you know if you have a graphics card? This will either be AMD or NVIDIA. To find out, click Start > Run > dxdiag

Hit the 2nd tab (Display) and tell me what's written there in the top-left area.



Edit: your video drivers may be corrupt, showing up glitched pictures. 'Clean install' starts everything with default settings (only on the video driver, not entire Windows!) to make sure everything is OK.

Haha woow xD anyway, it says

Name: AMD Radeon HD 7640G
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip Type: AMD Radeon HD 7640G (0x9903)
DAC Type: Internal DAC (400MHz)
Device Type: Full Display Device
Approx. Total Memory: 3023 MD
Current Display Mode: 1366 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor

How do we do a 'Clean Install'? It still kinda sounds scary because some websites say that it gets rid of everything like here: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/f/clean-install-windows.htm & http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-clean-install-part-1.htm It also seems like a very long process.

 

[St1ckM4n]

That's clean install of Windows, I said video drivers only.

Are you running Windows 7 or 8? If yes, download and install this file.

 

[Teanao]

Oh, I see now. Okay I downloaded it

 

[St1ckM4n]

Sfc /scannow ran successfully, by the way?

 

[Teanao]

Yeah, it worked and it detected corrupted files but it said it couldn't do anything about it unfortunately :/

 

[St1ckM4n]

So it didn't work.

Anyway, install video drivers and see how you go.

Depending on how 'corrupt' and which of those system files it was, it may boil down to doing a system repair (which takes a long time and you may have to start from scratch).

 

[Teanao]

So it didn't work.

Anyway, install video drivers and see how you go.

Depending on how 'corrupt' and which of those system files it was, it may boil down to doing a system repair (which takes a long time and you may have to start from scratch).

Unfortunately no, but I'd like to thank you for all the helpful advice but I tried everything and have finally given up. It was my own error, I shouldn't have done mass installs/uninstalls in the first place. I guess I was too eager to record some game play. But with this I've learnt some pretty valuable information about computer technology so I guess that's a bright side to this.

Anyway, I've already gone and done a system restart, but thankfully I was patient enough to transfer important docs/photos/songs onto my desktop. With the system restart, My laptop is brand new and is working perfectly. (Despite my precious lost video game data )

My last question is, how often should I be cleaning registry? I reaaaally don't want to screw up my laptop again.

 

[Cobalt006]

Really you should just leave the registry go. Not such a good ideal.You can end up with the same problem you just had. Just use a good temp file cleaner.

 

[St1ckM4n]

Leave manual registry cleaning alone. Use the above program I said (Ccleaner) once a month, with the 'registry' and 'clean' functions. It's good.

It's good that you learn about PCs, and now you have a nice fresh laptop too. If it wasn't too difficult, this was the best solution actually.