Efficient Registry Cleanup

Posted on WindowsNetworking.com
This article will demonstrate how to script a registry cleanup or modification for all user profiles on a given computer – for instance to do a virus sweep. We will also see how this approach can be used together with a computer startup script within a computer Group Policy Object to modify all user profiles in the domain, site or OU. Yes, we can actually modify user registry settings by using a computer startup script…

In some cases you can be required to delete, add or modify some part of the registry – for all users on a computer at once. In most cases we would prefer to use a Group Policy Object (GPO) on the users to add or modify a given value, but when it comes to removing values we sometimes have to use scripts (unfortunately, you might say). Also, sometimes we want to perform a cleanup task in a single process without having to wait for all users to log on. This article will show how to do this in a fairly easy way.

We will see how it is possible to do the registry modification by using a very efficient registry script – and to combine this with a GPO on the machine level (startup or shutdown), instead of using a GPO on the user object (logon or logoff).

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