Hundreds of (G)ZDoom-related entries in my registry

[Nash]

I was looking around in my registry and under Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\DirectInput I found hundreds of entries related to ZDOOM.EXE and GZDOOM.EXE. What are these and is it safe to remove them?

[NeuralStunner]

Their purpose seems to be storing settings that haven't even been changed from defaults. This being Microsoft, for some reason they think "it good idea!!" to cache every damn thing whether needed or not.

I'm guessing there's so many because of the quantities of EXE versions. (Since I have multiples for other games I update but not for ones that stay constant.) Looks like it auto-generates these keys whenever you run something that uses any class of DirectX.

I deleted and remade that DirectInput key (after exporting of course) with no ill effects. Since it can't clean up on its own, I removed everything but the MostRecentApplication subkey and set permission " Everyone: Deny: Create Subkey" on the DirectInput key. Certainly isn't keeping my controller from working, but it does prevent all these useless keys.

Registry key permissions are a powerful tool. (But not a toy.)

[Nash]

Well I deleted it all but I don't notice my system starting up faster... oh well! A little house keeping that doesn't seem to do any harm isn't a bad thing.

(Yeah, the reason I was messing around in my registry was to see if I could find a way to get the OS to start up faster... I guess I just have to accept the fact that Windows will eventually startup slower than day 1)

[NeuralStunner]

Well, a handful of keys aren't going to make much difference, unless and until you let it pile up into hundreds. If you want to help your registry speed, Auslogics Registry Defrag should help.

Thanks for this topic, by the way. I never realized that DI crap was there.

[NightFright]

Don't update your binaries so often, that's the only solution besides purging the registry manually regularly.

[NeuralStunner]

Don't update your binaries so often, that's the only solution besides purging the registry manually regularly.

Or prohibiting it from making them, like I did.

[Graf Zahl]

Wow, this really is retarded. I sometimes wonder what those programmers are thinking when you see such bad implementations. I had several thousands(!) of keys in there which have accumulated due to the high number of debug builds I made over the years.

[Gez]

Just deleted the entire DirectInput key and then ran ZDoom once to let the OS recreate it. Then delete the new ZDoom key and applied restrictions.