While normal registry cleaners for Windows aid and abet Digital Rights Management (DRM) software by explicitly ignoring its registry keys, Registry Trash Key Finder (RTKF) hunts them down.

Registry-oriented DRM products are commonly used by shareware authors to enable software evaluation without handing over the family jewels. The entries RTKF is hunting for are keycodes written to the Windows registry by DRM guardians for the purpose of restricting access to software.

Registry Trash Key Finder
[Registry Trash Key Finder<br /> explains an entry. Email Battles.]”></center></p> <p> While many entries are legitimate shareware licensing keys, you’ll often discover relics of programs long since uninstalled or disabled.</p> <p> Some DRM remnants may be left behind to keep you from re-installing at a later date. A larger group is simply the result of sloppy uninstall cleanup. A third group reveals hints of stealthy malware.</p> <p> In any case, leftover DRM garbage doesn’t help you keep a fast, clean and manageable system. That’s why RTKF’s author calls the Windows registry entries it digs up <i>trash keys</i>.</p> <p> RTFK hunts them down, then helps you backup, edit or kill them safely.</p> <p> There is nothing to install. Simply click on TrashReg.exe. Within 2 - 5 seconds, you’ll be staring at a list of registry keys that hygiene products like CCleaner never divulge.</p> <p> Our first pass with RTKF returned 11 entries. By right-clicking on each entry, then choosing <i>Search Key Name in Google</i>, we researched each key in turn. Several entries were related to ASProtect, a <a href=software protection system designed for working with registration keys and creation of evaluation and trial software.

RTKF’s author claims that deleting keys protected by ASProtect, SVK Protect, Obsidium, and ACProtect triggers no lost-license hassles. So we took him at his word… Backed up and deleted the ASProtect keys.

Another entry belonged to Armadillo, a digital rights manager produced by The Silicon Realms Toolworks. Out it went.

The remaining entries were labeled as invalid or empty Typelib or CLSID keys. These were deleted after back up. Then the system was restarted. RTKF again displayed the keys. Why? Don’t know.

But after a few deletion-and-restart cycles, the invalid keys were gone, and stayed gone.

Try as we might, we were unable to find any programs that stopped functioning.

In addition to the DRM products named above, author Alexander Asyabrik claims RTKF can also track down registry entries for ActiveMark, ExeCryptor, PCGuard, SDProtector, Trial Creator, and ZipWorx.

Is Registry Trash Key Finder worth the price? That’s up to you. Once you’ve messed with RTKF, you decide what it’s worth to you, then PayPal your donation.

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