Cannot View Documentation

[ohgee]

I downloaded, installed and registered Process Lasso v. 3.84.7 [x32] as 'Giveaway of the Day'.
When I click on 'Help' and choose 'view documentation', nothing happens- no new window, etc.
How do I get help documentation?  Thank you.

[Jeremy Collake]

I would guess your CHM file association was lost, probably killed by a registry cleaner (yes, they often do damage like this).

Import the .REG I've attached here (open it and import to registry when asked). It *might* work. I can't say for sure it will, but it might. If you re-run the offending registry cleaner, it will mess it up again.

I've long ranted about how poor registry cleaners do this sort of system damage. See my RegCleanerFix project for more info.

Attachment: Fix for missing CHM file association  (fix CHM open error)

[ohgee]

Jeremy,

Thanks for the attachment.  I installed it to the registry and it works perfectly.
It seems you called it right regarding the registry cleaner.  Is there some way
of not having the cleaners not get rid of Lasso CHM?  I'm using CCleaner &
jv16 registry cleaners.
Thank you.

[Jeremy Collake]

CHM files are not specific to Process Lasso. They are 'compiled help manual' and are used by *most* applications that have documentation. So, this is a *system* registry value that these registry cleaners are deleting, not something specific to Process Lasso.

To protect it you need to exclude the keys listed in that .REG file, or (better) not run those cleaners. They aren't going to speed anything up. Consider you have hundreds of thousands of registry keys and values. Removing a handful of them isn't going to make any speed difference. As you have now seen, removal of a handful of them can cause strange anomalies in your PC's behavior though.

I wrote about it all here: http://www.bitsum.com/registry_cleaner_fix.php  ... yesterday I added the CHM fix I created for you to this page, as a first example of the damage repair I'm talking about.

[Scott]

If you use jv16, that's what removed the CHM file association.  I would strongly recommend against using that software anymore.

I know this has already been mentioned, but there is no performance benefit to using registry cleaners.  It's not just that removing a few of many doesn't make a difference, it's that the whole idea makes no sense.  For example, what could possibly be the benefit of removing an invalid file association?  If you have an association for the .WTF file extension, and it's invalid, so what?  It won't slow anything down because Windows doesn't go down the entire list of file extensions, one-by-one, until it finds one it likes.  When you need a plumber, you don't start with the first name in the phone book and start calling everyone right down the line until you happen to find a plumber.  No, you go right for what you're after.  Windows simply attempts to open the one it needs directly.  It's the same with CLSIDs and uninstall entries and almost everything else I can think of.

Please forgive the stupid analogy above. 

If you insist on using registry cleaners, at least keep the backups they create permanently.  Don't delete the backups, ever.