.dll question

[neversleeps]

i just ran a utility that detects unused .dll's and my computer came up with 477! it gives u the option to archive these supposedly useless dll's until u makes sure it doesnt comepletely f*** ur computer up getting rid of them. so thats my question im very weary of deleting 477 of these, that seems a little excessive some of um r on the d: drive which is the recovery partition so those will be left alone but im still looking at prolly over 400 and if they r all truely unneeded for some reason then i could prolly gain about 1 or 2 gigs of needed space on my HDD. any advice would be great and what would b even better is if someone with windows xp home went here http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/dllarch.htm
and downloaded it and ran it and told how much their computer was showing, note that i turned off the option to scan only the windows directory and went for the whole HDD.
i about crapped my pants when i saw how many it found and then i remembered it was windows however i want someone elses to compare it to just to see if my computer is a disaster or not.
so anyone else who has 15 mins of spare time and is curious how garbaged up their windows install is, i would appreciate ur help
thx
neversleeps

 

[Apokalipse]

could you post your list of "unneeded" dlls

 

[mikesgroovin]

I, personally wouldn't pick and choose to get rid of some of these. Some of these .dlls are .dlls nessesary for service pack rollbacks. Kind of a wierd application, it doesn't tell you much more than the dll itself, the location, and size and modify date.......useless. If I developed this application, I would place some string information that would at least make an educated guess on which application that it was using or once using. If you really want to utilize this space, make a backup copy and then try to archive. If it works...great! But if it doesn't with some apps then at least you will have a backup.

-Mike

 

[neversleeps]

thanks mike
i do agree the program has it flaws but it is the only one i kno of that detects unneeded dlls so kinda stuck with it unless someone can recommend something better, and just curious but how many did it come up with on ur system?
also u can uninstall sp1 i was under the impression it was there unless u do a reinstall
and if i can find a way to post my list i will, it doesnt wanna let me highlite um all if i remember correctly, i'll try to work out a couple screenshots or something for u
thx neversleeps

edit.

o and mike i just thought of this reading ur post again, its listing the dll's because no programs have a reference to them nemore, so if no program has a reference to it how is it sposed to tell u a program that was using it even an educated guess, i guess it would b like me dloading a dll and putting on my desktop and asking an app to figure out where it goes, i do agree it should have an integrated .dll reference look up thingy so u could rite click on it and would tell u all the known apps that use it but going thru the 400 some on mine and checking each individual one would b quite the tedious task.
if i get brave i'll archive all of the "unneeded ones" and c how good it works, dont really like using my computer as a guinea pig but booting into safe mode and restoring them all if there was a problem shouldnt b that hard i wouldnt think as long as it puts um all back where it found them to begin with. as long as it doesnt decide to say a critical sys. dll is useless and it archives that and windows wont boot nemore but i guess that would b worst case scenario but if sfc is doing its job it shouldnt let me take out or modify ne critical ones

 

[mikesgroovin]

I found 367 dlls that were "erronious". I haven't removed any of them. See, if you try and remove some of these then disaster may strike. When I say that some are for the SP rollback, then some may "drive" the rollback or uninstall of a service pack.
I compose and edit dlls every day at work and I know that I create some that I do not associate with any "forward program". I actually associate them with a uninstall program.
I feel that I am usually pretty clean though. During an uninstall, I will remove any proprietary dlls that I have installed but any that I edit during an install, I leave there because they....even though they include my code, are still essential to the OS and other applications. Just a thought, but I would leave these files. I will search for another application that might do a better job, but it might take a little searching.
Funny, but I might be able to actually edit the application that you downloaded. The dllarch.exe seems to be a fairly simple application and is "open source" to a point. I have been able to edit the code and may be able to add to the application to show the fields that I was speaking of.
Please don't rely on this though.....do some searching on google and I will let you know how I'm doing.

-Mike


*edit*
If the dll isn't associated with any application then I feel that it still should be able to tell you the application that was once associated. In my code, I include references in the code that are a "coding standard" that include the application name.

*another edit*
Go ahead and archive....there is a rollback feature included in this code. You should be pretty safe in case a dll is needed and an application fails. But, I am a little anal and I would backup anyway. At least for a week or two.

 

[neversleeps]

dll 1

since the screenshots r too big to post on here i had to upload um too my yahoo briefcase, http://f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/jesuesmadina/lst?.dir=/Yahoo!+Photo+Album&.order=&.view=l&.src=bc&.done=http%3a//f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/

note that this is only 5 pics and is not even half of the list but it should give u some idea, and plz post if the link doesnt work, yahoo was bein queer and not wanting to let me publicly share but i think iits working, if it doesnt try signing into yahoo first.

 

[neversleeps]

alright that was lame y it didnt wrap the link and not make the page super wide i dont kno, sry and it didnt make the whole link active so highlite it and paste into ur browser

 

[neversleeps]

damn it , it was working and now it wont let it share nemore, moderators plz get rid of the last 3 posts on this thread by me including this one

 

[neversleeps]

heres where the pics r now, some crappy free hosting site but it works http://ramdaction.4t.com/photo.html

*dont delete this post moderators, just the 3 before it*

 

[neversleeps]

nice job mike, i had no idea u actually wrote dll's so ya ur the expert and i appreciate ur advice , and good luck with the program, if u get it all fixed up let me kno, i think i'll wait until ur done or a find a better one cuz i would only like to be deleting the ones that r from programs ive uninstalled and without having something to tell me which ones it originally belonged to thats kinda hard. take ur time im in no hurry but if ur unsucessful or give up or dont wanna do it anymore or whatever post that too so i kno, im just tryin to unclutter and free some space no big deal
thanks again