Windows 10: Registry Editor "Find"-command not working any more under Windows 10

I recently upgraded to Windows 10. Since then searches in the Registry Editor do not work any more (the app consumes 20% CPU, but the search never finishes. Canceling the search crashes the registry editor.*sarc

:)

 

Windows 10 Registry Editor has stopped working

I have a new (Dec. 2015) Dell Inspiron 15 laptop PC with factory-installed Windows 10, 64bit. It is up to date with updates. I tried to research a registry item using find (with F3) to find the instances of a certain unused Wi-Fi name. After finding
about four instances the search never completes (Searching the registry...). When I select "Cancel", the system says "Registry Editor has stopped working" and the registry editor restarts. If I try the find command again, the same thing happens. I find
this issue described by Microsoft for earlier versions of Windows, but not the current version. The "sfc /scannow" test did not find any integrity violations. I often get "Internet Explorer stopped working" issues, which I ignore. (Yes, I prefer IE over
Edge!) A non-Microsoft web site says to replace regedit with an earlier version. I might do that if the solution comes from Microsoft.

 

Change Default Image Editor

Well, unfortunately, I could not find "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell\edit\command" in the registry editor... manually, or via the find (CRTL+F) function... I think it
may've changed for Windows 10.

 

Hi, a problem for some but not all. Please see:
Registry Editor crashing - Windows 10 Forums
- get regedit from build 10240
or
- use a 3rd party reg editor for now.

 

or use regscanner from here to do the search which will use regedit to edit..

RegScanner: Alternative to RegEdit find/search/scan of Windows

 

Made a Restore Point. Saved the entire Registry. Started with an arbitrary search word from HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, that is from the bottom. If the "search" completed successfully, made new searh from HKEY_USERS and so on till a HangUp occured. Then I made searches from subkeys always starting from bottom upwards. Found an endless loop. Deleted topmost entry. Now Registry Search works *Biggrin

 

Admire your persistence.. did you note the registry entry that you deleted?

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/Setup/Upgrade/Pnp/CurrentControlSet/Control/DevMig/Devices/SWD/WPDBUSENUM/_??_USBSTOR#DISK&VEN_GENERIC-&PROD_SM#XD-PICTURE..... Some of the subkeys.

 

@hjim: Thanks for the hint!

I followed your scheme and I actually have found TWO such entries by now (there might still be more).

The first one I could simply delete, but the second yields an exception in the Registry Editor when trying to delete: *Eek

The key is:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\DeviceClasses\{7f108a28-9833-4b3b-b780-2c6b5fa5c062}\##?#STORAGE#Volume#_??_USBSTOR#Disk&Ven_SanDisk&Prod_Sandisk_Ultra&Rev_PMAP#A20054256F 62A237&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}#{7f108a28-9833-4b3b-b780-2c6b5fa5c062}

and exhibits an endless "#" subtree:





It is in the DeviceClasses subtree (so a bit touchy to delete things here) but the offending entry should be harmless to delete - it describes a memory card, so in the worst case my system would not recognize that SD card any more.

Any idea anyone, how to delete such an "undeletable" key nonetheless?

 

You should really only delete/modify the registry if
a. there's no alternative
b. you know precisely what the effect will be
c. you have adequate backups

Modifying the registry in an ad hoc manner can cause you endless pain.

Simply use a 3rd party registry editor (there are some good ones with the handy equivalent of an address bar) probably avoids this hopefully temporary search bug as previously posted.

 

Thanks for the caveat, but I am an old Windows warhorse. I think I know what risks I can take and which not. And - yes - I *do* have made backups of my registry before attempting such "surgery".

Coming back to my question: is there a tool that allows to remove obviously recursive or "endless" registry entries without itself crashing while doing so?

 

I've fixed it without a tool. I had the same problem (endless #) with same key, except a different Sandisk USB. Would not let me delete it. Any search in regedit would die when it hit this key. So it's not just a useless key problem but makes searching in regedit almost impossible. So I got a brainstorm and renamed the top level # key to temp. And them, voila, I could delete the whole mess. I suspect the cause of the problem was I unsafely removed the USB drive a few days ago.

 

Unfortunately this approach does not work! I tried to rename the top level # as well as the ##?#STORAGE#VOLUME...- key above it. In both cases I only get a popup stating:
"The Registry Editor can not rename #. The specified key name is too long. Type a shorted name and try again".
But even just entering 'x' as name did not work and yielded the same error msg.! *Sad

 

I think the source of the problem is a usb volume that has been removed unsafely. I suggest this:
Open device manager.
Click view, show hidden devices.
Expand storage volume shadow copies and delete all greyed out volumes.
Do the same for storage volume.

This should fix the registry infinite loop.

 

even though i do remove usb's using the 'eject' command somehow MS/Windows10 has an issue with them; they do seem to cause DCOM errors and if you leave usb's connected MS for some reason doesn't see/recognize it's own driver and on startup you'll get errors...
thanks for the tip trumanwiz... that seems to be a fix til M$ does something.