SBIE2208 Cannot remove registry hive (primitive solution):

[Lode]

I am the only user on my laptop, so I can't terminate the program of any other user I know of. Next time I'll see if logging myself -the current user- out and back in will do the trick... But the last time I noticed that when Sandboxie can't remove a registry hive at first (even by telling it "Terminate All Programs" and "Delete Contents"), I just reboot, and then Sandboxie removes it fine after just clicking on "Delete Contents" again.

[Happy]

I am the only user on my laptop, so I can't terminate the program of any other user I know of. Next time I'll see if logging myself -the current user- out and back in will do the trick... But the last time I noticed that when Sandboxie can't remove a registry hive at first (even by telling it "Terminate All Programs" and "Delete Contents"), I just reboot, and then Sandboxie removes it fine after just clicking on "Delete Contents" again.

Which OS are you using? I'm experiencing more often than not that SandboxIE is not able to properly unmount the registry hive when all processes in a sandbox end on my Win2000 system. You can fix it by rebooting your system, but there are more ways. Try running regedt32.exe (Start->Run....>regedt32). In the Registry editor that opens, pick HKEY_USERS and expand. Here you should find an entry called "Sandbox_{user]_{sandboxname}". If no processes are running in this sandbox (thus proof that the hive wasn't properly unmounted) you can select thie entry and from the Registry drop-down menu choose Unload Hive.

This will properly unload the hive without the need to reboot your system.

[Lode]

Thanks Happy. I use xp. The next time I'll follow your suggestion, just to try it out.
I still know very little about these machines, and wonder if a parasite could be introduced and be active in a registry hive Sandboxie did not remove. Otherwise I would not mind leaving things as they are until I have to reboot for another reason anyway.

[Kal El]

When you get the "cannot remove registry hive" message, is that registry hive permanently stuck in your registry or can the contents be deleted once you log off and then log back on again?

[Lode]

I don't know Kal El; I have not had the "Cannot remove registry hive" message again since I last posted here.
But I decided not to bother making another account and then switch back and forth to see if that does the trick.
Since the hive is in Sandboxie's sandbox, it can do no harm to my machine even if it was malware. So I'll stick to the lazy primitive way of letting the OS do the work, by telling it to reboot when I have to do so anyway to install an update, or when I am thru playing on my machine and want to get away from it for a while to go do something else. Afterwards, a click on the Sandboxie icon in the tray>DefaultBox>Delete Content is all it takes.

I realize now that it's no biggie.