Windows – reg delete gives me “access is denied” but regedit delete is ok

Corrupted profiles are kind of a common problem, but it's still a problem; One that's a symptom of a larger problem. It's "common", but not "normal".

On the other hand, based on the provided event log entry, your profile isn't corrupted, it just can't be loaded because during loading it's trying to access a file that's locked by another process (like it says). You have to determine what the file is, and why it's locked.

If you suspect it's your use of Handle.exe, maybe figure out another way to release the file you need to copy without abruptly closing handles, as that's highly unsafe. If you look at the usage info for Handle it even warns you "WARNING: Closing handles can cause application or system instability.". :)

SOLUTION: Use %windir%\SysWOW64\reg.exe to manipulate 32-bit registry entries and %windir%\System32\reg.exe to manipulate 64-bit registry entries.

I'm going to have a stern talk with the program authors though about why they shove their startup key into the 32-bit reqistry on a 64-bit system.