Registry Rampage: WinXP reg keeps growing

[winterlude]

Hello,
I make a common practice of backing up my registry every month. I've seen in grow from --if memory serves--the low teens in megabytes to over 68 megs now.
Even with registry cleaners/checkers etc, the registry grows and grows, and my system becomes increasingly sluggish.

Is there anything short of a clean install that can be done about the registry? I use registry mechanic and compact the registry, but it still keeps growing.

Thanks.

P.S. let me know the size of your windows XP registries too.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: winterlude
Hello,
I make a common practice of backing up my registry every month. I've seen in grow from --if memory serves--the low teens in megabytes to over 68 megs now.
Even with registry cleaners/checkers etc, the registry grows and grows, and my system becomes increasingly sluggish.

Is there anything short of a clean install that can be done about the registry? I use registry mechanic and compact the registry, but it still keeps growing.

Thanks.

P.S. let me know the size of your windows XP registries too.

What is telling you that your registry is 68MB, and why do you believe that is the slowness problem? How are you backing up your registry? Are you using XP? What is the purpose of backing up your registry manually? (Or, how do you do it?)

 

[winterlude]

start=>run=> type "regedit"=>file=>export all
Yes, I'm using XP. I got into the habbit of manually backing up my registry from using Win98 which crashed a lot and often corrupted my registry, so I would use the back up to restore it. I don't use the XP restore points because it slows the computer down too much, so I keep my registry backed up just in case. Probably don't need to, but it also helps me keep tabs on how big my registry is getting and comparing it relatively (and subjectively) to my system responsiveness.
I'm no software engineer, but I know that a bigger registry is like having a bigger database which subsequently requires more time for the CPU search through which translates into a progressively slower system as time goes by. And if the reg is not occassionally cleaned up, dead ends and wrong entries could lead to crashes and freeze ups of programs or the whole OS. That's my understanding anyway, but as I said, I'm no expert. Just a curious tinkerer.

 

[dclive]

Start/Run/Regeit/File/ExportAll is a text file. That won't help you at all if your OS goes down the tubes. If you want to back up your registry, use either NTBACKUP (System State or all of C:\), or use XP's System Restore functionality. All of that work is already done for you.

Unless you have a Celeron 500 or so, System Restore Points don't slow down your computer. They primarily use CPU time when you install drivers or make major changes.

The text file you're making isn't an accurate representation of size. If you want that, look in c:\windows\system32\config and sum the totals for sam, software, system, and security files. THAT is your registry size. Mine's 32M or so.

Back in the days of Celeron 500s, your arguments about databases, sizes, etc. were quite true. Now, along with 32-bit displays at 1600x1200, it's a nonissue. (I remember how slow 800x600 in 65000 colors used to be.)

I flatly disagree with you about "registry dead ends". Microsoft does not recommend any registry cleaning utility to use as a matter of course, and I strongly suggest you abide by their direction. Registry "cleaners" can really, really screw up your system.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: winterlude

Are you from Ottawa by any chance (looking at your ID)?
I miss it!

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: dclive

Unless you have a Celeron 500 or so, System Restore Points don't slow down your computer. They primarily use CPU time when you install drivers or make major changes.

Eventhough, I totally agree, but I don't use restore points anyway , I always have it disabled, for the reason that it's a process that keeps getting bigger and bigger, plus it's insecure if you are reloading a restore point and you had a virus back then or spyware back then it will come back, restore points should be more advanced, but that will take more resources to accomplish. I usualy keep a ghost Image on a couple of DVDs handy, containing the WINDOWS folder , after that process I just reconfigure my apps and use a program like NortonWinDoctor to remove invalid registry entries.
:thumbsup: Hope this helps

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: The Linuxator

Originally posted by: dclive

Unless you have a Celeron 500 or so, System Restore Points don't slow down your computer. They primarily use CPU time when you install drivers or make major changes.

Eventhough, I totally agree, but I don't use restore points anyway , I always have it disabled, for the reason that it's a process that keeps getting bigger and bigger, plus it's insecure if you are reloading a restore point and you had a virus back then or spyware back then it will come back, restore points should be more advanced, but that will take more resources to accomplish. I usualy keep a ghost Image on a couple of DVDs handy, containing the WINDOWS folder , after that process I just reconfigure my apps and use a program like NortonWinDoctor to remove invalid registry entries.
:thumbsup: Hope this helps

How does the process get 'bigger and bigger'? You tell it exactly how much disk space you'd like to allocate. That's it; it doesn't take more.

RE: Virus: Yes, but what if the opposite is true? You're hit with a virus, you don't have a restore point...oooops! That's a more common scenario, IMHO. Once you know you're hit with a virus you can always restore and then rescan for that same virus - if you don't even try to get a restore point going, you're totally dead in the water.

That manual app restoration / etc. sounds like an incredible amount of work. Wouldn't it be easiest to just use NTBackup? Or Ghost the entire c:\ drive?

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: The Linuxator

Originally posted by: dclive

Unless you have a Celeron 500 or so, System Restore Points don't slow down your computer. They primarily use CPU time when you install drivers or make major changes.

Eventhough, I totally agree, but I don't use restore points anyway , I always have it disabled, for the reason that it's a process that keeps getting bigger and bigger, plus it's insecure if you are reloading a restore point and you had a virus back then or spyware back then it will come back, restore points should be more advanced, but that will take more resources to accomplish. I usualy keep a ghost Image on a couple of DVDs handy, containing the WINDOWS folder , after that process I just reconfigure my apps and use a program like NortonWinDoctor to remove invalid registry entries.
:thumbsup: Hope this helps

How does the process get 'bigger and bigger'? You tell it exactly how much disk space you'd like to allocate. That's it; it doesn't take more.

RE: Virus: Yes, but what if the opposite is true? You're hit with a virus, you don't have a restore point...oooops! That's a more common scenario, IMHO. Once you know you're hit with a virus you can always restore and then rescan for that same virus - if you don't even try to get a restore point going, you're totally dead in the water.

That manual app restoration / etc. sounds like an incredible amount of work. Wouldn't it be easiest to just use NTBackup? Or Ghost the entire c:\ drive?

The reason why I said WINDOWS folder backup is because I have lots of games (50Gb of them) and to backup the C: drive will be includig files such as game files which are usually unaffected by system crashes( being non-system fles) so when a system crash hits usually it's a problem somewhwere in your WINDOWS folder (System32,Drivers...etc) so all I have to do is replace my entire WINDOWS folder , fix those dll s and registry links and I am done, also I can fix alot of the apps through internal apps repair wizard.

I don't blame you for finding it an ineffective way of dealing with system crashes but I have been doing this for a while, since I was a novice to windows and I look at it as an old habit more than a true way of professionaly fixing the issues. nonetheless it works great for my scenario. :beer:

I do make a backup/update of the WINDOWS folder everytime I install a new major program on my system though.

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: The Linuxator

Originally posted by: dclive

Unless you have a Celeron 500 or so, System Restore Points don't slow down your computer. They primarily use CPU time when you install drivers or make major changes.

Eventhough, I totally agree, but I don't use restore points anyway , I always have it disabled, for the reason that it's a process that keeps getting bigger and bigger, plus it's insecure if you are reloading a restore point and you had a virus back then or spyware back then it will come back, restore points should be more advanced, but that will take more resources to accomplish. I usualy keep a ghost Image on a couple of DVDs handy, containing the WINDOWS folder , after that process I just reconfigure my apps and use a program like NortonWinDoctor to remove invalid registry entries.
:thumbsup: Hope this helps

How does the process get 'bigger and bigger'? You tell it exactly how much disk space you'd like to allocate. That's it; it doesn't take more.

You are right about this part but, that allocation is the maximum it can use, but after enabling system restore
it will keep on taking more of that space and more , untill it reaches the maximum, then it starts deleting old ones.

 

[winterlude]

 

[winterlude]

I don't have a lot of faith in System Restore. Every time I've tried to use it (twice on a Windows ME system and once on an XP), it failed to restore. I can't remember why. It was a few years since I last tried it.

I don't think the reg file is only text. I repaired my registry many times in Win98 by importing the reg; but that's not to say that it would necessarily work for XP.

Dclive mentioned something about a config file in system32. The only one I saw was config.NT. I opened it up with notepad, but was at a loss as to what to look for.

I suppose I will start using system Restore again, but I still don't have faith in it. I have to find out more about NTBACKUP.

As far as the slow down is concern, I realize that I was thinking of some other resource hog that speeds up searches. I don't remember what it's called, but I disabled that ages ago.
I have a pretty slow system with lots of programs running in the background, so anything that slows my system is really noticeable.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: winterlude
I don't have a lot of faith in System Restore. Every time I've tried to use it (twice on a Windows ME system and once on an XP), it failed to restore. I can't remember why. It was a few years since I last tried it.

I don't think the reg file is only text. I repaired my registry many times in Win98 by importing the reg; but that's not to say that it would necessarily work for XP.

Dclive mentioned something about a config file in system32. The only one I saw was config.NT. I opened it up with notepad, but was at a loss as to what to look for.

I suppose I will start using system Restore again, but I still don't have faith in it. I have to find out more about NTBACKUP.

As far as the slow down is concern, I realize that I was thinking of some other resource hog that speeds up searches. I don't remember what it's called, but I disabled that ages ago.
I have a pretty slow system with lots of programs running in the background, so anything that slows my system is really noticeable.

Can't comment on your faith in system restore - works great here and for tens of thousands that have tried it, but your mileage may vary, of course.

The .reg file YOU are making is a textfile. Just open it up and you'll quickly see that. You're wasting your time with it - if you can't boot, that textfile (.reg file) won't help you one bit, and it's so large that it's going to be impossible to manage or do anything with.

I said go to c:\windows\system32\config (directory) and sum the filesize of sam, software, system, and security (files). That's the size of your registery - those files are your registry.

You can go to the C:\System Volume Information folder and in a subfolder there are the weekly or so System Restore-created backups of the registry, with slightly different names. With a NTFS drive, you'll need to give yourself permissions to read that folder.

If you go to XP's Help function there's a lot of information about NTBackup, and NTBackup has help in the program too.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: winterlude
I don't have a lot of faith in System Restore. Every time I've tried to use it (twice on a Windows ME system and once on an XP), it failed to restore. I can't remember why. It was a few years since I last tried it.

I've never used System Restore (too new-school for my taste), but I'd like to say one thing: Never take any experience with Win9x/ME into account when using a NT class OS. They're vastly different under the hood. (i.e. Windows Vista has much more in common with NT 3.1 than it has with WinME)