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Oversized Win98 Registry

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10 replies

by syspop

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My Win98 registry (SYSTEM.DAT) is 7MB. It ain't broke - don't fix it...

The system was installed years ago and has been working fine all along. Many programs were installed and removed and I let Windows Update do its stuff when critical hotfixes are indicated.

Now an SBS workstation, the PC served as a 3-line BBS on FIDOnet; a Corel design box; a C++ / ASM / Pascal / Visual Studio programming station; an OrCAD engineering & TANGO PCB system; and still runs Office 2000. Most software was upgraded many times. Some was removed.

RegClean 4.1a, SystemWorks 2001 and SystemSuite 4 have not produced significant size reductions.

Any idea how to get rid of the excess (without breaking or re-installing the O/S)? Again - it works fine, but...

10 replies

by thechas

RegClean does not do a very thourough job at all.
It only cleans some basic keys that cause common problems.

The other programs do a much better job.
However, I have not used a registry tool that automatically cleans out everything.

Did you run the registry defragmenter tool in either SystemWorks, or System Suite?
That would be a good place to start.

On a prior question, someone recommended RegDrill and Regmedic as the best registry cleaning tools. So you might want to give them a try.

Beyond that, you are limited to manually deleteing keys from the registry.

BACK UP THE REGISTRY BEFORE EDITING!!!

You can start in the Software sub-keys, and delete the keys for any software that has been removed from your system.

Then, look for hardware that is no longer part of the system.

What I do, is search on a key term (Corel) and look through the keys that are found that way, and add terms to my search list.

The "Classes" section is a lot tougher, but can yield large reductions.
Unless you can identify the class ID for removed software and hardware, you need to open each class ID individually to determine what it belongs to.

After cleaning out a number of keys, run your choice of either SystemWorks Win Doctor, or the registry cleaner from SystemSuite.

Once you have the registry cleaned out, you can then defragment the registry again.

Chas

by syspop

Thank You and sorry for the delay - had to recover the system.

I often clean & defrag with SystemSuite. It's faster and more effective than RegClean and SystemWorks. I tried RegDrill, RegMedic and other EasyDesk tools. After doing everything theysaid, I saved 6KB (out of 7MB). Not impressive, especially, as I could no-longer Restart in DOS mode after their FIXes. Then, the EasyDesk stuff didn't even uninstall properly. Dangerous and user-hostile. Also, I think it's built on older technology.

If I had the time and knowledge to work through 7MB of Classes in {squigglybrackets}, I wouldn't have posted the question. I acknowledge that GI (Genuine Intelligence) is probably needed.

by syspop

Thank You.

I downloaded EasyCleaner. It's a nice utility and good value. The results, though, were similar to SystemSuite's.

by phil.hall

Boot to DOS and run SCANREG /OPT from the command line. That will compress the registry as far as it needs to go.

by syspop

Thank You.

What a neat - undocumented - trick! Unfortunately, the results are similar to SystemSuite's registry defragger.

by hootie14

You have to purchase the CD but it is one of the best for cleaning out dead ends in the registry. Try Norton 2002 System Utilities and run WinDoctor.

by syspop

Thank You.

I already have Norton SystemWorks 2001. It does less than Ontrack's SystemSuite 4. If you know how I can obtain a trial version of WinDoctor 2002, I would try anyway, but I'm not up to spending more money on a company that has disappointed me in the past.

Note: I'm not knocking Norton. Ghost is the best and even the SystemWorks is a good value. For this problem, though, Ontrack has given the best results thus far (see answer 1).

by thechas

Curiosity finally got the better of me.

I regularly go through and clean out my registry to the best of my ability.

On my W98 box, the registry is over 8MB!
I do have a lot of software installed on the system.

So, based on this, it looks like the only way to seriously reduce the size of the registry is to wipe the drive (or at least Windows) and start over.

I know that this is not what you want to hear.

Chas

by syspop

Thank You.

Misery loves company. So do I. Unfortunately, I can't simply wipe this PC. I probably would have migrated to Win2K or WinXP long ago, if I didn't need the EPROM programmer and Logic Analyzer cards that are in this machine. Windows 32 doesn't let the software get to the hardware!

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