Registry Compacter

[f3ia]

CCleaner does an excellent job at cleaning the Registry. But what about compacting/optimizing the Reg like NTREGOPT?

[oli]

why not just use NTREGOPT?

[Andavari]

Compacting the registry has the potential of screwing up! I had a problem luckily only with some shortcuts after running NTREGOPT. There's also RegCompact.NET which displays the before and after compression results before committing to an actual compression which can save time if compression isn't necessary.

[f3ia]

Well, an all-in-one tool would be nice, but RegCompact.NET looks good. But how would compacting the Registry cause problems? I thought it didn't modify any Registry keys.

[plun]

Well, an all-in-one tool would be nice, but RegCompact.NET looks good. But how would compacting the Registry cause problems? I thought it didn't modify any Registry keys.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

Hi

 

First of all I believe it?s really important to keep CCleaner, safe, conservative and

without any risks. Every new built in function is a new risk and I believe that MrG

really wants this program to be safe for all users.

 

Today its only minor problems with CCleaner for all users, newbies > "geeks".

A lot of users PCs are in a real mess and therefore it?s important to keep CCleaner as a "basic" and 99.999999 % safe removal tool. .

 

But this is a challenge where to stop and don?t go any further

 

 

IMHO

[ninjastyle]

Hey I'd love to have a registry compactor, it'd just mean one less program to use if it was included. NTREGOPT is great though. If CCleaner could include something similar while keeping the program safe and small in size, that'd be a nice little feature.

[Andavari]

Why on Earth should MrG include a registry compacter in CCleaner when there are already two good freeware ones available, those being NTREGOPT and RegCompact.NET. I think it'd be an easier solution to just recommend one or the other, or both of them.

[rridgely]

Why on Earth should MrG include a registry compacter in CCleaner when there are already two good freeware ones available, those being NTREGOPT and RegCompact.NET. I think it'd be an easier solution to just recommend one or the other, or both of them.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

I have yet to use either of those programs. Andavari which one do you like the most?

[Andavari]

I prefer and use RegCompact.NET (thanks to Tarun for mentioning it) only because it displays the before and after results before actually compacting the registry, therefore if it will only reduce the registry by 100 to 200 KB I don't perform the compacting hence it would be a waste of time and within a day or so it'd grow that amount again.

 

The first time I used NTREGOPT my registry was reduced 5 MB from what I remember, or maybe slightly more, I do however remember my system performing as if it were brand new. That was my experience even though I constantly keep my registry clean using several registry cleaners.

 

Both NTREGOPT and RegCompact.NET create backups, however neither of them have a restore function built in to automatically undo the compacting, which is the reason I make a known good registry backup using ERUNT before compacting.

 

One thing I'll repeat myself on is that not long ago on my first usage of NTREGOPT it fixed my optical USB mouse issue that was acting very sluggish for a very long time, NTREGOPT literally saved me $50 or more dollars since there wasn't anything wrong with my mouse.

[Greenknight]

Actually, NTREGOPT gives the results as percentage of reduction in the size of the registry, not in MB.

 

I think using ERUNT to back up the registry first is what was intended when NTREGOPT and ERUNT were bundled together. That's how I got them, anyway, via MajorGeeks.

 

On the author's site, he has them as separate downloads from the same page. You can get just one of them, but the implication is clear that they go together.

[Andavari]

Yeah, and I clearly trust the registry backup of ERUNT versus the likes of System Restore.

[Merlin]

I am using Win98 and my system.dat is at 8.9Mb ... scanreg won't work with that and the compactors mentioned above are only for Win2000 and up. I for one would appreciate a tool that can help with compacting my registry.

[Tarun]

Registry First Aid. Not free but works.

[Andavari]

scanreg won't work with that and the compactors mentioned above are only for Win2000 and up. I for one would appreciate a tool that can help with compacting my registry.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

If scanreg is messed up on your system re-install a good copy of it from the Win98 CD using System File Checker (start, run, sfc.exe).

 

I've been using this method for years, via batch files:

 

First let's create a known good Win98 system registry backup:

 

Open Notepad and paste into the window (save as "regback.bat").

Remember to double-click the batch file in Windows to create the backup:

 

 

MD C:\REGBACKXCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\MSDOS.SYS  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\CONTROL.INI  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\DOSSTART.BAT  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\PROTOCOL.INI  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.CB  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DAT  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\TTFCACHE  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\USER.DAT  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM  C:\REGBACK\XCOPY.EXE /I /H /K /Y /R  C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI  C:\REGBACK\ATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\REGBACK\*.*CLS

 

 

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How to restore the Win98 system registry from the regback.bat backup in MS-DOS mode.

Do not attempt to restore the registry in Windows hence you'll corrupt the registry:

 

Open Notepad and paste into the window (save as "c:\resreg.bat"). In MS-DOS mode at the command prompt type in resreg.bat to restore the registry from the backup:

 

 

@ECHO OFFATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DATATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\WINDOWS\USER.DATATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\MSDOS.SYSATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\REGBACK\SYSTEM.DATATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\REGBACK\USER.DATATTRIB.EXE -R -H -S C:\REGBACK\MSDOS.SYSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\XCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\MSDOS.SYS C:\XCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\DOSSTART.BAT C:\WINDOWSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\PROTOCOL.INI C:\WINDOWSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\SYSTEM.CB C:\WINDOWSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\SYSTEM.DAT C:\WINDOWSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\SYSTEM.INI C:\WINDOWSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\USER.DAT C:\WINDOWSXCOPY.EXE C:\REGBACK\WIN.INI C:\WINDOWSATTRIB.EXE +R +H +S C:\MSDOS.SYSATTRIB.EXE +R +H C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DATATTRIB.EXE +R +H C:\WINDOWS\USER.DATECHO.ECHO If you accidentally ran this file in Windows youECHO MUST follow these instructions:ECHO 1. Click Start, Shutdown, Restart in MS-DOS Mode.ECHO 2. At the C prompt in DOS type in: RESREGECHO This restores the system registry in DOS whichECHO is the only way to restore it without corruptingECHO it.ECHO Restart Win98 by typing in WIN then click Enter.

 

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The completely freeware, Microsoft way to compact and/or repair the Win98 system registry:

1. Restart in MS-DOS mode.

2. At the command prompt type in: scanreg /fix

3. Start Windows.

This will run the built-in Microsoft Registry tool, which is by the way the safest way I know of to compact the Win98 registry.

 

If anything goes wrong (typically never does) use the resreg.bat backup to restore the Win98 system registry.

 

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Please note:

If you've installed Win98 into a different directory other than C:\WINDOWS change C:\WINDOWS in the batch files to: %WINDIR%

[Merlin]

Thank you for these very comprehensive instructions. I have done some research on scanreg and have found that it has a size limit of about 8.5Mb for system.dat. Some of the tools that I have used (eg Norton WinDoctor) simply report this large size as a corrupt registry. Fortunately, I was able to fix this issue using the Win95 compaction approach, which also allowed me to run scanreg as well as other utilities afterward. It goes as follows:

 

1) Run a registry cleaner to remove any redundant entries. I tried several and found that Registry Mechanic found the most errors to fix.

 

2) Open regedit, move the cursor to the top (My Computer) and export the whole registry to compact.reg

 

3) Boot to DOS, cd c:\windows and run regedit /c compact.reg

 

4) Reboot (ctrl-alt-del) to Windows and check the file size of system.dat and other diagnostics.

 

So with respect to CCleaner it would be useful for Win9x users to have a utility to accomplish this, since not everyone might be comfortable with using DOS or regedit.

[Andavari]

I have done some research on scanreg and have found that it has a size limit of about 8.5Mb for system.dat.

I learn something new everyday! Some good researching you did! Perhaps I never got to the 8.5MB limit because I've used scanreg /fix each day on my Win98 system.