registry compactor questions

oldgrunt · Post by **oldgrunt** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:56 pm

I bought Ace Utilities and it appears to do what I wanted it to do with no problems.
I downloaded the Registry Compactor and after all the dire warnings was afraid to run it despite the fact that the analysis shows that I probably should.
So, here are my questions, I apologize if they have already been answered, I searched the forum and did not find them.

1. If I read the help file right I should close my antivirus and firewall prior to running the compactor, and also unplug my cable modem?

2. Registry backup: I did as instructed in the help file and saved the Backkup.bkf file to a new folder on the desktop and then burned it to a cd-rw disk. When I read the how to restore section of the help file it appears to get the restore info from c:\windows\repair, not from where I backed it up to, either in the new folder or on the cd. Does the backup I used also create the backup hives in that location in addition to the backup.bkf file I created? I guess that after reading the help file I am still confused as to back and restore procedures in case of problems.

I have windows xp pro, pentium 4 with 55 gigs of empty hard drive space.

Post by **Aneesh** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 4:37 pm

Well, don't get too upset reading all those warnings! It's quite natural for programs such as Registry Compactor, which manipulate critical parts of Windows, to warn the user beforehand about what the program does, what precautions one should take etc. If done properly, nothing unfortunate will happen. But no one can predict 100% success for each and every user who would use the program. Oops, am I starting to worry you when I should be doing the opposite...

Before using Registry Compactor, I would recommend closing all running programs. Almost all softwares read/write settings to/from Registry. Since Registry Compactor reads and analyses the Registry when it runs, we don't want any program to write to the Registry. Do we ? Hence the warning.

You can backup from any folder/drive, removable or otherwise. All you have to do is to show the location of your backup to the backup program.

So far, no one has reported any problems, like a OS crash, after using the Registry Compactor. I'm fairly sure your experience won't be any different.

Cal · Post by **Cal** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:22 pm

RegCompactor is the most superb Registry compacting program that I've ever used and it makes my XP Pro boot faster too!!!

Post by **hari** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 2:18 am

1. If I read the help file right I should close my antivirus and firewall prior to running the compactor, and also unplug my cable modem?

No, you don't have to. Just close any programs that could contain unsaved data, like WORD, EXCEL,...

2. Registry backup: I did as instructed in the help file and saved the Backkup.bkf file to a new folder on the desktop and then burned it to a cd-rw disk. When I read the how to restore section of the help file it appears to get the restore info from c:\windows\repair, not from where I backed it up to,

You can read the last line of the backup instruction that says "This back up procedure backs up the five system registry hives in %windir%\repair. "
This means registry files are backed up to this repair folder when you use Backup tool. Yes, the backup tool creates registry in both locations. You won't need the CD actually.

oldgrunt · Post by **oldgrunt** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 9:56 pm

Thank you Aneesh, Cal and Hari. Questions answered. Like I said, I have been using Ace Utilites for over a month and am very happy and the Compactor did what it is supposed to do too. Thanks again.

jon_fl · Post by **jon_fl** » Sun May 22, 2005 8:54 am

By chance does the registry compactor ignore certain folders such as Norton ones and so on? I'm aware that certain parts of ace utilities do that.

Post by **Aneesh** » Sun May 22, 2005 12:14 pm

BumFluff wrote:By chance does the registry compactor ignore certain folders such as Norton ones and so on? I'm aware that certain parts of ace utilities do that.

No. Registry Compactor doesn't ignore any such keys because compacting process does not delete any entries from Registry. Since there is no deletion involved, there is no need to ignore any key,value or data.