Registry Compactor increased the size of my registry.

bch · Post by **bch** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:05 pm

Hello. I had a go with your Registry Compactor programme this afternoon on an old computer with Windows ME. I have previously been using the registry deragmenter in TuneUpUtilities 2004. After the inital scan, your programme advised that the current size of the registry was 4,092kb which, when optimised, would reduce to 4,048kb. I let the programme carry on and immediately after rebooting checked again. Your programme advised the size of the registry as 6,208kb!

I then ran the registry defragmenter in TuneUpUtilities 2004 and it advised the size of the registry as similar ro 6,208kb and said it was fragmented by 37%.

I then downloaded another programme called Registry Compressor. It advised the size of the registry as being similar to 6,208 and said fragmentation was virtually nil.

I am confused. Can you throw some light on this? Why has the registry increased in size? I apologise in advance if the answer is within the Help file of the programme. I am on another computer now and will not have access to the other until next Saturday.

PS. I am not complaining. I am more interested in learning about what has happened.

Post by **hari** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 5:08 am

Hi,

All Registry Compressors use built-in Windows Functions.

A new registry file called 'classes.dat' might have been created. Originally, there could only have been two of them ('system.dat' and 'user.dat' in your Windows folder).

Please try this : first backup your whole registry with the command 'scanregw /backup' (use the 'Run' dialog box).

Next, go to your windows folder, and rename 'classes.dat' to say 'classes.old'. Now reboot and see if there are any problems. See what the new size of the registry is.

TuneUp regcompress utility might have got it wrong. It won't say the registry is compressed until it is used.

bch · Post by **bch** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 8:23 am

Thanks for replying. Classes.dat was already there. The operating system is ME which includes classes.dat unlike 95 and 98 which just have the two you mentioned. I don't have access to the machine to try your suggestion but I don't think that is the answer, anyway. As I say, classes.dat was already there, as it should be on that operating system.

bch · Post by **bch** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:06 am

Just to muddy the water further. On an XP machine does a disk defragmenter such as Diskeeper defragment the registry? The reason I ask is that I have a programme called Page Defrag from sysinternals http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freew ... frag.shtml This normally shows that each registry hive is in one fragment.

I notice that if I download a programme, the software hive might then go to 2 fragments but, after running Diskeeper, it reverts to one fragment.

I realise that your Registry Compactor will compact the registry, but in terms of defragmenting the registry, is it doing anything that, for example, Diskeeper doesn't do?

Thanks again.

Post by **hari** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 4:35 pm

Hi,

I know there would be classes.dat in ME, but in some cases (if there are no user accounts, we have heard that it is not present). Thats why we asked.

RC removes the empty spaces left behind when data is deleted from registry. This is not done by Diskeeper. Yes, both defrag the hives.

Can you open the registry backup cab file of a date prior to using RC, and see the files in it ? Please compare the size too. You can find these files in the Windows\Sysbkup folder.

bch · Post by **bch** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 5:50 pm

Thanks again. I'll have a look next Saturday when I get back to that computer. I've tried to remember what happened and I think you are indeed correct that there was not a classes.dat. despite what I wrote earlier. I am the only user of that computer and Registry Compactor did remove free space as confirmed by the Registry Compressor programme which I used afterwards.

Thanks also for confirming that the hives are defragmented by Diskeeper, as well as RC, but RC removes the free space.

Post by **hari** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 6:14 pm

HI,

But we haven't seen classes.dat being not present in any system, we heard about it from another expert. It came to our mind since the difference in size was 2 MB.

Please get back after checking the sizes in the cab files. Also, try and revert to the old registry using the backup.

bch · Post by **bch** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:00 pm

Hello again. Just to update, I got to the computer today and checked the classes.dat file. As you thought, this file was created on 9th October. As the computer was perfectly okay, I thought it best to leave it as it is. Again, as you advised, the classes.dat file should be there anyway on an ME machine.

Many thanks for your assistance in helping me to understand what happened.