knowplace.org - Win9x registry shrinking guide

Win9x Registry Shrinking Guide

(Updated 04/10/99)

WHO? Anyone who runs Windows 9x and is concerned about the size of the ever growing Win9x registry on his machine. The hints below were specifically written for single-user configurations. However, I've successfully used the suggestions here on machines with multiple-user profiles as will as single-user profile machines

WHAT? This is a novice friendly step-by-step HOWTO for CLEANING AND SHRINKING YOUR WIN9x REGISTRY. The suggestions here will allow you to compress the size of your Win9x registry without having to shell out any money to anyone.

WHY? The larger your Win9x registry gets, the longer it takes to boot your machine. Besides, there's some concern about the stability of Win9x once the registry size gets out of control. Believe it or not, since it's actually fairly simple to do this, anyone running Win9x ought to do this periodicaly as maintenance.

WHERE? The absolute newest version of this HOWTO can always be found at http://www.knowplace.org/registry.html.

HOW? I'll give an overview first, so you'll have some idea what's going on. First obtain your registry size to determine if it's worth the trouble to proceed. If you're registry is smaller than one megabyte, you should leave well enough alone and devote your energy to other things. If the Win9x registry is in need of compression, you'll clean it and fix any possible errors before you proceed with compression. Next, you'll reboot DIRECTLY into DOS, issue some commands to shrink the registry and reboot back into Win9x. If everything goes well, your registry size ought to be noticeably smaller. Since you are going to be rebooting your computer, you might want to consider printing this document. Do me a favor and print on the back of scraps.

Checking your Win9x registry size: Since you're going to be in DOS for most of this process, I'm going to INTENTIONALLY leave out how to accomplish this in Win9x. DON'T reboot yet! Just shell out to DOS using the MS-DOS PROMPT (if you haven't moved it, click Start, Programs, then MS-DOS PROMPT). From within the DOS prompt, if you're not already in the C:\WINDOWS directory, type c: and then cd \windows (I'm just going to assume that you possess some working knowledge of the ENTER key).
Once you're inside the windows directory, type dir /ah (this tells DOS to list the files with hidden attributes). You'll see a bunch of things listed, but the only thing you're interested in is the size of the SYSTEM.DAT. The filesize is reported to the right of the filename, and is reported in bytes (1 kilobyte=1,024; 1 megabyte=1,048,576). If your filesize is around the one megabyte mark, and you still want to do this, you really ought to look into a hobby of some sort. Type exit to return to Win9x.

Using SCANREG: While SCANREG.EXE only comes installed on Win98 machines, it will nevertheless run beautifully on Win95. Using SCANREG.EXE to clean and compress your registry is almost painless. The only tricky part is obtaining it if you're not already running Win98. NOTE: Please DO NOT send me email me to ask me if I could send this to you. Try doing a FTP search for it by clicking here, or by some other means. If you are not running Win98, or cannot manage to find a copy of SCANREG.EXE, please skip to the Preparing your Win95 registry section. If you managed to get a copy of SCANREG.EXE, save it into your C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND directory first.

It's time now to backup your current registry. You'll have to close all your programs and quit to DOS. To quit to DOS, press the ALT-F4 (in conjunction), and choose Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode? Click on Yes. Once you are in the DOS command prompt, type scanreg /backup. NOTE: This is also an excellent way to periodically backup your registry.
Once you SCANREG.EXE has finished backing up your registry, type scanreg /fix.
If something should go wrong, or you change your mind about this fix, you can restore your old registry by typing scanreg /restore. Otherwise, skip to the Congratulate yourself section.

Preparing your Win95 registry: Don't worry. Even if you do not have SCANREG.EXE, going through the steps here will give you the SAME EXACT result as using SCANREG.EXE.

You'll want to clean your registry and get rid of any errors that it may contain. If you don't already have Regclean v4.1a from Microsoft, you should download it now. If this site is busy, you can also try ftp://ftp.darmstadt.gmd.de/pub/pc/win95/microsoft/regcln41a.exe. Install and run as usual. Make sure you've cleaned and corrected the errors in your Win95 registry before continuing!
It's now time to backup your Win95 registry files just in case. If you don't know how, or don't want to bother, download http://www.knowplace.org/dl/backnfro.exe. It's a set of batch files that'll automate the backup and restore process. regback.bat will perform backup, and regfro.bat will perform restore. Execute them in either a DOS prompt window or within Win95. They will not work in DOS real mode. backnfro.exe also contains a copy of this document in plain text form called "backNfro.txt."
If you're running Windows 95, you now need to figure out what version your running. If you know you're running Win98 or Win95 OSR2.x, skip to the next step. While holding down the ALT key, double-clicking on MY COMPUTER. If it says v4.00.950 or v4.00.950a, you'll need to download http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~flibble/reg/reg.zip. It's a modified version of REGEDIT.EXE that will run with Win95 and DOS7.0. The "normal" version from the non-OSR2 versions of Win95 will error out if you're trying to compress a large registry (why bother if it's small?).
Click on Start, then Run.... Enter "regedit" at the prompt and click on OK. Make sure My Computer is highlighted. Click on the menu where it says Registry, Export Registry and enter EXPORT.REG at the file name prompt. Make sure that you save EXPORT.REG inside your windows directory (i.e. C:\WINDOWS)!

Shrinking your Win95 registry: This step will now require you to quit to DOS. Quit any and all applications you still have running. Press ALT-F4 (in conjunction), and choose Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode? Click on Yes and off you go to DOS real mode.

Change your current directory to C:\WINDOWS (unless you're already there) by typing c:, then cd \windows (once again, I'm just going to assume you know how to use the ENTER key.
Okay, so strictly speaking, this step isn't necessary, but I find that it helps to speed the process along. Type smartdrv /x.
It's now time to compress your Win95 registry. Type regedit /c export.reg. Wait until it's done and type dir /ah to see what the new size of your Win95 registry. Reboot by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL in conjunction.
If you want, you might want to consider running regback.bat. Why have backups of a large Win95 registry that you don't ever intend on using again?

Congratulate yourself: Yup, you are completely done. It really was that simple. If everything went smoothly, Win9x will start up as usual. Consider yourself a Win9x guru now. Impress your friends at parties by shrinking their Win9x registry.