Registry help - need Genius

Thanks for responding. This is going to be pretty long so please bear with me.

Yesterday I was reading in a post on this board( don't remember which one, I try to read them all in the Win98 forum to increase my knowledge ) and read where I could search the registry using regedit. ( I either didn't know this or I forgot - they say forgetting comes with old age... ) I tried the feature, searching for a program I knew was long gone, and sure enough there it was. I deleted it but noticed a lot of folders which have names associated with games. Some of the games I knew I had at one time but not anymore. I found them at Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Direct Draw\Compatibility and at Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\MS Dos Emulation\AppCompat.

The only one I deleted was MSGolf because I knew I no longer have a golf game on my computer. But when I did a search for 'golf', a lot of entries were found. For example, Hkey_Current_Users\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU
I found a reference to golf. Is this and the other similiar references to 'golf' refering to the game or something else entirely? Also, if any of the above "games" are ok to delete how come none of the regcleaners I use detect them? They shouldn't point anywhere should they?

Thanks for any help with this.

-John

 

dopey--PeeteC's advice about not making changes in the Registry is good--unless you know what you are doing and especially for minor matters. However, for the day that a major problem occurs you might want to start learning more about the Registry.
Some good places to start
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...l=/TechNet/prodtechnol/win98/maintain/reg.asp
http://www.winguides.com/article.php?id=1&guide=registry
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...Net/prodtechnol/win98/reskit/part6/wrkc31.asp

 

Leave well enough alone

OR

Make sure that the Regisrty backups ( RB00x.CAB ) files in the
C: \windows\sysback folder are being made at least once per day and you know how to boot to the Command Prompt at boot up and use Scanreg /restore.

If you know how to do that You can do all the editing you wish. Just do not do it all at once. A little today and a little more tomorow.

Getting rid of the point to non-existant items does help speed things up a bit.

I just un-installed a program in XP Pro and between Norton and RegSeeker I cleaned almost 300 now unless keys from the registry on the first run. The second run found more.

Cleaning up the Registry does help. But we kust need to be carefull when doing it and make sure we do have the backups JUST IN CASE.

BillyBob

 

I just did another RegSeeker check after restarting twice.

It found 928 keys related to the un-installed program.

Do you still wish to say regcleaning is not needed.

I had the same software in 98SE and it was not quite but almost as bad about loading up the reg.

Again. Just make sure you have the backups before cleaning.

BillyBob

 

Thanks for the replies.

PeteC: Aw man don't take the fun out of it. Living dangerous creates a certain thrill that, once exposed, needs to be sated.

WelshJim: Nope, don't know what I'm doing. But I am wanting to learn. But I am starting slow. I exported my registry to a text file and opened it in Wordpad. Looks a lot smaller in regedit. So far I found something I'm sure I can delete without harm, I think. When I first installed Windows I had a bunch of icons for CNN, Cnet, Disney, etc. that I deleted from the desktop and Windows. But they still show up in the registry. In a cache folder no less. When I delete these items and it messes up my computer I'm gonna quit. Not really. I'm cautious, and using lots of common sense - what I can find anyway. Appreciate the links. Haven't looked yet but will after posting this.

BillyBob a.k.a. TheDosMan: When it comes to the registry my backups are backed up. I've had trouble with the registry before and I know its importance. I'm pretty well educated with dos. Heck you taught me. I learned more from you than anywhere or anyone else. Thanks. When I delete a file RegCleaner only finds less than 10 keys to remove. I want your regcleaner. Also, I've never said that reg cleaning is not needed. At least I hope I didn't. If I did it was a slip of the fingers on the keyboard. It's important, thats why I want to learn how to manually clean, over a period of time, as well as using regcleaners.

Thanks again to you all.

-John

 

How does one get the experience if one does not try ?

That is what the backups are for.

One does not learn by doing nothing. I killed more than one OS while learning. And I learned more what NOT to do than anything else.

And isn't that what this BBS is all about. HELPING someone to get that experience and HOPEFULLY keep them out of trouble while doing it ?

And telling what we have learned from our experience ?

In Win98 as long as Scanregistry is working it is much SAFER and MORE reliable registry to mess with than any other version of Windows.

98 itself was not too bad either.

95 was rather dangerous. It did not make the same backups that 98 does.

BillyBob

 

I have! The gains are so small as to be unnoticeable; the risks, OTOH, are whopping!

 

Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Direct Draw\Compatibility
Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr
ent Version\MS Dos Emulation\AppCompat
Those two keys probably would not be looked at with any regcleaners.
Hkey_Current_Users\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr
ent Version\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU
Golf showed up at that Key as a Value because you did a Find for Golf in Windows Explorer.

 

While we are on the subject...we have been discussing this thread for some time.

My question is how does a squeaky clean registry manifest itself in daily usage? Does the PC start up faster? Run smoother? Stop freezing up? On the flip side, what would a registry bloated with defunct entries and full of debris do to the PC?

TIA.

 

Hi again.

BillyBob - I agree with you. The more I learn the more trial and error I use to learn more. Thats why I like this board. You guys really help a lot.

Brett - I can't completely agree with you here. Some registry cleaning is needed or the computer will become unusable over a period of time, albeit a long time.

Markp62 - I've never used Windows Explorer. Never took the time to. I did the search using Regedit's Find function. Don't know if it makes a difference or not....

MusicCollector - A fine tuned registry runs as well as a 320 bitrate mp3 sounds. A bloated registry runs as well as a 56 bitrate mp3.

Thanks guys,

-John

 

dopey

I agree. It is the only way to learn.

I agree with dopey

I also use regedit.

MusicCollector - A fine tuned registry runs as well as a 320 bitrate mp3 sounds. A bloated registry runs as well as a 56 bitrate mp3.

That sums it up nicely.

Thanks guys,

You are Welcome

BillyBob

 

There is one aspect of the registry which rarely shows itself but when it does it could be big trouble. Size.

"The amount of conventional memory that is required by Windows Registry Checker is determined by the size of your registry. "

That is a quote from MSKB 183887 which goes on to say that 580Mb or more of free conventional memory may be required.

Some while ago I had a compiled BASIC app which used the services of scanreg but was running very slowly ie instead of between 1 & 2 seconds to scan it was taking 10 seconds.

I wrote a small app to simply call scanreg and systematically reduced the amount of conventional memory it could use via the apps property sheet. It didn't take long before I saw a jump from 1 to 2 secs to 10 secs. Pushing it further saw an 'Out of Memory' message.

The problem was solved by implementing a third party app which embedded itself within my app and paged the whole app out to XMS memory, leaving only a 3Kb stub in conventional memory, on shelling out to DOS.

OK, so what. Well, one day a current registry failure will cause the system to systematically try to restore backups and, if none pass muster, will attempt a /fix. If the registrys considered require more conventional memory than is available then you'll be up the swannee without a paddle.

Size includes wasted space so a registry which was just about to be optimized via /opt, ie 500Kb or more of wasted space, may be too big but an optimized registry may just get through.

The moral here is to avoid large registrys, and by that I mean System.dat as it is processed separately to User.dat, and, if System.dat is large, optimize before the system chips in.

How big is large? I don't know and neither does Microsoft. My System.dat is currently 7.21Mb. It was larger and I did have problems on using /fix so I went on an uninstall blitz and all has been well since. It has crept up beyond the level I had a problem with so it may not just be size - it may also involve structure. Every now and I'll question what I have on board and throttle anything which has ceased to be used often.

This is a rare problem but there is a lot of Win98 machines out there and there may be a lot of time bombs just waiting to go off.

A lot of you have just checked the size of your System.dat and are now starting to sweat profusely. Sorry! Get uninstalling before its too late.

On a final note RegSeeker is one of, if not the most, enthusiastic cleaner I've seen. I cannot recommend it to anyone other than someone who really knows what they are doing. I've got three entries in my AppPaths key which it would love to kill but I won't let it. They are unconventional entries and I can understand why the cleaner wants rid. Two of these entries are by, wait for it, Microsoft!

 

musicollector:-

My question is how does a squeaky clean registry manifest itself in daily usage? Does the PC start up faster? Run smoother? Stop freezing up? On the flip side, what would a registry bloated with defunct entries and full of debris do to the PC?

I suppose it's possible that a exceptionally bloated registry conataining an exceptionally large number of orphaned entries accumulated over a good number of years could have a slight impact on performance, but, generally speaking, there's really nothing to be gained from cleaning the registry.

Consider that systems have not been slowed to a crawl by the amount of additional data which the transition from MB to GB HD's (and the resultant increase in data held on HD's) has caused to be loaded into registries.

Dopey:

Brett - I can't completely agree with you here. Some registry cleaning is needed or the computer will become unusable over a period of time, albeit a long time.

Cite?

 

Brett - Experience. As a beginner I downloaded everything that caught my eye. As the hard drive filled I had to uninstall what I didn't use. Thus resulted in more downloading and uninstalling. Scandisk and Defrag helped with the hard drive but my registry did bload enough to cause problems; long boot up and error messages mostly - such and such caused an illegal opperation is one I remember the most.

I do think that registry cleaning is somewhat over rated. It seems to be expected to clean the reg on a daily or weekly basis nowadays. I think a cleaning with a good reg cleaner every month or two will keep things running smoothly. Maybe more if you download and uninstall a lot. But everyone has his/her own preference towards that and I won't balk about it.

My interest in cleaning the registry manually is to get the stuff reg cleaners won't get such as the stuff that I didn't need when I first installed - MSN, CNET, Discovery Channel, etc. along with some games I don't have and MSChat, AOL, and ICQ. I deleted all these just this morning. I guess I'm just overly organized or something.

I'm not going to, nor do I want to, become a registry addict. I don't intend to live there, I just want to become somewhat familiar with it and understand it enough so if I do have to go there I'll know enough NOT to cause problems. I was surprised by how much I understood when I looked there, and wasn't surprised by how much I didn't.

-John

 

I myself do not make reg cleaning a dialy chore.

If I do not make any changes for a week or two I do not bother.

But if I do add, remove, or otherwise make changes I do run a reg cleaner. Such as yesterday when I un-installed PS20 and found so many dead reg entries. By the time a ran three reg cleaners I believe it was around 1000 no longer useful entries.

And I was getting error messages about something being missing. " related to Open with " mostly.

BillyBob

 

dopey

I've been an avid registry tinkerer for years and although I don't live there I do now take sandwiches and a flask of tea.

"I was surprised by how much I understood when I looked there, and wasn't surprised by how much I didn't. "

I could have written that when I first started out. After years of tinkering I could write it now.

"I'll know enough NOT to cause problems ". A very worthwhile pursuit. It's a bit of a climb but once there its a gentle rise thereafter. You have to watch out for the occasional pot hole though. Even now I occasionally utter "Oh dear, that is inconvenient" or words to that effect.

 

BillyBob - I wasn't refering to you personally. I've read several newsletters claiming the importance of reg cleaning. It seems that every time something comes out that should be important to users, most users tend to go overboard with it. I base this on the responses I've read from readers who read the same newsletters. The same thing happened when Ad Aware and Spybot came out. Seems everyone wanted to run these programs 2-3 times a day if not more. And I'm sure some still do.


Brett - The way the registry is structured it is very feasable that no reg cleaning is required and the computer will still run ok. I can't speak for others but as for myself I'm using the cleaning procedure to get more familiar with the registry. To be able to delete a key connected to a program that is no longer installed on the computer and to "see" that no harm is caused to the computer by doing so is seen as an accomplishment to learning more about the registry and takes away the fear that I've entered into the forbidden zone and will thus suffer concequences. Of course if I muck it up, I'll suffer, but I'll also learn more. As BillyBob stated earlier, "That's what backups are for." I'm not a computer person. But am trying to learn to be one.

When I first came to this board with a problem I read the posts and replies that were here and saw that I couldn't respond to even the simplist problem. I just didn't know. I can respond some now although my inexperience shows in my replies. But I'm learning more and this board has a lot to do with it.

Also, I didn't mean to suggest you were wrong by saying no registry cleaning was needed. Again my inexperience was showing. I have no statistics to compare cleaning vs no cleaning to have based a true opinion. You are the only one I've ever heard say that no reg cleaning was needed. Compared with hearing everyone else talk about the importance of reg cleaning I realize I responded poorly. I seem to have responded without thinking it through. Something I have to work on. If I ruffled your feathers I apoligize. It was not intended.

-John