View Single Post
  #17  
Old December 6th 17, 03:01 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Java Jive
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 391
Default Win7 Registry Size (Win 10)

On 05/12/2017 16:09, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

On 12/05/2017 9:33 AM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

IT now reads 618 MBs!!!!


Checked again, now back to 384 MBs.


As at least one other has advised, the registry is held natively in a
binary format, but choosing File, Export will export the selected key in
text format.

AFAICR, in XP-, you used to be able to read off, and if required limit,
the current registry size, in its native binary format, by
rt-click-ing My Computer, and choosing Properties, Advanced,
Performance, to take you into the Virtual Memory and Paging settings,
but that subsection controlling the Registry has disappeared from
Vista+. I don't know how you find out the true binary registry size in
in W7 other than, as others have suggested, adding up the sizes of the
component files.

In W7, The registry natively exports in UTF-16, which in simple terms is
two bytes per character, but some text editors may 'transparently'
convert this to, in decreasing order of probability, ANSI, UTF-8, or
ASCII/DOS all of which use only 1 byte per character. Further, they may
do this on loading the file when it is opened, or upon saving it when it
has been changed. Hence the apparent doubling of size could simply be
due to the program you used to open it, or whether you made any changes
to it, even an unintentional one such as inserting a blank line by
pressing Return.
Ads