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#1
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
Has anyone ever tried putting the windows system registry files (other than
per-user) on a separate partition? I notice on bootup from bootvis, a great deal of accesses to the sys registry, (permanent & log). If these were on a separate partition near the beginning of the disk, it seems this would speed access and reduce registry fragmentation? Seems like it would make sense to put something that is commonly written to on a separate partition from normal "system" files that are less freqently updated... ?? Would it be a matter of getting registry entries to point to new copies on new partitions and rebooting, much as registry-"defrag" utils attempt to do now? thanks, -linda -- Email: to send me email, then my address would be like 'earthlink' was 'tlinx' and 'net' was 'org' |
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#2
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
No one's tried it because it's a silly idea. In the first place, the
registry cannot be broken into parts. In the second place, bootvis was withdrawn long ago because Microsoft realized it was being misused by people like yourself who don't understand its purpose or correct use. (Last I heard it was available to system developers - the intended audience - by special request.) In the third place, breaking up Windows into separate partitions on the same hard disk makes the computer slower, not faster. And the truth is, even when the swap file is placed on a second physical hard disk (an idea supported by Microsoft), the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement in performance. -- Ted Zieglar "You can do it if you try." "Ms. Linda A.W." wrote in message ... Has anyone ever tried putting the windows system registry files (other than per-user) on a separate partition? I notice on bootup from bootvis, a great deal of accesses to the sys registry, (permanent & log). If these were on a separate partition near the beginning of the disk, it seems this would speed access and reduce registry fragmentation? Seems like it would make sense to put something that is commonly written to on a separate partition from normal "system" files that are less freqently updated... ?? Would it be a matter of getting registry entries to point to new copies on new partitions and rebooting, much as registry-"defrag" utils attempt to do now? thanks, -linda -- Email: to send me email, then my address would be like 'earthlink' was 'tlinx' and 'net' was 'org' |
#3
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
Ted Zieglar wrote:
No one's tried it because it's a silly idea. In the first place, the registry cannot be broken into parts. In the second place, bootvis was withdrawn long ago because Microsoft realized it was being misused by people like yourself who don't understand its purpose or correct use. (Last I heard it was available to system developers - the intended audience - by special request.) In the third place, breaking up Windows into separate partitions on the same hard disk makes the computer slower, not faster. And the truth is, even when the swap file is placed on a second physical hard disk (an idea supported by Microsoft), the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement in performance. --- I often come up with silly ideas. That doesn't mean they don't work. :-) I understand how bootvis works. The reason MS withdrew it, is that it broke with the arrival of P4 hyperthreading. MS didn't want to spend time to fix the _unsupported_ tool (which still worked fine w/hyperthreading turned off or on non-hyperthreaded machines). The reason of keeping it out of the hands of people who didn't understand what the limitations were was put on the website later. MS didn't want to field questions about why it didn't support hyperthreading (as it was an unsupported tool in the first place), thus, making it available to developers-only - for whom it was still useful if they ran it in non-HPT mode. But then I'm sure you knew that. :-) The registry is already broken into the parts I need. They are stored in "Hives" (files) on disk. They are composed of a "fixed" (extensible) store (the permanent registry), and a real-time journal to maintain registry integrity and allow for recovery in case of system failure. The non-user files are kept in "windir\system32\config" and have names corresponding to Registry Keynames under HK_LOCAL_MACHINE: SOFTWARE (&Software.log), SAM (&SAM.log), SECURITY (&Security.log) SYSTEM (&System.log) The user specific files are kept under a user's directory "userdir\user" in a file "NTUSER.dat" (and journal NTUSER.LOG). Disk read speed at the beginning of a disk is about 2x the speed of sectors near the end of the disk. It seems having a fixed space for swap and the system registry at the beginning of the disk would allow the fastest linear reading of this area. While this may be of questionable value in swap, the sytem registry has to be read off disk at boot. Having it stored at the beginning of disk should allow for faster bootup, however, without actually trying it, I don't know the amount of savings. I was just wondering if anyone had tried it, had any pointers, had noticed any difference. Having "kindly" people tell me "it's not worth it" when they have no evidence to back it up isn't especially helpful. Their opinion on registry performance is even further suspect when they don't even understand how the registry maps to files on disk or that system registry entries map to files under the windir directory and user-reg entries map to locations determined by the user-profile dir. Thank-you for your "kind", "experienced" and "knowledgable" advice. *sigh* Linda (not trying to be prickly, but not liking thorns either) -- Email: to send me email, then my address would be like 'earthlink' was 'tlinx' and 'net' was 'org' |
#4
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
Obviously you must have a dev machine to play with so here are the pointers.
Let us know what happens if you try it. HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\hivelist -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Ms. Linda A.W." wrote: | Has anyone ever tried putting the windows system registry files (other than | per-user) on a separate partition? I notice on bootup from bootvis, a great | deal of accesses to the sys registry, (permanent & log). If these were on a | separate partition near the beginning of the disk, it seems this would | speed access and reduce registry fragmentation? Seems like it would make | sense to put something that is commonly written to on a separate partition | from normal "system" files that are less freqently updated... ?? | | Would it be a matter of getting registry entries to point to new copies | on new partitions and rebooting, much as registry-"defrag" utils attempt to | do now? | | thanks, | -linda | | -- | Email: to send me email, then my address would be like | 'earthlink' was 'tlinx' and 'net' was 'org' |
#5
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
"Ms. Linda A.W." wrote in message ... Ted Zieglar wrote: No one's tried it because it's a silly idea. In the first place, the registry cannot be broken into parts. In the second place, bootvis was withdrawn long ago because Microsoft realized it was being misused by people like yourself who don't understand its purpose or correct use. (Last I heard it was available to system developers - the intended audience - by special request.) In the third place, breaking up Windows into separate partitions on the same hard disk makes the computer slower, not faster. And the truth is, even when the swap file is placed on a second physical hard disk (an idea supported by Microsoft), the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement in performance. --- I often come up with silly ideas. That doesn't mean they don't work. :-) I understand how bootvis works. The reason MS withdrew it, is that it broke with the arrival of P4 hyperthreading. MS didn't want to spend time to fix the _unsupported_ tool (which still worked fine w/hyperthreading turned off or on non-hyperthreaded machines). The reason of keeping it out of the hands of people who didn't understand what the limitations were was put on the website later. MS didn't want to field questions about why it didn't support hyperthreading (as it was an unsupported tool in the first place), thus, making it available to developers-only - for whom it was still useful if they ran it in non-HPT mode. But then I'm sure you knew that. :-) The registry is already broken into the parts I need. They are stored in "Hives" (files) on disk. They are composed of a "fixed" (extensible) store (the permanent registry), and a real-time journal to maintain registry integrity and allow for recovery in case of system failure. The non-user files are kept in "windir\system32\config" and have names corresponding to Registry Keynames under HK_LOCAL_MACHINE: SOFTWARE (&Software.log), SAM (&SAM.log), SECURITY (&Security.log) SYSTEM (&System.log) The user specific files are kept under a user's directory "userdir\user" in a file "NTUSER.dat" (and journal NTUSER.LOG). Disk read speed at the beginning of a disk is about 2x the speed of sectors near the end of the disk. It seems having a fixed space for swap and the system registry at the beginning of the disk would allow the fastest linear reading of this area. While this may be of questionable value in swap, the sytem registry has to be read off disk at boot. Having it stored at the beginning of disk should allow for faster bootup, however, without actually trying it, I don't know the amount of savings. I was just wondering if anyone had tried it, had any pointers, had noticed any difference. Having "kindly" people tell me "it's not worth it" when they have no evidence to back it up isn't especially helpful. Their opinion on registry performance is even further suspect when they don't even understand how the registry maps to files on disk or that system registry entries map to files under the windir directory and user-reg entries map to locations determined by the user-profile dir. Thank-you for your "kind", "experienced" and "knowledgable" advice. *sigh* Linda (not trying to be prickly, but not liking thorns either) -- Email: to send me email, then my address would be like 'earthlink' was 'tlinx' and 'net' was 'org' Touché! Game, set, and match! The problem, as I see it frequently, is that women are just not supposed to be technologists. The women who are MVPs in these newsgroups are constantly derided and diminished by the know it alls who obviously are threatened when a woman enters the fray. Anyway, you might change your nom to something gender neutral to keep the pests at bay since your questions and comments have obvious merit. Q |
#6
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
Ted Zieglar wrote:
snipped .. And the truth is, even when the swap file is placed on a second physical hard disk (an idea supported by Microsoft), the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement in performance. Wahh! Not so Ted, not so. I've just recently created 3 page files on a 4 platter set up. I won't go into the details but a single page file was returning over 55 MB and now I get increased performance with 3 page files reporting upto (so far today alone) usage of 38 MB per page file as determined by (Bill's?) XP Page File Monitor Empirical observation suggests the present set up of 3 page files is the nest config I've tried so far |
#7
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
"Ted Zieglar" wrote in message
... No one's tried it because it's a silly idea. In the first place, the registry cannot be broken into parts. In the second place, bootvis was withdrawn long ago because Microsoft realized it was being misused by people like yourself who don't understand its purpose or correct use. (Last I heard it was available to system developers - the intended audience - by special request.) In the third place, breaking up Windows into separate partitions on the same hard disk makes the computer slower, not faster. And the truth is, even when the swap file is placed on a second physical hard disk (an idea supported by Microsoft), the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement in performance. -- Ted Zieglar "You can do it if you try." "Ms. Linda A.W." wrote in message ... Has anyone ever tried putting the windows system registry files (other than per-user) on a separate partition? I notice on bootup from bootvis, a great deal of accesses to the sys registry, (permanent & log). If these were on a separate partition near the beginning of the disk, it seems this would speed access and reduce registry fragmentation? Seems like it would make sense to put something that is commonly written to on a separate partition from normal "system" files that are less freqently updated... ?? Would it be a matter of getting registry entries to point to new copies on new partitions and rebooting, much as registry-"defrag" utils attempt to do now? thanks, -linda -- Email: to send me email, then my address would be like 'earthlink' was 'tlinx' and 'net' was 'org' Placing the swapfile on separate hard drive on the first and singular exclusive partition for the swapfile, with other than the onboard ide bus is best. Performance changes are minimal. In fact mine is perhaps a few percent slower as the swapfile is on an ultrascsi hard drive on this particular PC. The purpose of a different bus allows access to both the system partition and the swapfile partition at the same time. The purpose of a separate hard drive is to minimize fragmentation of both the swapfile and the system partition. The purpose of a singular and first partition on a separate hard drive is maximum spin speed (hard drives access outside to inside the platter) and faster access. The overall benefit is not performance, but solidity. This works on XP, 2K, ME, 98/98SE, and 95/95A/OSR2. Use of this has shown reboot automatic recovery from blue screen messages requiring manual shutdown, and power loss from the utility company on many of the OSes I've suggested. This compared with a default swapfile location. Not suggesting that I know why, but I do know what I observe. -- Jonny |
#8
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
"Wahh! Not so Ted, not so."
I did say "the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement". I wouldn't consider your setup as the vast majority. Glad it works for you. -- Ted Zieglar "You can do it if you try." "deebs" wrote in message ... Ted Zieglar wrote: snipped . And the truth is, even when the swap file is placed on a second physical hard disk (an idea supported by Microsoft), the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement in performance. Wahh! Not so Ted, not so. I've just recently created 3 page files on a 4 platter set up. I won't go into the details but a single page file was returning over 55 MB and now I get increased performance with 3 page files reporting upto (so far today alone) usage of 38 MB per page file as determined by (Bill's?) XP Page File Monitor Empirical observation suggests the present set up of 3 page files is the nest config I've tried so far |
#9
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keeping system registry files on separate partition...?
Ted Zieglar wrote:
"Wahh! Not so Ted, not so." I did say "the vast majority of users will see no measurable improvement". I wouldn't consider your setup as the vast majority. Glad it works for you. Extremely groovy |
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