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Win7 Registry Size



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 4th 17, 10:17 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ed Cryer
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Posts: 2,621
Default Win7 Registry Size

I recently noticed just how much left-over rubbish there is in my
system's registry. It's 6 years old, never cleanly reinstalled, never
treated with snake-oil.
I'm not aware of any problem with it; no slow-down detected.
I used regedit, exported it, checked file size and it's 273 MB.

How does this compare with other users? I'd like to know.

Ed
  #2  
Old December 4th 17, 10:26 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mike S[_4_]
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Posts: 496
Default Win7 Registry Size

On 12/4/2017 1:17 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I recently noticed just how much left-over rubbish there is in my
system's registry. It's 6 years old, never cleanly reinstalled, never
treated with snake-oil.
I'm not aware of any problem with it; no slow-down detected.
I used regedit, exported it, checked file size and it's 273 MB.

How does this compare with other users? I'd like to know.

Ed


I ran a powershell script and it reported 153 MB. w7 ult x64, been
running alittle over a year, Office, Photoshop, Visual Studio, several
browsers. I've cleaned it with ccleaner maybe half a dozen times.

$data=Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Registry -ErrorAction Stop
#Format the results and write an object to the pipeline
$data | Select-Object -Property
@{Name="Computername";Expression={$_.__SERVER}},
Status,
@{Name="Current Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.CurrentSize}},
@{Name="Max Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.MaximumSize}},
@{Name="Free Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.MaximumSize - $_.CurrentSize}},
@{Name="Percent Free (%)";Expression={ (1 -
($_.CurrentSize/$_.MaximumSize))*100 }},
@{Name="Created";Expression={$_.ConvertToDateTime( $_.InstallDate)}},
@{Name="Age";Expression={(Get-Date) - (
$_.ConvertToDateTime($_.InstallDate)) }}

https://superuser.com/questions/3742...ze-of-registry
  #3  
Old December 4th 17, 10:47 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ed Cryer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,621
Default Win7 Registry Size

Mike S wrote:
On 12/4/2017 1:17 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I recently noticed just how much left-over rubbish there is in my
system's registry. It's 6 years old, never cleanly reinstalled, never
treated with snake-oil.
I'm not aware of any problem with it; no slow-down detected.
I used regedit, exported it, checked file size and it's 273 MB.

How does this compare with other users? I'd like to know.

Ed


I ran a powershell script and it reported 153 MB. w7 ult x64, been
running alittle over a year, Office, Photoshop, Visual Studio, several
browsers. I've cleaned it with ccleaner maybe half a dozen times.

$data=Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Registry -ErrorAction Stop
#Format the results and write an object to the pipeline
$data | Select-Object -Property
@{Name="Computername";Expression={$_.__SERVER}},
Status,
@{Name="Current Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.CurrentSize}},
@{Name="Max Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.MaximumSize}},
@{Name="Free Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.MaximumSize - $_.CurrentSize}},
@{Name="Percent Free (%)";Expression={ (1 -
($_.CurrentSize/$_.MaximumSize))*100 }},
@{Name="Created";Expression={$_.ConvertToDateTime( $_.InstallDate)}},
@{Name="Age";Expression={(Get-Date) - (
$_.ConvertToDateTime($_.InstallDate)) }}

https://superuser.com/questions/3742...ze-of-registry


Interesting.
I ran Ccleaner, checked with regedit's export again, and got 270MB.

Then I ran your script and got this;
Current Size (Mb) : 200
Max Size (Mb) : 2048
Free Size (Mb) : 1848
Percent Free (%) : 90.234375
Created : 23/11/2011 15:05:46
Age : 2203.06:34:40.5049752

That's not much above your size after one year.
I wonder which method is giving the true size.

Ed

  #4  
Old December 5th 17, 12:46 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Win7 Registry Size

Ed Cryer wrote:
Mike S wrote:
On 12/4/2017 1:17 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I recently noticed just how much left-over rubbish there is in my
system's registry. It's 6 years old, never cleanly reinstalled, never
treated with snake-oil.
I'm not aware of any problem with it; no slow-down detected.
I used regedit, exported it, checked file size and it's 273 MB.

How does this compare with other users? I'd like to know.

Ed


I ran a powershell script and it reported 153 MB. w7 ult x64, been
running alittle over a year, Office, Photoshop, Visual Studio, several
browsers. I've cleaned it with ccleaner maybe half a dozen times.

$data=Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Registry -ErrorAction Stop
#Format the results and write an object to the pipeline
$data | Select-Object -Property
@{Name="Computername";Expression={$_.__SERVER}},
Status,
@{Name="Current Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.CurrentSize}},
@{Name="Max Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.MaximumSize}},
@{Name="Free Size (Mb)";Expression={$_.MaximumSize - $_.CurrentSize}},
@{Name="Percent Free (%)";Expression={ (1 -
($_.CurrentSize/$_.MaximumSize))*100 }},
@{Name="Created";Expression={$_.ConvertToDateTime( $_.InstallDate)}},
@{Name="Age";Expression={(Get-Date) - (
$_.ConvertToDateTime($_.InstallDate)) }}

https://superuser.com/questions/3742...ze-of-registry


Interesting.
I ran Ccleaner, checked with regedit's export again, and got 270MB.

Then I ran your script and got this;
Current Size (Mb) : 200
Max Size (Mb) : 2048
Free Size (Mb) : 1848
Percent Free (%) : 90.234375
Created : 23/11/2011 15:05:46
Age : 2203.06:34:40.5049752

That's not much above your size after one year.
I wonder which method is giving the true size.

Ed


They're just files in the file system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry

File Locations
--------------

...The location for system registry files in Windows NT
is %SystemRoot%\System32\Config;

the user-specific HKEY_CURRENT_USER user registry hive
is stored in Ntuser.dat inside the user profile.

Windows NT
----------

Sam – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM
Security – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY
Software – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE \___ largest files...
System – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM /
Default – HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT
(Userdiff – Not associated with a hive)

%USERPROFILE%\Ntuser.dat - HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Usrclass.dat - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes

The later OSes seem to have a few additional files
implying journaling. This is an attempt to make
it harder to damage the files (due to, say, a dirty
shutdown).

So if you don't need information to the nearest byte,
about the logical size of the registry, glancing at
the files themselves will give you some idea. In the
ones I was just looking at, there wasn't much there.
I guess I'm not adventurous enough, as I don't think
I've ever seen a registry set that was out of control.
Maybe a SOFTWARE file that was 25MB or so. Which is
nothing, compared to what other people have got.

*******

And another set of registry files is located in C:\WINDOWS\repair.
Those are "empty" files, and are only good enough for tipping
an OS upright again. They don't have all your settings, so
they're not intended for any long term usage. You use a restore
point, to replace those when the system finally boots.

Paul
  #5  
Old December 5th 17, 01:25 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ken Blake[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,221
Default Win7 Registry Size

On Mon, 4 Dec 2017 21:17:57 +0000, Ed Cryer
wrote:


I recently noticed just how much left-over rubbish there is in my
system's registry. It's 6 years old, never cleanly reinstalled, never
treated with snake-oil.
I'm not aware of any problem with it; no slow-down detected.
I used regedit, exported it, checked file size and it's 273 MB.

How does this compare with other users? I'd like to know.



Because access to the registry is random, that left-over rubbish
doesn't really hurt you.

Also note that in these days of a 1TB drive costing $50 US or so,
273MB is a tiny amount. It's a little more than a penny's worth of
disk space.
  #6  
Old December 5th 17, 01:45 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Win7 Registry Size

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
Also note that in these days of a 1TB drive costing $50 US or so,
273MB is a tiny amount. It's a little more than a penny's worth of
disk space.


But 5 or 10 per cent of the available RAM on smaller systems, so (since
the registry is normally held in RAM), can be relevant in that respect.
(Though there's little you can _do_ about it - certainly a pass with a
"registry cleaner" won't make much difference to the size, and what it
does delete will often come back rapidly, consisting as it does largely
of MRU entries.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Life, liberty and the happiness of pursuit!
  #7  
Old December 5th 17, 02:32 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Win7 Registry Size

On 12/04/2017 6:45 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
Also note that in these days of a 1TB drive costing $50 US or so,
273MB is a tiny amount. It's a little more than a penny's worth of
disk space.


But 5 or 10 per cent of the available RAM on smaller systems, so (since
the registry is normally held in RAM), can be relevant in that respect.
(Though there's little you can _do_ about it - certainly a pass with a
"registry cleaner" won't make much difference to the size, and what it
does delete will often come back rapidly, consisting as it does largely
of MRU entries.)


Well you fellows got my curiosity up about registry cleaners.
I have never used one, So having a 1 day old Macrium backup I decided to
have a look.

I exported the registry to a blank folder and checked it's size it was
377 MB.
Ran Ccleaner registry cleaner and it took 4 passes before it reported no
errors'
Exported it again and found the new clean size to be(drum roll) 383 MB!
So much for snake oil registry cleaners for me, It proved my point
beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Case Closed.

Rene

  #8  
Old December 5th 17, 02:04 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ed Cryer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,621
Default Win7 Registry Size

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 12/04/2017 6:45 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
Also note that in these days of a 1TB drive costing $50 US or so,
273MB is a tiny amount. It's a little more than a penny's worth of
disk space.


But 5 or 10 per cent of the available RAM on smaller systems, so
(since the registry is normally held in RAM), can be relevant in that
respect. (Though there's little you can _do_ about it - certainly a
pass with a "registry cleaner" won't make much difference to the size,
and what it does delete will often come back rapidly, consisting as it
does largely of MRU entries.)


Well you fellows got my curiosity up about registry cleaners.
I have never used one, So having a 1 day old Macrium backup I decided to
have a look.

I exported the registry to a blank folder and checked it's size it was
377 MB.
Ran Ccleaner registry cleaner and it took 4 passes before it reported no
errors'
Exported it again and found the new clean size to be(drum roll) 383 MB!
So much for snake oil registry cleaners for me, It proved my point
beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Case Closed.

Rene


Maybe Ccleaner has done you a favour. I've never seen it do multiple
passes, and I'd guess it was repairing something that might have been
about to crash your system. 6MB added to shore up a shaky wall.

Ed
  #9  
Old December 5th 17, 03:39 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Win7 Registry Size

On 12/05/2017 7:04 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 12/04/2017 6:45 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
Also note that in these days of a 1TB drive costing $50 US or so,
273MB is a tiny amount. It's a little more than a penny's worth of
disk space.

But 5 or 10 per cent of the available RAM on smaller systems, so
(since the registry is normally held in RAM), can be relevant in that
respect. (Though there's little you can _do_ about it - certainly a
pass with a "registry cleaner" won't make much difference to the
size, and what it does delete will often come back rapidly,
consisting as it does largely of MRU entries.)


Well you fellows got my curiosity up about registry cleaners.
I have never used one, So having a 1 day old Macrium backup I decided
to have a look.

I exported the registry to a blank folder and checked it's size it was
377 MB.
Ran Ccleaner registry cleaner and it took 4 passes before it reported
no errors'
Exported it again and found the new clean size to be(drum roll) 383 MB!
So much for snake oil registry cleaners for me, It proved my point
beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Case Closed.

Rene


Maybe Ccleaner has done you a favour. I've never seen it do multiple
passes, and I'd guess it was repairing something that might have been
about to crash your system. 6MB added to shore up a shaky wall.

Ed


I dunno Ed, I have never used a registry cleaner and this was just an
experiment to see what happened but I always assumed they were supposed
to remove overburden.
This system has always been quick and smart and using this registry
cleaner doesn't seemed to have hurt or helped it any, I'm just very
surprised that it added instead of subtracting.

Rene

  #10  
Old December 5th 17, 04:11 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Win7 Registry Size

"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| I exported the registry to a blank folder and checked it's size it was
| 377 MB.

As Paul said, the Registry is files. If you export
to .reg files you're creating a text-based record
that can be used to import that data again. It
won't be the same size because it's a text file
and the Registry is a database. In other words,
what you export is comparable to a CSV file.

Also, Registry cleaners usually focus on a few
things. Most notably entries under HKCR for COM
libraries that may be gone. There may also be entries
for uninstalled software. But those entries are a
tiny portion of the total Registry. They're harmless.
And in some cases they may be useful: If you decide
to reinstall a program later you might be glad your
settings are still there.

Sysinternals used to have a program to defrag
the Registry. I don't know if it still exists or whether
such a task would still be useful, but it seems a
defrag would make more sense than just removing
a handful of entries.



  #11  
Old December 5th 17, 04:33 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Win7 Registry Size (Win 10)

On 12/05/2017 9:11 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| I exported the registry to a blank folder and checked it's size it was
| 377 MB.

As Paul said, the Registry is files. If you export
to .reg files you're creating a text-based record
that can be used to import that data again. It
won't be the same size because it's a text file
and the Registry is a database. In other words,
what you export is comparable to a CSV file.

Also, Registry cleaners usually focus on a few
things. Most notably entries under HKCR for COM
libraries that may be gone. There may also be entries
for uninstalled software. But those entries are a
tiny portion of the total Registry. They're harmless.
And in some cases they may be useful: If you decide
to reinstall a program later you might be glad your
settings are still there.

Sysinternals used to have a program to defrag
the Registry. I don't know if it still exists or whether
such a task would still be useful, but it seems a
defrag would make more sense than just removing
a handful of entries.




Yikes! after reading Pauls post just for laughs after reading a few
posts in the NGs and playing an hour or so of a Half-Life 2 mod I
decided to see if the registry had changed so I exported it and checked
its size.

IT now reads 618 MBs!!!!

This gets weirder all the time, I will check it later again today and
report, this seems impossible.

Rene
  #12  
Old December 16th 17, 06:34 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Diesel
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 937
Default Win7 Registry Size

"Mayayana"
news alt.windows7.general, wrote:

"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| I exported the registry to a blank folder and checked it's size
| it was 377 MB.

As Paul said, the Registry is files. If you export
to .reg files you're creating a text-based record
that can be used to import that data again. It
won't be the same size because it's a text file
and the Registry is a database. In other words,
what you export is comparable to a CSV file.

Also, Registry cleaners usually focus on a few
things. Most notably entries under HKCR for COM
libraries that may be gone. There may also be entries
for uninstalled software. But those entries are a
tiny portion of the total Registry. They're harmless.
And in some cases they may be useful: If you decide
to reinstall a program later you might be glad your
settings are still there.

Sysinternals used to have a program to defrag
the Registry. I don't know if it still exists or whether
such a task would still be useful, but it seems a
defrag would make more sense than just removing
a handful of entries.





ERUNT includes NTREGOPT...doesn't 'defrag' the registry, but does
compact it. Removes old entries marked for deletion, essentially.


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