Thread: Windows registry helplessly bloats over time?

I am sure I have a friend who runs some kind of registry cleaner at start-up (I thought that was fairly common); just don't ask me what it is.

Sort of a silly system I guess.

Originally Posted by Yarin

This sounds a little crazy to me, can you verify it?

Deleting something from a db may cause disk flailing concerns, but a database that grows endlessly will become slower and slower to search thru.

I have heard about exactly this problem (performance droops over time involving the registry) from both lay people and another programmer, so they must have gotten it from somewhere.

I have also heard it from someone who has been selling and installing PC systems for a living since the 70's, vis, that this is something he routinely recommends (cleaning the registry) and that the performance improvement tends to amaze people who have never done it on a computer they've been using for years.

Of course I personally don't use windows, so I cannot be positive, but I have a lot of respect for the opinion of the aforementioned sources. I imagine the most significant factor is one mentioned by bubba. Hopefully

Originally Posted by Yarin

I knew the data stays there even after it's deleted. But with the registry, does the old space ever get re-used?

Certainly it does.

However with constant key deletions and additions, the registry may become fragmented. So on today systems registry bloat is only a problem if there's a lot of keys that should have been deleted and are not. Usually because uninstalers are mostly crappy pieces of software and programmers don't worry much about the uninstallation feature of their programs. But instead with the installation which needs to have some cool picture, attract the eye, be easy to use and all that mindless uselessness.

Fragmentation on the other hand is a direct consequence of data being deleted and added to the registry on a constant basis. Both registry file fragmentation and internal data fragmentation (because the registry is essentially an indexed database).

Fragmentation is irritatingly misunderstood even by so-called registry boosters. Take a look at this advertising text and scroll down until you come to a header titled Fragmentation Windows Registry: Lilutilies. Read what it says. Now read this: Registry Hive Fragmentation Leads to Excessive Size. Can you really trust an application that proposes to defragment your registry when its developers clearly cannot even seem to understand how it happens because they use information from an old Microsoft KB article for an old operating system that even got a patch that already fixed the problem? Don't answer.

Anyways, apart from registry cleaners that may be useful to clean up your registry from old and unnecessary entries (especially if they point to network resources), fragmentation can happen. And fragmentation does increase the size of your registry and unchecked fragmentation will keep doing it indefinitely. So your friend is half-right. He's wrong however on why the registry size increases in such a way.

The best tools on the business, that work up to Windows 7, are:

Internal Defragmentation. NTREGOPT

Physical Defragmentation: PageDefrag

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Usually because uninstalers are mostly crappy pieces of software and programmers don't worry much about the uninstallation feature of their programs. But instead with the installation which needs to have some cool picture, attract the eye, be easy to use and all that mindless uselessness.

Say it isn't so Mario!

Take a look at this advertising text and scroll down until you come to a header titled Fragmentation Windows Registry: Lilutilies. Read what it says. Now read this: Registry Hive Fragmentation Leads to Excessive Size. Can you really trust an application that proposes to defragment your registry when its developers clearly cannot even seem to understand how it happens because they use information from an old Microsoft KB article for an old operating system that even got a patch that already fixed the problem? Don't answer.

Wow, I would hate to have to observe here that this closed source, capitalist model almost seems to discourage computer literacy, because, in the words of an old rock band "it's better for us if you don't understand".

Your posts are becoming increasingly hard to decipher. Either you have a point and describe it in a meaningful way, avoiding irony altogether or making it secondary, or you don't really have a point and you refrain from polluting conversations that people are trying to have.

Reading some of your posts is akin to having two or more people trying to have a conversation and all of a sudden someone else steps in. Could be ok, but this person purpose in life is to listen on the sidelines and think they are smart if their only contribution is making some inside joke only they understand.

I'm this close to put you on Ignore mode. Just so you know.
You are trying to be too smart for your own good. Tone it down.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Your posts are becoming increasingly hard to decipher [...] I'm this close to put you on Ignore mode. Just so you know. You are trying to be too smart for your own good. Tone it down.

I take that to mean you've really got your head in the mud over that one, because it is as clear as spring water.

I also don't know why you would respond to my post(s) as if they were personal attacks directed at you. Please do ignore them, if the other alternative is a HISSY FIT :P

Originally Posted by MK27

I take that to mean you've really got your head in the mud over that one, because it is as clear as spring water

I'll put it in a way you can understand,

grab your off-topic political ideologies, your open source religious elistism and your inside jokes linking to music videos, make a nice laced package and stick it up yours.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

I'll put it in a way you can understand,

You're a hypocrit. Again, I don't know why you find this upsetting. I made an intelligent observation. I'm sorry it conflicts with your world-view.