Usually when we say defrag, most of the time we think that it is hard drive defragmenter. Yesterday I found a freeware that claims to defrag Windows registry. The registry is a database used to store settings and options for the 32/64 bit versions of Microsoft Windows including Windows 95, 98, ME, NT,2000,2003,2008, XP and Vista. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, software, users, and preferences of the PC. Whenever a user makes changes to a Control Panel settings, or File Associations, System Policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry.
The question whether is it possible to defrag windows registry entries came to my mind when I learned about this program called RegDefrag which was released to public yesterday.
Quicksys RegDefrag is a new and free tool that claims to be able to defrag and optimize your registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files.
This tool analyzed my Windows registry and reported too many fragments. It also stated that it could reduce the size from 44496KB to 40340KB which is nearly 10% reduction. It took only a few seconds to compact my Windows registry. That’s all it does. Simple and easy.
However, I wasn’t really convinced that it is possible to defrag Windows registry. The official website only mentioned that “Quicksys RegDefrag optimizes your registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files.” The real meaning of defrag is reorganizing the contents to store the pieces of each file close together and contiguously. Removing gaps and wasted space in Windows registry is known as “compacting” and “optimizing”. In Windows XP, the registry files are located in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG folder. The files have no extensions and are named DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, and SYSTEM. I don’t think RegDefrag defrags the 5 files above. I guess RegDefrag’s function is the same as most of the registry optimizers.
Although RegDefrag is not something new, but it is still a very good, free, simple and easy to use registry optimizer program. My favorite free registry optimizer program is still NTREGOPT. What about yours?
[ Download Quicksys RegDefrag ]
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Great article, but i want to add something. In order to have a total control over your registry. In order to do that i usually use jv16 PowerTools 2009 from Macecraft, because it is the complete tool, in my point of view, for optimizing Microsoft Windows (registry cleaning, back-up files and settings, offer numerous system utilities). You, and all the visitors should use this in order to be happy with your Operating System that you are using.
utilice el Auslogics register defrag.
Analice el sistema y le di desfragmentar se interrumpi
What does defrag in realtime mean
The registry is a collections of files called hives.
Program like PageDefrag, and standard Windows defrag, defrags at the level of clusters, so the hive is contiguous file. This hive can still have deleted entries that take space.
Program like NTREGOPT will compact the registry that has entries that are marked deleted but still take the same space. After the program run the new hive will not have deleted entries, but can still be fragmented.
IMHO, regular users need to defrag maybe 2-3 times a year and no more. Optimizing the registry is not really needed for regular users.
The worst you can do is that some registry programs will optimize the registry in real-time, this is just a waiting for disaster to happen.
AusLogics Registry Defrag, TuneUp Utilities 2008, PerfectDisk
I found that using a commercial program such as Macecraft’s jv16 powertools, scans for and removes errors as well as compacting the registry. I downloaded and ran the Quicksys RegDefrag program, and it froze up for about 2 mins, and when it did come back it said that it had compacted the registry but the original size and the new compacted size were one in the same. It is quite possible that it did not compact it due to the fact it was already as small as it could be.
I just use Reg booster2 as far as i know it works fine .As far as I know that is. Thanks for the tip Raymond
i m using tuneup utilities 2008 its best for registery defragment.
I dont see any great benefit in optimising the registry (either cleaning or defraging).In some occasions I had problems too, like for example, the compatibility tab disappearing in the properties of an .exe file.
I use ccleaner and only manually remove entries of programms I \’ve uninstalled.
@Ossie: you dont have to create a system restore point each time you \’play\’ with the registry.A single registry backup, which in fact most registry optimizers do, would be enough.
I just *defraged* my registry Sunday using AusLogics free register defrag. Took less than two minutes, and at conclusion, produced a nice report (an html page) showing file by file the results.
I’m using Vista, so it worked on eleven (11) hives.
Also, their free system info program is far more complete than anything else I’ve used. even included a complete listing of all installed drivers on my machine.
I like CCleaner to clean my registry, but I’m really don’t sure if cleaning the registry is a good thing.
I wish to try how much performance is loss in a very dirty registry vs. a clean one. Less than 1% and probably all the reg cleaners are totally superfluous.
Resistry1aid and Tuneup utl are good sharewares
Wat do you reckon about Uniblue Registry Booster 2?
thnx man
What about ccleaner ? it analyzes the registry and fixes all errors. Also, sometimes I use Easy cleaner by tony arts. What do you think? Will defragging the registry have a significant impact on my performance ?
Does it matter ? Also tell me what is the best software (freely available) to do a defragging of windows ? I use xp and I have a new system (Dell) with 2 gigs of ram. I also have a Dual core processor. What do you think?
thanks
Vanamali.S
my fav is eusing free it works ok.
“I always fear that playing with registries with the program like these will either slow down my pc or will do something terrible to windows registries .”
I always make it a point to create a system restore point before using Registry tools. If something goes wrong, I can boot in safe mode and restore my computer. If I can’t boot to windows because of it, I know how to restore using MS-DOS
Thanks once again Raymond.
You said that you didn\’t know PageDefrag can defrag registry files, but in your post on NTREGOPT you wrote: \”Note that the program does NOT change the contents of the registry in any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive (as the PageDefrag program from SysInternals DOES).\”
Maybe a mistake.
Anyway thanks for these kinds of cool stuffs.
I have not tried program like these .I always fear that playing with registries with the program like these will either slow down my pc or will do something terrible to windows registries .
registry mechanic is good too…
Hmm.. I didn’t know PageDefrag can defrag registry files. I thought it can only defrag Page file. Thanks Kurbli.
My favorite registry compacting program also NTREGOPT. My registry defragmenter is PageDefrag from Microsoft (Sysinternals). These two programs together are my registry optimizer method.