Registry Compressor problem

[Willy2]

Ran Registry Compressor (RC) and the program doesn't work as promised. When I ran the program then RC tells me that the hive "components" can be reduced in size from ~ 35 MB down to ~ 28 MB. So, I put RC to work and I rebooted my laptop. But when I rerun RC then it tells me (again) that the hive "components" can be reduced from ~ 35 MB down to ~ 28 MB. In other words, RC failed to compress the registry.

[Shane]

I will double check the components hive. It is a hive that isnt loaded all the time and only gets loaded when you do certain things like Windows updates. So my program loads the hive and then does the saving of it to a new file. Then it uses an API in Windows to tell Windows what new hive files to use. Looks like it is having trouble with the components ones, it works on my system but there might be something else going on in yours.

I will take a look at the code and see what i can find

Shane

[Willy2]

Ah, that would explain some other odd behaviour. I was "fiddling around" with REGEDIT and somehow I landed on a registry key with a VERY similar name(-structure) as one or more of the sub-folder(s) in the horrible "Winsxs" folder. (FYI:  try to find file(-name) "Winethc.dll" in the registry). It suggests "components" does contain info pointing to the "Winsxs" folders. But then, it seems, somehow "components" got unloaded and after that I wasn't able to find that reg key any more.

It would suggest that "Components" is loaded during "Windows Update" (WU) and then info is added regarding "Winsxs". Seems VERY logical. After all, WU "messes" with "Winsxs" !!! It would also explain why the total size of the files "produced" by Registry Backup (RB) keeps growing. At some point in the past total size was ~ 140 MB but now they've grown to over ~ 160 MB (thanks to trustworthy "ExplorerXP"). RB makes a backup once a day and I keep the backups for 30 days.

[Shane]

I changed my reg backup to only keep 7 days worth. Normally you will only use the last backup you used and with the amount of Windows updates and other things going back to a reg backup older than a week would be dangerous. So I found 7 days is a good spot to keep

As for the components reg hive I never gave it more than a thought, but I think your right, that is where the winsxs folder data is kept, when I have the time I think I will load the hive up and look through it to see what it holds, maybe a winsxs repair could be made

Shane

[Willy2]

Some random thoughts:
- Is it supposed to make a difference which compression method (Normal, Better, Best) is chosen for the compression of "components"? After all the hive "components" is not available in XP.
- Is this (again) a language related problem ? Do other non english (swedish, french, ...... ) Windows users of this program have the same problem ? (I have a dutch Win 7 system)
- I find it odd that the method "Windows 2000" takes the most time. For me it would make more sense when the oldest method ("Windows 2000") would take the least time.

[Shane]

The 3 formats are here.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724919%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

REG_STANDARD_FORMAT
The key or hive is saved in standard format. The standard format is the only format supported by Windows 2000.

REG_LATEST_FORMAT
The key or hive is saved in the latest format. The latest format is supported starting with Windows XP. After the key or hive is saved in this format, it cannot be loaded on an earlier system.

REG_NO_COMPRESSION
The hive is saved with no compression, for faster save operations. The hKey parameter must specify the root of a hive under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_USERS. For example, HKLM\SOFTWARE is the root of a hive.

Shane