Cleaning up your Windows Registry

Posted on October 15th, 2000 in Uncategorized by Jay

Background

The Windows registry is the place for the operating system to keep information it needs to function. It also where programs store their data. Basically the intent is to do away with some of the .ini files that were abundant with older versions of Windows.

Warning

Any time you make changes to the registry you’re risking rendering your system useless. That would be very rare but the chance still exists.

Solution

Before you make any changes to your registry you should always back up the registry. To do this click Start -> Run and type scanregw.exe in the text box. One way to clean up and repair the Windows registry is to run RegClean.exe, a handy utility available from Microsoft for free. You can find somtimes on the install CD or you can download it directly from Microsoft. Just run the program and it’ll pretty much do the rest. The only thing you’ll have to do is tell it to fix it. Another way to clean and repair the registry is with scanreg.exe, included with a standard Windows installation. You need to reboot to DOS and all you have to do is type scanreg /fix at the command prompt. This might take some time depending on your registry’s size and your computers speed. Using either or both of these steps will usually decrease your registry size. How much will depend on how much garbage there is to clean out of your registry.

Modified 2000-12-07

Changing Drive Letters in Windows 2000

Posted on October 12th, 2000 in Uncategorized by Jay

Background

In my experience, Windows 2000 occasionally sets up the drive letters out of order from what we normally expect. In other words they are not set up for example as C: - first partition of master, D: - first partition of slave, E: - second partition of master, F: - second partition of slave, G: - Zip Drive, H: - CD-ROM. The option for reserving drive letters for removable media is also missing from the Device Properties under System Properties where it is located in Windows 98. This can also be done with the following directions.

Warning

If you make changes described in this tip they should be made before installing any software. Some software sets paths in the system registry and changing the drive letters may cause some software to stop working.

If you’ve already installed software and still need to change the drive letters either uninstall and reinstall software that quits working or try a program that can fix the registry to point to the new letter such as DriveMapper which is included with PartitionMagic.

Solution

You must be logged into Windows 2000 as an administrator to do this. Open Administrative Tools from the Control Panel. From Administrative Tools double click Computer Management. Then click on Disk Management under Storage. You should now see a split window on the right. The top is a details style listing of drives and the bottom shows a graphical representation. From either pane right-click on the drive with the letter you’d like to change and choose Change Drive Letter and Path. Click on Edit and pick the new letter. If you need to swap two letters you may have to move one to an unused letter first, then change the second letter and go back to change the first drive letter. All that’s left is to reboot for the changes to take affect and you’re done.

Modified 2004-01-09