Automatically Backup and Compress your Windows 98 Registry

Automatically Backup and Compress your Windows 98 Registry

A little known fact, Windows 98 compresses the system registry automatically when it has more than 500k of “wasted space” in it. If you want to compress your registry manually, boot to an MS-DOS prompt (you must not be in Windows when you do this). To compress and optimize your registry, which is always a good thing to do anyway, type: “SCANREG /OPT” (without the quotes). Now, to backup the registry from the command prompt, type: “SCANREG /BACKUP” (without the quotes).

If you perform both operations, you will have compressed the registry as well as having backed it up. Okay, now I guess you’re looking for something else right? Okay, try this.

Remember that Autoexec.bat file you don’t need anymore, well now you have a new use for it. First, create a new folder on your hard drive, and name it regback. Now create a small batch file and call that batch file from the Autoexec.bat.

First, create a batch file named REG.BAT, and insert these lines: (This presumes that your hard drive is “C” and that you have created a new folder named regback).

COPY C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\*.CAB C:\REGBACK C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANREG /OPT

C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANREG /BACKUP

Now save the batch file and call it from your Autoexec.bat file. Each time your system starts, your registry will be optimized and backed up and previous copies saved to the Regback folder. Every now and then clean out the Regback folder to save disk space, but remember, you will always have several registry backups to use in the event you need them to recover your system.