# if you reset to fix the registry one more time....

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-reset-to-fix-the-registry-one-more-time/163381>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 22, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-reset-to-fix-the-registry-one-more-time/163381 "2003-03-22T16:21:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ICP9991](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@ICP9991](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ICP9991)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-reset-to-fix-the-registry-one-more-time/163381/1 "2003-03-22T16:21:55Z")

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When i boot up my computer and the desktop appears (win98 SE) an error comes up saying there’s something wrong with the registry and i need to restart while it fixes it, it does this almost every time i start up the computer and things like recent documents goes back to how it was a week ago - why?! and how do i fix it??

thanks.

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**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-reset-to-fix-the-registry-one-more-time/163381/2 "2003-03-22T16:55:30Z")

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Check out [Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 193903](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;193903)

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**Author:** ![Davebear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Davebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Davebear)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-reset-to-fix-the-registry-one-more-time/163381/3 "2003-03-22T17:02:50Z")

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Some possible causes;  
[ul]

- A virus or other unfriendly program. Run a full virus scan, if you haven’t, already. You might also try one of the programs, like AdAware, that looks for spyware.

- Your registry has reached it’s maximum size limit. IIRC, in Win98, the default max is 64K. This can be changed, but I don’t have a 98 machine to look at to find the setting. Googling should find the info.

- The fact that the problem recurs makes it sound like a virus or other unfriendly, possibly in combination with the max limit, but you would probably benefit from cleaning out your registry. A lot of programs do a pretty poor job of cleaning up after themselves.

There are commercial programs designed to clean up the registry, but Microsoft has a utility called RegClean4.1 that does a pretty good job. It used to be readily available as a free download from their site. If it’s not, Googling will probably find it, as well.

One caveat on any registry cleaners; if your registry is badly corrupted/damaged, they may cause some programs to stop working. You’ll simply need to reinstall them.

( **WARNING:** Do **not** run RegClean on machines running Win2K or newer operating systems! It was designed for older OS’s and may cause problems on newer OS’s. It’s perfectly safe for Win98, though.)  
[/ul]

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**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-reset-to-fix-the-registry-one-more-time/163381/4 "2003-03-22T18:33:26Z")

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I prefer RegSeeker myself. Note that almost all of these Registry cleaning apps create backups by default too.