Error Message: System has reached the maximum size allowed for the

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Guest

The following error message has started popping up on my new PC that has
Windows XP home edition:

“System has reached the maximum size allowed for the system part of the
registry. Additional storage requests will be ignored.â€

My system is a month old and has very little additional software installed.
I don't understand how the registry could be full. Also, if I click ok, I can
continue working and the system seems to operate fine. I am guessing that
this error is being misreported. Has anyone else experienced this error or
know how to troubleshoot it? Any help would be great! Thanks, Rob
 
Rob said:
The following error message has started popping up on my new PC that has
Windows XP home edition:

“System has reached the maximum size allowed for the system part of the
registry. Additional storage requests will be ignored.”

My system is a month old and has very little additional software installed.
I don't understand how the registry could be full. Also, if I click ok, I can
continue working and the system seems to operate fine. I am guessing that
this error is being misreported. Has anyone else experienced this error or
know how to troubleshoot it? Any help would be great! Thanks, Rob
Click to expand...

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\Config

Make sure that it is set to show hidden and system files and that it
is not set to hide the file extensions for known types (Tools - Folder
Options - View). Then select the Details view and check the size of
the file named System. Report that back here.

On my computer at present the System file is just over 7 megabytes and
I never get any warning messages about this size.

I did find one MSDN article that says this error message is named
ERROR_REGISTRY_QUOTA_LIMIT but there was no further explanation as to
what caused it or how to fix it.

It may require a Registry Cleaner program to fix the situation if your
file is excessively large, or it may be that there is something else
involved and the error message is erroneous.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
Ron said:
On my computer at present the System file is just over 7 megabytes and
I never get any warning messages about this size.
Click to expand...

Just to add, mine is 8.5MB and I have not seen this either. My
suspicion is that something may have 'run away' and generated a key
within it that is excessive in size (maybe merely of its name). And my
suggestion would be to use System Restore and go back to a restore point
of a few days ago, before the trouble arose. Note that this will imply
reinstalling any software made since the restore point.. Find it at
Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Restore
 
I think you nailed it. My System file 114,688KB. Any advice on cleaning the
registry?

Thanks!
Rob
 
Rob said:
I think you nailed it. My System file 114,688KB. Any advice on cleaning the
registry?

Thanks!
Rob
Click to expand...

Wow. Something must have "run wild" with regsitry entries.

Did you install any new software recently? You might want to try
uninstalling that. Also Alex Nichol's suggestion about using System
Restore would be worth a try.

There are registry cleaner programs available but I would be a bit
apprehensive about using one with this sort of registry bloat. The
number of entries that would have to be removed in order to reduce the
System file size by 90% would be rather large.

I have used RegSeeker many times to clean up registries and it has
never caused a problem for me. If you are going to use it then ensure
that you create a manual System Restore point before running it.

RegSeeker is free and you can get it from
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/regseeker.html

If you do try to use it I would be very interested in hearing the
results.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
WinXP is not supposed to have an upper limit within the registry.

Therefore this error message is symptomatic of another fault, either corruption or a memory fault, and compressing the registry is likely to have no effect.

If you can get the Admin account to load, then delete and recreate the virtual memory/paging file.

If you can't get the Admin A/C to load, then look at your RAM - check the modules are seated correctly, and if possible remove all except the minimum. If the fault disappears, add it back and see what happens.
 
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