Where are registry files?

[Terry Pinnell]

What are the XP registry files please? User.dat? NTuser.dat? sys.dat?
Some or all of those? And where are they usually located?

I'm asking because I want to find their combined size. I want to see
what effect if any cleaning with System Mechanic and optimising with
NTRegOpt have on total size.

FWIW, a message I had at the end of running NTRegOpt said the size had
gone down 2%, to 58,372,096 bytes. That seems enormous to me. Is it?

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Terry,

Previously posted by Alex Nichol MS-MVP

Files in Windows\system32\config

Specifically
SYSTEM
SOFTWARE
SAM
SECURITY
DEFAULT

and .tmp .bak and .log versions of these relating to changes; .sav for
versions made at the setup of the system (compare Win98's system.1st)

Also the users' personal settings which are in files ntuser.dat in
their
Documents and settings<user>\ folders

Here's an excellent registry backup utility if you are looking for
one.
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/