(XPPro+SP2)-HKLM Why so many control sets in registry?

[Uncle John]

I had cause to use regedit for the first time in months today and saw that I
had nine sets other than the current control set.

What creates them and what are they used for?

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

The Control set includes info. on the system configuration - inc. info.
about devices drives, services etc. that need to be started.

The # will depend on how many times the system settings are altered and/or
how often any problems may occur. They are linked into to the 'Last Known
Good Configuration' option and shouldn't be edited.

You may very well found:

CurrentControlSet
ControlSet001
ControlSet002 etc
Clone

An example:

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Select key contains

Current
Default
Failed
LastKnownGood

If 'Current' is set to 0x1 - the CurrentControlSet will point to 001. 0x2
will point to 002 etc.


--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[Uncle John]

Will,

Thanks for the info. Does it mean that one has to leave the old Control sets
in place for ever?

--
Uncle John

Hi

The Control set includes info. on the system configuration - inc. info.
about devices drives, services etc. that need to be started.

The # will depend on how many times the system settings are altered and/or
how often any problems may occur. They are linked into to the 'Last Known
Good Configuration' option and shouldn't be edited.

You may very well found:

CurrentControlSet
ControlSet001
ControlSet002 etc
Clone

An example:

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Select key contains

Current
Default
Failed
LastKnownGood

If 'Current' is set to 0x1 - the CurrentControlSet will point to 001. 0x2
will point to 002 etc.


--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Thanks for the info. Does it mean that one has to leave the old
Control sets in place for ever?

The real question is "Why does it matter if you leave them or not?"

You would not see any perceptible performance gain by removing them or
having less entries. Very few registry entries and their subsequent
removals have an overall effect on performance. Most of the time - there is
no noticeable increase and the few that do show a noticeable difference when
removed are those that perform some function that may not be desirable (such
as deleting the pagefile at shutdown, etc.)

The point is - you gain next to nothing for a "clean" registry - but chance
losing everything by "messing" with it.

 

[Uncle John]

Shenan,

You are right in the sense that if it ain't broke don't fix it.

The reason I worry about the registry getting too large is that over a
certain size my defragmenter - Perfect Disk - has problems copying disk 1 to
disk 2 [(my system disk C:\ to my backup disk D:\ master and slave on the
same cable] If the registry grows too large, and I do not know what IS the
critical size, I have to format the backup disk before making the copy.
That makes scheduled backups impossible, so I keep the registry as small as
possible.

From what you say the Control Set entries do not take up a lot of space.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Yes, you need to leave the ControlSets as they are. Otherwise your system
may not function as it is supposed to.

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

Will,

Thanks for the info. Does it mean that one has to leave the old Control
sets in place for ever?