When you start your computer, your computer may stop responding and you may receive the following error message:

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This behavior can occur if the registry is too large to fit into memory.

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WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.


To work around this behavior, use the appropriate method:

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Windows 98

Use the Windows Registry Checker (Scanreg.exe) program to restore a copy of your previous registry. To do so, follow these steps:

WARNING: After you perform the following steps, you may need to reinstall some programs.

1.	Restart your computer, press and hold the CTRL key until the Windows 98 Startup menu appears, and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only.
2.	At the command prompt, type scanreg /restore, and then press ENTER.
3.	Click a registry that has the word "Started" next to the date, and then press ENTER.
4.	Press ENTER to restart your computer. For additional information about the Windows Registry Checker (Scanreg.exe) program, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 183887 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183887/EN-US/) Description of the Windows Registry Checker Tool

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Windows 95

Use either of the following methods:

Regedit.exe to Export and Import the Registry

For information about backing up the registry, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Use the Registry Editor program in the real-mode MS-DOS environment (Regedit.exe) to export and import the registry files. For information about how to do this, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Rename the Registry Files and Reinstall Windows

To rename the registry files and reinstall Windows, follow these steps:

1.	Restart your computer. When you see the "Starting Windows 95" message, press the F8 key, and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.
2.	At a command prompt, type the following lines, pressing ENTER after each command: attrib -r -s -h system.1st ren system.1st system.xxx cd windows attrib -r -s -h system.dat attrib -r -s -h system.da0 attrib -r -s -h user.dat attrib -r -s -h user.da0 ren system.dat system.yyy ren user.dat user.xxx ren system.da0 system.zzz ren user.da0 user.zzz
3.	Reinstall Windows.

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