A large portion of this has to do with the registry.  Just about every time a
program starts, closes, accesses the disk or a user moves or clicks the mouse,
windows accesses the registry.

On a new install this is rather small, but on a long running system (where I've
installed and uninstalled programs, and modified to suit my needs, etc, etc) the
registry can reach 10MB or larger.  My system, which hasn't had a reload in 2.5
years, is at 9MB now.

Some programs are better at this than others, choosing to keep their settings in
a seperate ini file.  Microsoft had the brilliant idea that if every computer
and program setting were kept in one file, then the computers would crash more,
requiring more certified microsoft clone-people, meaning more money in their
coffers.

Or, at least, that's my interpretation of the registry concept...

-Adam

Mark Skeels wrote:
>
> > It wont remove win98, but it wont show up on the boot screen. I do sugget
> > though that a complete re-load be done. Any Version of windows needs it
> > about once every 6 months, well mine does at least  ;-)
> > >
>
> Does anyone know exactly what happens to winxx machines in this regard? I
> have seen numerous cases of a winxx pc slowing down until it barely crawls,
> locks up, etc. The only thing that will cure it is a reformat of the
> hd/reinstall of Windows and all associated apps/drivers.
>
> It's a real pain!
>
> Mark
>
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