Multibooter

You command of English shows that you are non-US person, are therefore allowed to use Kaspersky and can be spied out according to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act For persons who want to continue to use Kaspersky Anti-Virus here is the definition of US-person: "According to the National Security Agency web site, federal law and executive order define a United States person as any of the following: a citizen of the United States an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence an unincorporated association with a substantial number of members who are citizens of the US or are aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence a corporation that is incorporated in the US" from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_person in section "Data collection and intelligence"

So sorry, I didn't look properly at your flag icon. I love Danish Pastry, I still have a big round box here, unfortunately empty! No idea how you got the sign-up email, nothing like that happens with my ancient version of Kaspersky when I uninstall it. I regularly uninstall it and then re-install it to get a new signature update, because it can be updated only once. Unfortunately U.S. Kaspersky had stopped selling license keys to retail customers about 10 years ago for this build, they suggested contacting the Moscow head office. I guess their license key server is located in Russia. Kaspersky had set all builds before my ancient build to EOL, and had programmed their servers so that signatures of EOL software could not be updated anymore. I was just lucky with this ancient build. I will put Danish pastry on my shopping list!

Thanks for your recommendations. It's good to have alternatives, but they are all Western. eScan is part of Microworld Technologies in New Jersey, I couldn't find any info about them at wikipedia. Also, not sure whether their malware collection is up to the 19.000,000+ signatures of Kaspersky. Kaspersky may be a discontinued model for US persons. The U.S. government did not prohibit your use of Kaspersky in Germany if you are a non-US person. I definitely do not want to dwell too long on Kaspersky. Can you recommend another non-Western anti-malware program, maybe from China or Russia?

Gruezi! [=Swiss-German for Greetings] Uninstall issues exist with many programs, it's hard to get rid of them. The only clean method to protect yourself is to create a partition backup before the installation of any software and to restore the pre-installation partition. I have not installed Kaspersky "protection" components. The use of old WinXP on an SSE-only computer may provide some protection, a lot of new malware etc seems to have higher system requirements I am currently posting from a 23-year-old Inspiron 7500 laptop, on which no anti-malware is installed at all. I even trust Roytam's Hongkongese New Moon 28 browser and NotHereToPlayGames's 360Chrome with online banking from this old laptop, without any anti-malware installed. Some old stuff is still useful. BTW, many programs leave "trash keys" in the registry, which may or may not be flags for something. When you use Registry Trash Keys Finder v3.9.2.0 (1Sep2013) or Registry Trash Keys Finder v3.9.4.0 (8Jan2017) you will be surprised to see how many hidden flags there are in your registry, and first of all may be Microsoft... Do you trust Microsoft? I also have my gripes about the Kaspersky Removal Tools. Not sure what Microsoft's removal tool of .NET Framework leaves behind Restoring a partition from a clean backup is still the best choice to get rid of unwanted software.

I enjoy your humor "The new restrictions on inbound sales of Kaspersky software, which will also bar downloads of software updates, resales and licensing of the product, kick in on Sept. 29, 100 days after publication, to give businesses time to find alternatives. " https://www.reuters.com/technology/biden-ban-us-sales-kaspersky-software-over-ties-russia-source-says-2024-06-20/ "The White House has made the ban official by banning the sale, resale, and licensing of any Kaspersky security products or services within the US or by US persons" https://uk.pcmag.com/antivirus/152911/us-expected-to-ban-kaspersky-antivirus-software-over-russian-ties If I remember right, Eugene Kaspersky went personally to Iran because of the US-Israeli Stuxnet virus, maybe that's why Kaspersky has so much negative headwind. "He [Eugene Kaspersky] hired the researcher that identified the Stuxnet worm, which is believed to be the first instance of state-sponsored cyberweapon... They [Kaspersky Lab] also exposed Equation Group, which developed advanced spyware for monitoring computer use and was believed to be affiliated with the National Security Agency in the U.S" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky "Kaspersky Lab concluded that the sophisticated attack could only have been conducted with nation-state support. F-Secure's chief researcher Mikko Hyppönen, when asked if possible nation-state support were involved, agreed: "That's what it would look like, yes".... On 1 June 2012, an article in The New York Times reported that Stuxnet was part of a US and Israeli intelligence operation named Operation Olympic Games, devised by the NSA" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet If you want to be protected from Russian and Chinese government spying, maybe Western anti-virus software is a good choice. If you want to be protected from US government spying, maybe non-Western anti-virus software is a good choice. Or maybe use both Western and non-Western anti-virus software if you don't trust anybody In any case: Everybody should have the FREEDOM to use the virus-protection software of his choice.

I am so sorry, but I do not want to give you any more details than I have done already, at least for now. My ancient version of Kaspersky AV can still be updated with a current signature, probably because Kaspersky Lab has forgotten about this old version. I do not want to risk not being able to update anymore. The program name is Kaspersky Anti-Virus, the .exe is digitally signed OK 2012. And as I stated before, it was downloaded from Kaspersky, it was available for download for only a very short period of time, and the installer is a rare file most likely not archived or available anywhere, so no current download link. Any subsequent version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus you can find/download, where the installer or update .exe is digitally signed 2013 to 2015 would be a candidate for checking for WinXP compatibility, potential malware behavior and the ability to update to the current virus signature. So sorry again, I like your work for this topic!

Kaspersky signature updates are hosted on servers, whose owners can easily pull the plug on Kaspersky, no more signature updates, just as the operating companies of European satellites did, pulling the plug on RT TV, no more English-language Russian TV channels in the EU (OT: Arabic-language was not pulled). My concern is that after September 30, 2024 I will not be able to update my ancient Kaspersky AV because Kaspersky may have difficulty finding servers for providing signature updates internationally.

An ancient, clean AV scanner can be the version of choice if a more recent version contains malware. I definitely share your concern about the scan engine. This ancient Kaspersky AV scanner: - canNOT look into about 30% of portable .exes downloaded, but I don't use portables - canNOT look into very deeply nested files (e.g. a .rar in a .rar in a.rar in a .zip) - canNOT look into .img floppy disk image files - canNOT look into the boot sector of bootable .iso etc files - CAN look into nearly all other .exes - CAN look into .wim. BTW, until about a year ago, this ancient version of KAV could most likely NOT look into a .wim but all on a sudden it could. I would speculate that this scanning ability was added somehow by the signature updates, with the signature updates also modifying the scan engine. I explicitly have disabled updates of the scan engine because it's the last build of its version and also to avoid any download issues with future signature updates. - a major criteria for anti-virus software is its ability to look into many types of container files. Kaspersky canNOT look, for example, into .uha file types, and I would bet that none of the programs listed in this topic can. I am using sometimes WinUHA to archive incorrectly flagged files, so that a re-check by Kaspersky of archived files with flagged stuff does not generate infection or password-protection messages. - a major issue until about 3 months ago was that this ancient KAV crashed on certain downloaded files. This occurred with about 1 file for 300 files of stuff downloaded. It was quite time-consuming to identify the culprit file(s), a needle in a haystack. Whenever a crash occurred, Kaspersky created a huge file, maybe 600MB and requested permission to send the file to Kaspersky, which I always denied. - a minor issue of this ancient KAV is that it wants to call home occasionally, after very long virus-checks. These attempts to call home are being flagged and denied by ancient Kerio Personal Firewall v2.1.5, installed under WinXP. I did NOT give ancient Kaspersky a default permission to connect to the internet. One major incentive for test-installing Kaspersky v18 or v19 would be to see whether some of the scan engine issues listed above have been resolved.

I had read your findings 2 days ago, when I looked for info about Kaspersky at msfn.org. Your Embedded Systems Security 3.1.0.461 and Kaspersky Embedded Systems Security 3.3.0.87 are not the same as my ancient version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Thanks for your reminder. I have used this ancient Kaspersky AV for 10+ years and not noticed any suspicious modifications, so I doubt that this ancient build modifies any original system files. Nevertheless, I have taken note and intend to make a binary compare of the files on the WinXP partition, before and after installing+running this ancient Kaspersky AV, whenever I will make a clean re-install of WinXP. Such a clean re-install of WinXP may still be quite some time off, however, mainly for the purpose of identifying and documenting with Registry Trash Key Finder v2.9.4 and v2.9.6 the trash keys created by the installation of WinXP and my various software packages.

There are many versions of "Kaspersky", just as with "Windows". One may be "good", another may be "bad". The art is to pick the right version for a specific purpose, and the last version is not necessarily the best version. What may apply to v18 or v19 does not necessarily apply to earlier versions.

You are missing out on the best. I have been using under WinXP an ancient version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus plus the current signature update for 10+ years. Kaspersky Anti-Virus is one of my 10-most-used programs, used for virus-checking of downloads. I neither use nor need real-time protection under WinXP, and WinXP is my main opsys. I have not looked for a more recent version of Kaspersky, because Kaspersky has worked fine for me. Two days ago, after hearing about the US government banning Kaspersky in the U.S., I was worried that Kaspersky updates could become victims of censorship in Europe, just like the Russia Today SAT-TV channels. When looking for info at msfn.org, I came came across your topic and found out that later versions 18 and 19 of Kaspersky also work under WinXP. Kaspersky v18 and v19 can be downloaded at: 1) https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://arc-products.s.kaspersky-labs.com/* [filter for .exe] 2) https://products.s.kaspersky-labs.com/ for downloading the English multi-lingual version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2018: select Language: French, Country: Canada, Localization: en-US, fr-CA, es-MX My ancient version of Kaspersky runs under WinXP and can still be updated. It was available for a very brief time at Kaspersky, then it disappeared. It was apparently not archived anywhere, it seems to be a rare file. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_bans_and_allegations_of_Russian_government_ties (thanks jaclaz, for the link!) "In August 2015, Bloomberg News reported that Kaspersky Lab changed course in 2012, as "high-level managers have left or been fired, their jobs often filled by people with closer ties to Russia's military or intelligence services"" My ancient version, digitally signed in 2012, seems to predate this change at Kaspersky Lab. My ancient version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus definitely does not contain malware, maybe subsequent versions of Kaspersky are just as clean. Maybe a version of Kaspersky after 2012 can be found, which is readily available, which does not yet contain the supposed malware, which runs under WinXP and for which current signature updates are available. Alternatively, to counteract hypothetical, supposed or potential spying of v18 or v19, one could create a separate opsys selection on the computer, just containing Kaspersky for virus-checking. Multi-booting is an effective tool for improving privacy. My ancient version of Kaspersky works fine under WinXP SP2 and SP3 and under SSE-only. Virus-checking files >100MB, however, is very slow when using this ancient version of Kaspersky on an SSE-only Inspiron 7500 laptop, Pentium 3, 650MHz, 512MB RAM. A major attractiveness of Kaspersky Anti-Virus is that it is produced by a non-Western company. Kaspersky will probably better detect malware created or sponsored by Western agencies. Maybe the cell phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel could not have been supposedly tapped by the U.S. NSA spy agency between 2002 and 2013 if she had used non-Western Kaspersky ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24690055 Maybe the use by Volkswagen of Kaspersky is related to the desire to protect their business in China from U.S. spying. A user's decision to use Western or non-Western software comes down to whom you want to permit to spy on your computer. Even the use of old Windows XP can be related to the desire of not being spied upon by Western agencies. More recent software is so obviously full of backdoors, calling-home, adware, metrics, etc. A good browser and a good virus-checker are the two key requirements for the longevity of Windows XP. Win98 died for me around 2014, or rather became a special-purpose opsys for a few programs, when there were no more signature updates for Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.3.837, the last version to run under Win98. AstroSkipper, thank you for dedicating your time and effort to this topic so essential for WinXP! And I also want to thank Kaspersky for continuing to support Windows XP. Posted with New Moon under WinXP SP3 on an SSE-only, 650MHz Pentium 3 Inspiron 7500 laptop, virus-checked under WinXP with a current signature of Kaspersky.

Hi roytam1, Your New Moon 28 SSE release of 23Sep2022 WORKS GREAT on my 22-year-old Inspiron 7500 laptop (Pentium 3, 650MHz, 512MB RAM, non-SSE2, WinXP SP3). It worked fine for buying an airline ticket at ryanair.com and paying for it with paypal, a little slow, but it WORKED! The ability to buy an airline ticket at an ad-heavy site is for me the key test of a fully-working browser. For comparison, it was not possible to buy the above airline ticket with Safari on a 7-year-old iPad Air with the final iOS 12.5.5, the booking process got hung when selecting a seat, even before proceding to the payment part. Updates for the iPad Air ended in September 2019. I am using New Moon 28 SSE together with User-Agent Switcher 0.1.8. http://web.archive.org/web/20170401000000*/https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-media/addons/578976/user_agent_switcher-0.1.8-fx.xpi?filehash=sha256%3Abacb5375024202e65b33dbb04d12684fe947abfb16437dfb0c575a55a670dbd1 -> right-click on 1st capture on 21Aug2017 -> Save Link as, to avoid immediate installation The setting to "Samsung Tizen OS" helps making some websites more compatible. v0.1.8 is the last version which works/installs with New Moon 28 BTW, New Moon 28 SSE does NOT load properly links/articles at https://www.msn.com/en-us Added on 5Oct2022: Serpent SSE of 2022-09-29 loads www.msn.com OK Tor Browser v7.5.6 (based on Firefox 52.9.0), which also works great on the Inspiron 7500 under WinXP and SSE, loads the site OK, http://web.archive.org/web/20180706013451/https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/7.5.6/torbrowser-install-7.5.6_en-US.exe other versions and languages: http://web.archive.org/web/20180706013451/https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/7.5.6/ I am using NoScript "Classic" (5.1.9) for turning off JavaScript in New Moon 28 SSE. https://noscript.net/getit/ New Moon 28 SSE release of 23Sep2022 is a must-have for SSE retro-computers. Please keep on updating the SSE version. T H A N K Y O U !! for your outstanding work. Posted on the 22-year-old Inspiron 7500 with New Moon 28 SSE

Thanks dencorso. I haven't tried Ranish Partition Manager yet. I would love to hear from RLoew about RFDisk.

I love your explanation about the "chain of lies", with the BIOS providing fake news to the operating system. There were several interesting comments posted at your link http://blog.clemens.endorphin.org/2007/12/removing-chs-based-access-from-windows_3170.html indicating that the ThinkPad R40 and R60 have the same 240 heads issue as my Inspiron 7500 laptops have. The "actual uses" of WinXP (or Linux?) partitioning software with which you could easily set or change the disk geometry to 240 heads are probably limited to DDOing under Win98, on computers with an ancient BIOS, therefore no commercial market: 1) to partition a DDOed HDD to FAT32 partition sizes > 196GB; PartitionMagic 8 under Win98 can create FAT32 partitions with a max.size of only 196GB 2) as a replacement of the partitioning utility contained in WD DLG Tools, which can create under Win98 FAT32 partitions > 196GB (e.g. 320GB FAT32 partitions) on a DDOed HDD, Both DLG Tools and System Commander, however, install their own MBRs and can therefore not be run at the same time. Partitioning with the WD DLG Tools is a very cumbersome procedure: I have to manually back up C:\SC\BOOT.DAT, remove System Commander temporarily, run WD DLG Tools, manually restore BOOT.DAT and then enable System Commander, requiring multiple reboots. 3) for easier partitioning of DDOed HDDs in an external USB/eSATA docking station or with an external USB adapter instead of inside the laptop in a special right-bay or left-bay module. Such special modules for the Inspiron 7500 are nearly impossible to find, the last time I had seen one at ebay was maybe 8 years ago. Here my specific case: My Inspiron 7500 laptops can contain up to 3 HDDs: the main boot drive (in the HDD caddy at the bottom side of the laptop), a 2nd non-bootable HDD in the right-bay and a 3rd bootable HDD in the left-bay. The ancient BIOS of the Inspiron 7500 works Ok only, with some tweaks, with HDDs up to 120GB, the maximum HDD capacity displayed at BIOS POST is 65535MB. To overcome this BIOS limitation I DDOed large-capacity HDDs for the right-bay and for the left-bay with Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools v11.2 for Windows (v5.09.03, 5Apr2006); only this build worked for me. In the right-bay of the laptop I now have a WD 320GB IDE HDD, as an internal data drive in regular use under WinXP and Win98 for over a year, no issues. The Unofficial 137GB patch works fine with the DDOed 320GB HDD. This internal 2nd 320GB HDD, containing data accessible under both WinXP and Win98, has been the most useful upgrade of the Inspiron 7500. Unfortunately PartitionMagic 8 can only create partitions up to 196GB, but I wanted just one logical 320GB FAT32 partition on the DDOed HDD, to save drive letters. The only choice I had was to partition painstakingly with the utility provided by WD DLG Tools.

Hi dencorso, hi jaclaz - nice to see you too! Partition Table Doctor v3.5 is an excellent tool to check and repair the MBR, the partition table and the boot sector. PTD works Ok under Win98 and WinXP. I have several nearly-identical Inspiron 7500 laptops, from around 2001. The internal boot HDDs of the laptops contain some very complicated initial stuff (fat16/fat32/ntfs/ext3 partitions, a System Commander BOOT.DAT backup (1536 bytes!) restored upon a previous installation of the DDO software Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools v11.2 so that I can use also under Win98 a 2nd internal 320GB IDE HDD in the right-bay HDD module). Below are some of my notes about the cloning of a 120GB source HDD (240 Heads !!) to a 128GB KingSpec SSD: 1) I could start cloning the internal boot HDD with Symantec Ghost v11, but near the end of cloning I got the following err msg by Ghost: "Internal Error 36000. An internal inconsistency has been detected. If this problem persists, contact Technical Support"-> Ok, text in separate stus window: "99% complete, 688 MB/min, 114.469 MB copied, 4 MB remaining, 2:46:10 elapsed, Time remaining 0:00" and in an other window: Source: local drive [1], 114473 MB Destination: [2}, 121082 MB Current partition: 22/22 Type=0 [Unpartitioned] Size 15846 MB" then general protection fault then Error: Could not allocate page table memory, then A>, I just pulled the plug of the laptop (no battery was inside) Ghost apparently choked on the tricky initial stuff of the source HDD. 2) I then restored the stuff backed up by Partition Table Doctor, from the source HDD, onto the target HDD/SSD. This fixed the problem. After setting the boot partition of the target HDD/SSD to active, System Commander and the MS operating systems came up Ok with the cloned HDD/SSD in a near-identical Inspiron 7500. The Linux partitions were backed up and restored separately by TeraByte Image v2.92, which works Ok under Win98 and WinXP. Ghost v11 seems to choke with Linux partitions. TeraByte Image actually seems to be a better tool for cloning than Ghost v11. The bootable PTD floppy was created by -> General -> Create Emergency Disk. 3 - QUESTION: The Inspiron 7500 has an ancient Phoenix Bios v4.0 Release 6.0. Under Win98 my partitioning software creates 240 heads partitions on the internal bootable HDD and on the 2nd HDD in the right-bay HDD module. On external drives, however, connected via USB or eSATA, 255 heads partitions are created under Win98. My partitioning software under WinXP can only create 255 heads partitions. Is there any partitioning software which can create 240 and 255 heads partitions under WinXP?

"No operating system found" sounds like a msg that the boot partition of the HDD is not active. With PartitionMagic 8 boot floppies you could set the boot partition of the target HDD in the laptop to active, maybe this works. Copying partitions seems to be the wrong approach, or at least very time-consuming. Maybe you should clone the whole disk, not individual partitions. You would need to take the source HDD out of the laptop and you could use Ghost v11 under WinXP on another PC to clone the whole HDD, with the forensic parameter -ir [=image raw]. You would need two, not just one, IDE docking stations or IDE-to-USB adapters for the source and target HDDs and they should be different models/have different VID/PID. I, for example, use the Sharkoon USB 3.0 and the Sharkoon USB 2.0 + eSATA docking stations for IDE+SATA HDDs. They are compatible with Hard Disk Sentinel and can indicate HDD Health for IDE and SATA HDDs, also under Win98. If Hard Disk Sentinel indicates an Ok HDD Health, you may have little need to clone the HDD, except as a backup HDD. Another possibility, if you do wish to proceed with the copying of partitions, would be to install Partition Table Doctor v3.5 on your laptop, then create a bootable backup floppy with the partition etc stuff of the source HDD, then restore the Partition Table Doctor stuff onto a blank/wiped HDD and then copy the partitions. If something goes wrong with your copying the partitions, PTDD may perhaps be able to repair it.

The retail Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 is currently still available new at amazon for USD 4.99 plus S+H, but again, it can be activated/updated probably only until mid-March 2013. The activation code on the CD sleeve in the box can be used to activate the downloaded last v6.0.2.621. The CD in the box usually contains an older build.

It's now January 2013 and Kaspersky v6.0.2.621 still updates Ok. There may be some problems with the updater, maybe because I update irregularly, about once every other week. During updating I get quite often error messages like "error updating component KAS300" or "file black.lst is missing or corrupted. Please run Updater to fix this problem". After re-running the Updater, sometimes up to 3 or 4 times, everything is Ok and the message "Update completed successfully" is displayed. The message "Not all components were updated" signals that the Updater has to be run again. But here is the downside: In November 2012 I used 2 activation codes of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 retail packages, but the Kaspersky License Key Server only generated license keys up to about 21-March-2013, instead of keys for another year, and the License Key Server did not generate any trial keys for v6.0.2.621. This means that Kaspersky v6.0.2.621 cannot be updated with new signatures after 21-March-2013, although it will continue to run after that date with the last signature update obtained. I keep backups of the Update Folder so that I can re-install v6.0.2.621 and update from the Update Folder, in case I should need an activated but expired version in the future. It makes little sense to buy a retail v6.0 now, since it's going to be dead in March 2013. "Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations" is the corporate version, it is v6.0.3.837 and still runs fine and updates fine under Win98 and WinXP. I doubt that the Moscow head office will sell activation codes for v6.0.3 to individuals. The Kaspersky License Key server still provides a trial key for v6.0.3.837, valid for 10 computers for 30 days. The activation code and the generated license key for the retail v6.0.2 do not work for the corporate v6.0.3. After having used a trial key for 30 days the virus scanner does not scan for viruses anymore and cannot be updated anymore. It is not possible to start a new trial using the Kaspersky removal tool KAVremover v1.0.53 (of 28Nov2007, last version to work with Win98) http://support.kaspersky.com/downloads/kis7/kavremover.zip There are 3 keys hidden in the registry which prevent a restarting of the trial. One simple self-constructed .inf file can delete these 3 keys under Win98 and WinXP and does not require an uninstall/removal. Kaspersky v6.0.3.837 then turns into un-activated and can then get activated as a trial for another 30 days. Re-activation (reset + activate) is a matter of less than a minute, the hard part was to find the 3 lines for the section [DeleteFromRegistry] in the .inf file, and the testing. In the future, when the Kaspersky License Key Server will not provide trial licenses for the corporate version 6.0.3 anymore, an un-activated Kaspersky v6.0.3 will still run fine with the last obtained virus signatures, except that there is a nag screen at start up "Setup Wizard: Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Welcome! Kaspersky Anti-Virus Setup Wizard will help you to configure protection for your computer", which requires to click on Cancel or Activate Later. The .inf file with 3 instructions has been tested extensively and works fine. I am attaching a screen shot of Kaspersky v6.0.3.837 updated yesterday under Win98. This Plan B works until there are no more trial licenses for v6.0.3. After that there is a Plan C. I am quite confident that Kaspersky v6 wil be updateable under Win98 and WinXP for the foreseeable future, perhaps for several more years.

Hi CharlotteTheHarlot, Strange result: the file modification date of Process Explorer.exe , when downloaded with FlashGet, is 22-Sep-2012 10:14:50 PM. The current date on my computer is 24-Sep-2012 7:11:50AM, so the file modification date cannot have been related somehow to my download date. The file modification date may have been set to the date of the last download by somebody who does not use FlashGet. No idea why this is done. MiTec EXE Explorer displays a timestamp of 8-Feb-2006 6:46:31 PM for the file and may be a more useful way of describing this particular version. When Process Explorer.exe is extracted with Universal Extractor v1.6.1.61 (gora), the date modified of some of the extracted files is also 8-Feb-2006, but 10:46:28AM (different hours, probably due to the time difference here in California), so the version date seems to be of 8-Feb-2006.

A direct download link is http://xoomer.virgilio.it/gloriosus/software/programs/regcompact1.0.zip'>http://web.archive.org/web/20060207052459/http://xoomer.virgilio.it/gloriosus/software/programs/regcompact1.0.zip The link http://xoomer.virgilio.it/gloriosus/software/programs/regcompact1.0.zip , which I couldn't download directly via Firefox, downloads Ok with FlashGet v1.72.128. Somehow I seem to have a talent for picking out the alternatives which don't work. The benefit of downloading from http://xoomer.virgilio.it/gloriosus/software/programs/regcompact1.0.zip with Flashget is that the original server upload date is maintained, which is 23-Jun-2007 8:04:40 AM. When downloading from web archive, somehow the file modification date is the current date.

Something wrong with your link, it doesn't work.

I cannot confirm this with the registry files on my 11-year-old Inspiron laptop. scanreg /opt in MSDOS mode did reduce the size of a never compressed system.dat (8905KB) and user.dat (1193KB).scanreg /opt seems to be better at reducing the size of system.dat, while RegCompact v1.0 seems to be much better at reducing the size of user.dat. Here some results of a combined consecutive use of scanreg /opt and RegCompact v1.0: 1) never compressed files before starting the compression experiment: system.dat 8905KB user.dat 1193KB combined size: 10098KB 2) after running scanreg /opt with the files in step 1: system.dat 8825KB (-80KB) user.dat 1189KB (-4KB) combined size: 10014KB (84KB less than uncompressed)) 3) after running RegCompact with the files produced in step 2: system.dat 8873KB (+48KB, i.e. an INCREASE in size) user.dat 981KB (-208KB) combined size: 9854KB (160KB less than after step 2) 4) after running scanreg /opt a 2nd time with the files produced in step 3: system.dat: 8841KB (-32KB) user.dat: 969KB (-12KB) combined size: 9810KB (44KB less than after step 3) So the combined use of scanreg /opt and RegCompact can reduce the size of the registry even more, similar to an improved file compression when a file is first compressed to a .zip file, then the .zip file is compressed to a .rar file. I have no idea whether running scanreg /opt leaves the content of the registry files unchanged, an undocumented feature may not have been tested sufficiently for release.

I checked with Hex Workshop 4 the original uncompressed user.dat (created in step 4 above), the exported .reg file and the user.dat compressed/created by RegCompact, for a difference indicated by Beyond Compare.For this specific string which was different: - the uncompressed user.dat contained 0D 0A 0D 0A [=CR LF CR LF] - the .reg export file converted these 4 bytes to 5C 72 5C 6E 5C 72 5C 6E [=\r\n\r\n] - the compressed user.dat (created by RegComp) contained 0D 0A 0D 0A [=CR LF CR LF], i.e. no error was introduced during the compression by RegCompact. In Regedit under Win98 the value data 0D 0A 0D 0A [=CR LF CR LF] is displayed as 4 thick vertical lines.

I have made the following test of RegCompact v1.0 #5 [MD5 5749...]: 1) Under Win98SE, with a never compressed registry: I exported with Regedit the whole registry as a .reg file 2) I ran RegCompact and Win98 shut down 3) instead of re-booting into Win98SE I booted into WinXP 4) under WinXP I saved the 2 Rcxxxx.tmp files and Wininit.ini created by RegCompact under Win98, as well as the Win98 user.dat and system.dat files (as backups) 5) I rebooted into Win98SE Under Win98SE I ran Beyond Compare v3.3.4 and made a Registry Compare of the active registry under Win98SE (i.e. the compressed registry files created by RegCompact v1.0) and the exported .reg file created in step 1 above (i.e. the exported Win98 registry before running RegCompact). The purpose of this comparison was to check whether the content of the compressed registry was identical to the content of the registry before compression. Here the results: 1) It looks like the content of the compressed system.dat/user.dat and of the pre-compression system.dat/user.dat is identical, except for a few differences which still require investigation. If a registry expert repeats a similar experiment, maybe these differences can be explained. The problem is that Beyond Compare can compare a live registry against an exported .reg file, but not against a system.dat or user.dat file. 2) Regedit seems to have an issue when it exports data as a .reg file: The characters "0A" [=LF] and "0D" [=CR] seem to get converted to something else, at least as displayed by Beyond Compare. The original key value is probably not the same anymore when such an exported registry file is imported. The registry keys of some software packages (e.g. by Iomega, Emailchemy) contain program descriptions containing Linefeeds for nicer display, which seem to get converted when exporting as a .reg file.

Hi CharlotteTheHarlot, I have made a preliminary test of RegCompact v1.0 #5 [MD5 5749...] on my 11-year-old laptop under Win98SE. I installed Win98SE on this laptop 9 years ago, no re-installation of Win98, and there are about 100+ apps installed under Win98. I do not use software to clean up the registry, or software to compact the registry, but I keep my system clean by creating clean restore points and then re-install new useful apps on a previous clean restore point, building in this way the next clean restore point. I never had any problem with the registry becoming bloated. Before running RegCompact 1.0 system.dat was 8904kB and user.dat was 1192kB. After running RegCompact they were 8860kB and 976kB respectively, i.e. a decrease of about 2.6% in size. Running RegCompact was easy and did not cause any damage. What are the benefits of running RegCompact? 1) After running RegCompact my 11-year-old laptop appeared to be a little bit faster and crisper, for example when running Norton Disk Doctor, opening Explorer windows or loading MS Word. 2) Are there any other benefits or uses of RegCompact? Here an excerpt from Jerry Honeycutt's book about the Win98 registry: "Registry Checker [scanreg] has an undocumented feature [/opt switch, only under DOS] that allows you to optimize the Registry. Registry Checker compresses the Registry whenever it detects that it has over 500KB of dead space"