Hardware Tips

When Windows 98 wants to know what kind of graphics card, hard disk, or other hardware is installed in your PC, it goes to the Registry. And if it doesn't find the answers it's looking for, it gets very upset and can instigate all kinds of problems, ranging from trivial to catastrophic. So it pays to take good care of your Registry.

Under Windows 95, maintaining and repairing the Registry is cumbersome at best. Fortunately for Windows 98 users, Registry Checker, a new utility in the OS, makes those tasks much easier.

Taking care of the Registry means watching over two files, system.dat and user.dat. Both are hidden files found in your Windows folder. They contain all the hardware, software, and user settings for your PC. If the files are damaged--due to an improper system shutdown or a hard disk problem, for example--individual applications may not work properly, or your system may crash and refuse to start.

Registry Checker optimizes these files and safeguards them against future problems. Each time you launch Win 98, the utility automatically optimizes your Registry. If it finds 500KB or more of outdated entries, it removes them, shrinking the size of those .dat files. This makes the files more convenient to back up and store, and also accelerates Win 98's launch and shutdown. Next, Registry Checker scans the .dat files for damage. If you're lucky, it won't find any problems. And when you're faced with crashes, Registry Checker can save you hours of troubleshooting.