Registry size limits in XP and Vista

NTDEV
1

KB 94993 states that the global Registry size limit parameter
in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\RegistrySizeLimit
is not applicable to XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/94993#appliesto

But this KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/235487 says
that XP still has some registry size limit.

Could anybody explain what exactly is this value -
the size of RAM used by all loaded hives,
or only size of the System hive, or what.
Can we increase the max, like it was possible in win2k or NT?

We have an app that stores lots of data under the
System branch, sometimes it fails with STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.

Thanks in advance,
– pa

2

There are a lot of calls (in particular RegSaveKeyXX/RestoreKey/LoadKey
interfaces) which unexplainably return STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES which
appear in no way related to either available memory or registry size. These
problems appear on virgin systems and are still present on the latest OSes.
It looks to me there are some unexplainable bugs buried deep inside the
configuration manager that I am not able to understand or track down and I
suspect they used STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES as a generic error return
value.

About the registry size limit, AFAIK it was only present on NT and Win2k
while from XP the registry was equipped to dynamically grow. Maybe somebody
else can say something authoritative.

//Daniel

“Pavel A.” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> KB 94993 states that the global Registry size limit parameter
> in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\RegistrySizeLimit
> is not applicable to XP.
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/94993#appliesto
>
> But this KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/235487 says
> that XP still has some registry size limit.
>
> Could anybody explain what exactly is this value -
> the size of RAM used by all loaded hives,
> or only size of the System hive, or what.
> Can we increase the max, like it was possible in win2k or NT?
>
> We have an app that stores lots of data under the
> System branch, sometimes it fails with STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> – pa
>

3

BTW: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292726/

//Daniel

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> There are a lot of calls (in particular RegSaveKeyXX/RestoreKey/LoadKey
> interfaces) which unexplainably return STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES which
> appear in no way related to either available memory or registry size.
> These problems appear on virgin systems and are still present on the
> latest OSes. It looks to me there are some unexplainable bugs buried deep
> inside the configuration manager that I am not able to understand or track
> down and I suspect they used STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES as a generic
> error return value.
>
> About the registry size limit, AFAIK it was only present on NT and Win2k
> while from XP the registry was equipped to dynamically grow. Maybe
> somebody else can say something authoritative.
>
> //Daniel
>
>
>
> “Pavel A.” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> KB 94993 states that the global Registry size limit parameter
>> in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\RegistrySizeLimit
>> is not applicable to XP.
>>
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/94993#appliesto
>>
>> But this KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/235487 says
>> that XP still has some registry size limit.
>>
>> Could anybody explain what exactly is this value -
>> the size of RAM used by all loaded hives,
>> or only size of the System hive, or what.
>> Can we increase the max, like it was possible in win2k or NT?
>>
>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the
>> System branch, sometimes it fails with STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> – pa
>>
>
>

4

>We have an app that stores lots of data under the System branch, sometimes it fails with >STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.

Which call is failing ?

You may already know this but Microsoft advises against having lot of data in registry. Probably time to find a new place to store stuff ?

Satya
http://www.winprogger.com

5

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> BTW: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292726/

Thank you Daniel.

So, could anybody explain why GetSystemRegistryQuota API
has been added in Xp SP1?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724387(VS.85).aspx

What could this “quota” mean for WinXP or Vista/win7?

– pa

> wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> There are a lot of calls (in particular RegSaveKeyXX/RestoreKey/LoadKey
>> interfaces) which unexplainably return STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES
>> which appear in no way related to either available memory or registry
>> size. These problems appear on virgin systems and are still present on
>> the latest OSes. It looks to me there are some unexplainable bugs buried
>> deep inside the configuration manager that I am not able to understand or
>> track down and I suspect they used STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES as a
>> generic error return value.
>>
>> About the registry size limit, AFAIK it was only present on NT and Win2k
>> while from XP the registry was equipped to dynamically grow. Maybe
>> somebody else can say something authoritative.
>>
>> //Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>> “Pavel A.” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>>> KB 94993 states that the global Registry size limit parameter
>>> in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\RegistrySizeLimit
>>> is not applicable to XP.
>>>
>>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/94993#appliesto
>>>
>>> But this KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/235487 says
>>> that XP still has some registry size limit.
>>>
>>> Could anybody explain what exactly is this value -
>>> the size of RAM used by all loaded hives,
>>> or only size of the System hive, or what.
>>> Can we increase the max, like it was possible in win2k or NT?
>>>
>>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the
>>> System branch, sometimes it fails with STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>> – pa
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

6

On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
about value sizes being limited only by memory:

From: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986

The following table lists the data types that are currently defined and
that are used by Windows. The maximum size of a value name is as follows:

* Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista: 16,383 characters
* Windows 2000: 260 ANSI characters or 16,383 Unicode characters
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 255 characters

Long values (more than 2,048 bytes) must be stored as files with the
file names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform
efficiently. The maximum size of a value is as follows:

* Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server
2003/Windows Vista: Available memory
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 16,300 bytes

Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

xxxxx@yahoo.com wrote:

> We have an app that stores lots of data under the System branch, sometimes it fails with >STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.

Which call is failing ?

You may already know this but Microsoft advises against having lot of data in registry. Probably time to find a new place to store stuff ?

Satya
http://www.winprogger.com

–
Ray
(If you want to reply to me off list, please remove “spamblock.” from my
email address)

7

I think GetSystemRegistryQuota just returns global registry quota limits
(i.e. NtQuerySystemInformation/SystemRegistryQuotaInformation
encapstulation, available from early NT systems). There’s only hard system
hive limitation - as Daniel pointed out in his 2nd post.

Petr

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Pavel A.
Sent: 8. dubna 2009 0:35
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] Registry size limits in XP and Vista

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> BTW: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292726/

Thank you Daniel.

So, could anybody explain why GetSystemRegistryQuota API
has been added in Xp SP1?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724387(VS.85).aspx

What could this “quota” mean for WinXP or Vista/win7?

– pa

> wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> There are a lot of calls (in particular RegSaveKeyXX/RestoreKey/LoadKey
>> interfaces) which unexplainably return STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES
>> which appear in no way related to either available memory or registry
>> size. These problems appear on virgin systems and are still present on
>> the latest OSes. It looks to me there are some unexplainable bugs buried
>> deep inside the configuration manager that I am not able to understand or

>> track down and I suspect they used STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES as a
>> generic error return value.
>>
>> About the registry size limit, AFAIK it was only present on NT and Win2k
>> while from XP the registry was equipped to dynamically grow. Maybe
>> somebody else can say something authoritative.
>>
>> //Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>> “Pavel A.” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>>> KB 94993 states that the global Registry size limit parameter
>>> in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\RegistrySizeLimit
>>> is not applicable to XP.
>>>
>>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/94993#appliesto
>>>
>>> But this KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/235487 says
>>> that XP still has some registry size limit.
>>>
>>> Could anybody explain what exactly is this value -
>>> the size of RAM used by all loaded hives,
>>> or only size of the System hive, or what.
>>> Can we increase the max, like it was possible in win2k or NT?
>>>
>>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the
>>> System branch, sometimes it fails with STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>> – pa
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

8

Total size of a key, size of a value name, and size of a value are three
different things.
For example:
Registry\Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services is a key
ImagePath is a value name.
%SystemRoot%\xxx is a value.

Bill Wandel

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]
On Behalf Of Ray Trent
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 8:04 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] Registry size limits in XP and Vista

On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
about value sizes being limited only by memory:

From: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986

The following table lists the data types that are currently defined and that
are used by Windows. The maximum size of a value name is as follows:

* Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista: 16,383 characters
* Windows 2000: 260 ANSI characters or 16,383 Unicode characters
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 255 characters

Long values (more than 2,048 bytes) must be stored as files with the file
names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform efficiently.
The maximum size of a value is as follows:

* Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003/Windows
Vista: Available memory
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 16,300 bytes

Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

xxxxx@yahoo.com wrote:

> We have an app that stores lots of data under the System branch,
sometimes it fails with >STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.

Which call is failing ?

You may already know this but Microsoft advises against having lot of data
in registry. Probably time to find a new place to store stuff ?

Satya
http://www.winprogger.com

–
Ray
(If you want to reply to me off list, please remove “spamblock.” from my
email address)

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

9

This information is definitely outdated or plain false. I have witnessed MBs
of data stored in single values by MS applications.

//Daniel

“Ray Trent” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
> statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
> It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
> about value sizes being limited only by memory:
>
> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
>
>>

10

Those apps are bad citizens for doing so. The registry takes kernel mode address space (plus commit of course), which is a scarce resource.

Store large sections of data on the filesystem on disk, and, if necessary, store pointers to those disk files in the registry.

The existance of an app with questionable behavior is not to be construed as a recommendation to perpetuate said behavior.

  • S

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@resplendence.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 07:09
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] Registry size limits in XP and Vista

This information is definitely outdated or plain false. I have witnessed MBs
of data stored in single values by MS applications.

//Daniel

“Ray Trent” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
> statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
> It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
> about value sizes being limited only by memory:
>
> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
>
>>

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

11

Obviously this was not a recommendation but just to point out there is no
such hard limit (whether for single values or for all values inside a single
key).

//Daniel

“Skywing” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
Those apps are bad citizens for doing so. The registry takes kernel mode
address space (plus commit of course), which is a scarce resource.
Store large sections of data on the filesystem on disk, and, if necessary,
store pointers to those disk files in the registry.
The existance of an app with questionable behavior is not to be construed as
a recommendation to perpetuate said behavior.

- S

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@resplendence.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 07:09
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] Registry size limits in XP and Vista

This information is definitely outdated or plain false. I have witnessed MBs
of data stored in single values by MS applications.

//Daniel

“Ray Trent” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
> statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
> It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
> about value sizes being limited only by memory:
>
> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
>
>>

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

12

“Ray Trent” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
> statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
> It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
> about value sizes being limited only by memory:

This note seems to apply to win9x.
–pa

>
> From: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986
>
> The following table lists the data types that are currently defined and
> that are used by Windows. The maximum size of a value name is as follows:
>
> * Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista: 16,383
> characters
> * Windows 2000: 260 ANSI characters or 16,383 Unicode characters
> * Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 255 characters
>
> Long values (more than 2,048 bytes) must be stored as files with the file
> names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform efficiently.
> The maximum size of a value is as follows:
>
> * Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003/Windows
> Vista: Available memory
> * Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 16,300 bytes
>
> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
>
> xxxxx@yahoo.com wrote:
>>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the System branch,
>>> sometimes it fails with >STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>>
>> Which call is failing ? You may already know this but Microsoft advises
>> against having lot of data in registry. Probably time to find a new place
>> to store stuff ?
>>
>> Satya
>> http://www.winprogger.com
>>
>>
>
> –
> Ray
> (If you want to reply to me off list, please remove “spamblock.” from my
> email address)
>

13

“Petr Kurtin” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> I think GetSystemRegistryQuota just returns global registry quota limits
> (i.e. NtQuerySystemInformation/SystemRegistryQuotaInformation
> encapstulation, available from early NT systems). There’s only hard system
> hive limitation - as Daniel pointed out in his 2nd post.

The kb article pointed by Daniel (kb292726, 302594) states only the limits
for win2003.

Does anybody know the System hive limit for WinXP,
and meaning of the values returned by GetSystemRegistryQuota for WinXP?
Is it total size of all hives or just System?
(btw, I’ve tested it on XP SP3 and the numbers are same as in perfmon
counter % Registry Quota In Use )

Thanks,
– pa

> Petr
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Pavel A.
> Sent: 8. dubna 2009 0:35
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: Re:[ntdev] Registry size limits in XP and Vista
>
> wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> BTW: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292726/
>
> Thank you Daniel.
>
> So, could anybody explain why GetSystemRegistryQuota API
> has been added in Xp SP1?
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724387(VS.85).aspx
>
> What could this “quota” mean for WinXP or Vista/win7?
>
> – pa
>
>> wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>>> There are a lot of calls (in particular RegSaveKeyXX/RestoreKey/LoadKey
>>> interfaces) which unexplainably return STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES
>>> which appear in no way related to either available memory or registry
>>> size. These problems appear on virgin systems and are still present on
>>> the latest OSes. It looks to me there are some unexplainable bugs buried
>>> deep inside the configuration manager that I am not able to understand
>>> or
>
>>> track down and I suspect they used STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES as a
>>> generic error return value.
>>>
>>> About the registry size limit, AFAIK it was only present on NT and Win2k
>>> while from XP the registry was equipped to dynamically grow. Maybe
>>> somebody else can say something authoritative.
>>>
>>> //Daniel
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “Pavel A.” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>>>> KB 94993 states that the global Registry size limit parameter
>>>> in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\RegistrySizeLimit
>>>> is not applicable to XP.
>>>>
>>>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/94993#appliesto
>>>>
>>>> But this KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/235487 says
>>>> that XP still has some registry size limit.
>>>>
>>>> Could anybody explain what exactly is this value -
>>>> the size of RAM used by all loaded hives,
>>>> or only size of the System hive, or what.
>>>> Can we increase the max, like it was possible in win2k or NT?
>>>>
>>>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the
>>>> System branch, sometimes it fails with STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>> – pa
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer
>
>

14

There’s all sorts of inaccurate information in that kb:

REG_MULTI_SZ:

A multiple string. Values that contain lists or multiple values in a form that people can read are
generally this type. Entries are separated by spaces, commas, or other marks.

mm

xxxxx@resplendence.com wrote:

This information is definitely outdated or plain false. I have witnessed
MBs of data stored in single values by MS applications.

//Daniel

“Ray Trent” wrote in message
> news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the
>> following statement means when it refers to the total size of all
>> values in a key? It seems to contradict other statements in other
>> Microsoft documentation about value sizes being limited only by memory:
>>
>> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
>>
>>>
>
>

15

> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

That’s wrong. Take a look at that shared dlls/known dlls/whatever it’s called key.

mm

Ray Trent wrote:

On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the following
statement means when it refers to the total size of all values in a key?
It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft documentation
about value sizes being limited only by memory:

From: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986

The following table lists the data types that are currently defined and
that are used by Windows. The maximum size of a value name is as follows:

* Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista: 16,383 characters
* Windows 2000: 260 ANSI characters or 16,383 Unicode characters
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 255 characters

Long values (more than 2,048 bytes) must be stored as files with the
file names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform
efficiently. The maximum size of a value is as follows:

* Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003/Windows
Vista: Available memory
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 16,300 bytes

Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

xxxxx@yahoo.com wrote:
>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the System branch,
>> sometimes it fails with >STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>
> Which call is failing ?
> You may already know this but Microsoft advises against having lot of
> data in registry. Probably time to find a new place to store stuff ?
>
> Satya
> http://www.winprogger.com
>
>

16

Martin O’Brien wrote:

There’s all sorts of inaccurate information in that kb:

REG_MULTI_SZ:

A multiple string. Values that contain lists or multiple values in a
form that people can read are generally this type. Entries are
separated by spaces, commas, or other marks.

Wow, that’s fairly amazing. Based on the number, that article must have
been written about 15 years ago, but even at that time, the syntax of
REG_MULTI_SZ was well-established.

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

17

I think that you are misinterpreting this statement. I believe that it means
that the maximum size of a key is 64K not the data itself.

Bill Wandel

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]
On Behalf Of Martin O’Brien
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 5:09 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] Registry size limits in XP and Vista

Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

That’s wrong. Take a look at that shared dlls/known dlls/whatever it’s
called key.

mm

Ray Trent wrote:

On a related note, does anyone know what the last line of the
following statement means when it refers to the total size of all values
in a key?
It seems to contradict other statements in other Microsoft
documentation about value sizes being limited only by memory:

From: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986

The following table lists the data types that are currently defined
and that are used by Windows. The maximum size of a value name is as
follows:

* Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista: 16,383
characters
* Windows 2000: 260 ANSI characters or 16,383 Unicode characters
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 255 characters

Long values (more than 2,048 bytes) must be stored as files with the
file names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform
efficiently. The maximum size of a value is as follows:

* Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server
2003/Windows
Vista: Available memory
* Windows Millennium Edition/Windows 98/Windows 95: 16,300 bytes

Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

xxxxx@yahoo.com wrote:
>> We have an app that stores lots of data under the System branch,
>> sometimes it fails with >STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES.
>
> Which call is failing ?
> You may already know this but Microsoft advises against having lot of
> data in registry. Probably time to find a new place to store stuff ?
>
> Satya
> http://www.winprogger.com
>
>

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

18

Bill Wandel wrote:

I think that you are misinterpreting this statement. I believe that it means
that the maximum size of a key is 64K not the data itself.

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. What, in your view, is
the difference between “size of a key” and “the data itself”?

The statement seems quite unambiguous, and quite wrong:

> Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.

A registry tree contains “keys”, “value names”, and “values”. The data
items themselves are called “values”. This statement says the total
size of all of the values is 64K. There are many, many keys in my
registry that contain more than 64k in values.

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

19

+1

Though I think that we can all agree that this article sucks.

I knew that it was old, thought I can’t say that I knew that the article was THAT old. Unless
whoever ‘updated’ it was having an unusually bad day, that person really needs to be fired, in my
opinion.

Obviously, the intent was not to intentionally mislead people, but there’s a lot of information in
that article that makes it appear to be modern, which I guess it is if you just view it as totally
incorrect:

Last Review: February 4, 2008

The registry in 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista is divided
into 32-bit and 64-bit keys.

et. c.

Incidentally, Tim, what ‘number’ of are you referring to that indicated to you that it was that old?
The KB/Q#, 64K, other?

Just curious.

Thanks,

mm

Tim Roberts wrote:

Bill Wandel wrote:
> I think that you are misinterpreting this statement. I believe that it means
> that the maximum size of a key is 64K not the data itself.
>

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. What, in your view, is
the difference between “size of a key” and “the data itself”?

The statement seems quite unambiguous, and quite wrong:

> > Note There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
>

A registry tree contains “keys”, “value names”, and “values”. The data
items themselves are called “values”. This statement says the total
size of all of the values is 64K. There are many, many keys in my
registry that contain more than 64k in values.

20

Martin O’Brien wrote:

I knew that it was old, thought I can’t say that I knew that the
article was THAT old. Unless whoever ‘updated’ it was having an
unusually bad day, that person really needs to be fired, in my opinion.
…
Incidentally, Tim, what ‘number’ of are you referring to that
indicated to you that it was that old? The KB/Q#, 64K, other?

The KB number, in the 250,000 range. Also, the fact that it says it
applies to Windows 95.

15 years is probably too old. Based on the other articles in that
range, it was probably written in 1998.

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.