Symptoms:
On a Windows XP or Windows
2003
Server you get a warning window giving you the following
error message :
Window Title : Windows – Low on Registry
Space
The system has reached the maximum
size allowed for
the system
part of the registry . Additional
storage requests will be ignored.
The main cause is that Windows page-file is corrupted.
This problem seems to occur in the following circumstances :
– After the installation of Service Pack 2 on Windows 2003 servers.
– After a change of hardware
– And by far the most common occurrence that we have seen is when a change of antivirus software, or a major update to antivirus software, is performed. For example, upgrade from ESET NOD32 v4.2 to v5.0.
For anyone else experiencing this specific “Low on Registry Space” error who does not fall in either of the above two categories, the corruption may have occurred during a power surge or power cut (if your PC is not protected by a UPS), or during a freeze of your PC/server, or, lastly , your hard disk may be going bad and starting to corrupt files and the paging file (if you think it may be the latter, monitor the situation carefully – check, in particular, for NTFS errors in the System log of the Event Viewer).
– After the installation of Service Pack 2 on Windows 2003 servers.
– After a change of hardware
– And by far the most common occurrence that we have seen is when a change of antivirus software, or a major update to antivirus software, is performed. For example, upgrade from ESET NOD32 v4.2 to v5.0.
For anyone else experiencing this specific “Low on Registry Space” error who does not fall in either of the above two categories, the corruption may have occurred during a power surge or power cut (if your PC is not protected by a UPS), or during a freeze of your PC/server, or, lastly , your hard disk may be going bad and starting to corrupt files and the paging file (if you think it may be the latter, monitor the situation carefully – check, in particular, for NTFS errors in the System log of the Event Viewer).
Solution:
- Go to the Control Panel.
- Open the System icon.
- Choose the Advanced tab.
- Click Settings in the Performance sub-section.
- Choose the Advanced tab.
- Click CHANGE in the Virtual Memory section.
- Choose the Advanced tab.
- Click CHANGE in the Virtual Memory section. You will now see that the paging file has a zero size (shown at the bottom under "Currently allocated")
- Change the paging file setting to System managed size.
- Click SET.
- Click OK.
- At this point you may be asked if you want to overwrite the old paging file - Answer YES !
- Click OK all the way out back to the Control Panel.
- You may or may not be asked to reboot your computer. Reboot anyway.