Cleaned up registry, scanreg/fix still stalls

Running Windows98 Second Edition. I am not experiencing any trouble.
Initially got into a registry cleanup project because scanreg/fix (running
in DOS) would stall at System.dat 1%. At that time my system.dat was 9.4
Meg. I removed unused apps, Norton system works, a bunch of Adobe stuff
related to Photoshop, which I don't use anymore. My system.dat is now at
7.8 Meg and scanreg/fix still stalls. From posts on the subject I assume
one attitude about this is that is not a big deal. scanreg/fix is something
that you shouldn't be running anyway. However, I am now curious as to
whether anybody has experience with this and can tell me it is ether
permanently not going to work once System.dat exceeds 8 meg? Suppose my
system needs to run scanreg/fix on its own, will it stall also and timeout
before dropping back to a good copy of the registry?

I am not in any trouble, just trying to understand and keep my system
running okay.

TIA