5 ms·

Drops the registry? What does that even mean?

mathw 9y ago
The Registry is the centralised configuration store which Windows introduced in Windows 95. Lots of people still don't like it.
- mintplant 9y ago
  ...because it's an impenetrable tangle of GUIDs, deep hierarchies, and keys left behind by apps long uninstalled.
  - douche 9y ago
    And for all intents and purposes you can pretend it doesn't exist, at this point. I've opened up Regedit in the past year, but I work with a piece of benighted software that supports a weird but useful feature designed fifteen years ago when doing unfathomable things with the registry was something people did.
    - bostand 9y ago
      That was my point. The fact that you can fiddle with it to change undocumented stuff should not be brought up as something negative.
  - rnhmjoj 9y ago
    What are the alternatives? The UNIX way of dumping hidden config files in $HOME doesn't look any better.
    - vondur 9y ago
      Text files are for the most part readable. The registry can be ugly to work with, if you have to. (which seems to be less and less these days)
    - Crespyl 9y ago
      These days XDG spec and most apps put things in ~/.config/, either as a single file or in their own subdirectory. It's easy to navigate and search, and apps can use whatever config format they want. I'd argue that's preferable to a complicated hierarchy of obscurely named keys.
    - prewett 9y ago
      Might not look better, but I can copy all my settings from computer to computer, unlike the registry. Also, the registry is used for a lot of stuff besides configs. So my experience on Windows is that you have to run the installers (=slow), rather than simply copying all the files to clone a system. Plus, it tends to fragment all across the disk, or something like that, and your Windows system inevitably slows down over time. Maybe SSDs eliminate that problem; I (fortunately) haven't had to use Windows in quite a few years.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        It's straightforward to copy the per-user software settings from one registry to another. You can't copy full software installs like that, but it's not the fault of the registry. Installing typical software means affecting dozens of system settings all in different places. You can't easily copy linux software along with every setting it affects either. You're best off either reinstalling or copying the entire drive, both of which work on Windows.
  - eropple 9y ago
    The last time I opened regedit was 2014. No, that's not true--I did once in 2015 to make a game written in 1998 work. I think we can lay this one to rest.
    - vetinari 9y ago
      I did it few weeks ago - Windows still doesn't like having either IPSec endpoint behind NAT by default.
    - falcolas 9y ago
      Capslock as Ctrl? That's a regedit. Copying putty settings from one host to another? That's a regedit. (Semi-) permanently disabling live scans from Windows Defender? That's a regedit.
      - mintplant 9y ago
        I use SharpKeys to automate the keymapping process on Windows. https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys One of the first things I install on any new system. Gotta have my Caps Lock->Escape.

The Registry is the centralised configuration store which Windows introduced in Windows 95. Lots of people still don't like it.

mintplant 9y ago
...because it's an impenetrable tangle of GUIDs, deep hierarchies, and keys left behind by apps long uninstalled.
- douche 9y ago
  And for all intents and purposes you can pretend it doesn't exist, at this point. I've opened up Regedit in the past year, but I work with a piece of benighted software that supports a weird but useful feature designed fifteen years ago when doing unfathomable things with the registry was something people did.
  - bostand 9y ago
    That was my point. The fact that you can fiddle with it to change undocumented stuff should not be brought up as something negative.
- rnhmjoj 9y ago
  What are the alternatives? The UNIX way of dumping hidden config files in $HOME doesn't look any better.
  - vondur 9y ago
    Text files are for the most part readable. The registry can be ugly to work with, if you have to. (which seems to be less and less these days)
  - Crespyl 9y ago
    These days XDG spec and most apps put things in ~/.config/, either as a single file or in their own subdirectory. It's easy to navigate and search, and apps can use whatever config format they want. I'd argue that's preferable to a complicated hierarchy of obscurely named keys.
  - prewett 9y ago
    Might not look better, but I can copy all my settings from computer to computer, unlike the registry. Also, the registry is used for a lot of stuff besides configs. So my experience on Windows is that you have to run the installers (=slow), rather than simply copying all the files to clone a system. Plus, it tends to fragment all across the disk, or something like that, and your Windows system inevitably slows down over time. Maybe SSDs eliminate that problem; I (fortunately) haven't had to use Windows in quite a few years.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      It's straightforward to copy the per-user software settings from one registry to another. You can't copy full software installs like that, but it's not the fault of the registry. Installing typical software means affecting dozens of system settings all in different places. You can't easily copy linux software along with every setting it affects either. You're best off either reinstalling or copying the entire drive, both of which work on Windows.
- eropple 9y ago
  The last time I opened regedit was 2014. No, that's not true--I did once in 2015 to make a game written in 1998 work. I think we can lay this one to rest.
  - vetinari 9y ago
    I did it few weeks ago - Windows still doesn't like having either IPSec endpoint behind NAT by default.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    Capslock as Ctrl? That's a regedit. Copying putty settings from one host to another? That's a regedit. (Semi-) permanently disabling live scans from Windows Defender? That's a regedit.
    - mintplant 9y ago
      I use SharpKeys to automate the keymapping process on Windows. https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys One of the first things I install on any new system. Gotta have my Caps Lock->Escape.