The Windows 3.1 version really was just a registry though - it recorded COM object registrations and nothing else. The idea of dumping a whole bunch of unrelate

The Windows 3.1 version really was just a registry though - it recorded COM object registrations and nothing else. The idea of dumping a whole bunch of unrelated system and app configuration in there was a Windows 95 thing. As for why they did it, that probably seemed like a good idea at the time and there's no way to get rid of it now even if we wanted to.