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>) Fixing a Windows problem can involve having to go into the registry, which can't be copy/pasted and is extremely difficult AND dangerous. (There probably IS

>) Fixing a Windows problem can involve having to go into the registry, which can't be copy/pasted and is extremely difficult AND dangerous. (There probably IS a way to copy/paste it, but I don't know it). You absolutely can copy/paste registry edits. You paste the edit in a plain text .reg file and let the system patch it in for you. [1]https://www.howtogeek.com/382727/what-is-a-reg-file-and-how-do-i-open-one/ https://www.howtogeek.com/382727/what-is-a-reg-file-and-how-...

kevingadd 6y ago
I'd much rather run a narrowly scoped (diff-style) .reg file than unpack an entire configuration file from a .tar.gz and potentially blow away existing settings (which has happened to me more than once when installing system updates...)
- stonewareslord 6y ago
  You can diff Unix configs with... diff I don't think it's ever advisible to tar -xf- -C / to fix a minor config issue. Just extract in tmp and diff -aru etc /etc
  - romwell 6y ago
    Sure, but with .reg files all you need to do is look at the contents of the .reg file to see what the diff is. The .reg file is the diff. Could not have been simpler. That's one upside of the registry being a database rather than a text file.
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    The outer post was talking about helping family members with their computers. They're gonna be dragging files around in the Linux equivalent of Explorer, not extracting stuff to tmp and manually applying diffs. So doing a 1:1 comparison on that basis, the Registry has the standard tools of the trade on Linux beat. There's certainly no particular reason you couldn't send someone a .sh file that manually applies your diffs to grandma's config file, I guess... FWIW I've had Ubuntu system updates blow away entire config files (helpfully setting the old one aside, at least) instead of applying diffs, but maybe that was the package maintainers being naughty.

kevingadd 6y ago

I'd much rather run a narrowly scoped (diff-style) .reg file than unpack an entire configuration file from a .tar.gz and potentially blow away existing settings (which has happened to me more than once when installing system updates...)

stonewareslord 6y ago
You can diff Unix configs with... diff I don't think it's ever advisible to tar -xf- -C / to fix a minor config issue. Just extract in tmp and diff -aru etc /etc
- romwell 6y ago
  Sure, but with .reg files all you need to do is look at the contents of the .reg file to see what the diff is. The .reg file is the diff. Could not have been simpler. That's one upside of the registry being a database rather than a text file.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  The outer post was talking about helping family members with their computers. They're gonna be dragging files around in the Linux equivalent of Explorer, not extracting stuff to tmp and manually applying diffs. So doing a 1:1 comparison on that basis, the Registry has the standard tools of the trade on Linux beat. There's certainly no particular reason you couldn't send someone a .sh file that manually applies your diffs to grandma's config file, I guess... FWIW I've had Ubuntu system updates blow away entire config files (helpfully setting the old one aside, at least) instead of applying diffs, but maybe that was the package maintainers being naughty.