> Almost every software out there leaves waste behind in your registry after you uninstall it. I think this is just a design flaw of the implementation itself.

> Almost every software out there leaves waste behind in your registry after you uninstall it. I think this is just a design flaw of the implementation itself. Why couldn't every entry have a few more fields under the hood: programsDependingOnThisEntry: [PROGRAM_FOO, PROGRAM_BAR] I know that this might bloat the overall size of it, but in my experience most data structures that aren't a graph of some sort but need to be used by multiple consumers will eventually become full of orphaned data. In this example, references to actual installed programs would make sure that when you have orphaned data it can be removed automatically (or the choice given to you), much like apt might suggest that you have some packages that aren't used by any other piece of software anymore. For informative purposes, maybe also add: entryFirstAdded: 2005.05.15 14:00 entryLastChanged: 2006.11.04 17:35 entryLastRead: 2008.10.13 13:00 The timestamps could optionally assist in figuring out when the values were changed/added/actually used, so you know how important something is. If an entry hasn't been accessed in 5 years of your daily usage or something, quite possibly it isn't awfully important.