The binary format is rather poor as is the norm on Windows, but you do have to remember one of the goals is that the boot loader can read part of the registry t

The binary format is rather poor as is the norm on Windows, but you do have to remember one of the goals is that the boot loader can read part of the registry to decide which drivers to load. The boot loader has to fit in a few sectors so there isn’t really room for SQLite or something.