3 ms·
The performance part is questionable, as is the discoverability: Programs write binary blobs to impossible-to-find keys and, as we see here, there's nothing pre
by msla 3y ago
The performance part is questionable, as is the discoverability: Programs write binary blobs to impossible-to-find keys and, as we see here, there's nothing preventing a severe loss of performance if the program writes too much to the registry. It can only be examined with specialized tools, and, due to the binary values written to it, it might not be meaningfully editable at all.
- akira2501 3y agoIt's also really a pain once you realize that many strings are stored in raw UTF16 form. It makes using any tools or doing any automation on the values much harder than it should be.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoThere's also no mechanism for the OS to offer the user the ability to purge registry entries when a program is uninstalled, so the registry just bloats further and further.
- rvba 3y agoRegistry bloat was one of the reasons why reinstalling Windows used to speed up computers in the 95-2000 times.
- nullindividual 3y agoThis is no different with most Linux distributions or macOS. When applications are deployed and create configuration files (system-wide or user), they're often not removed when deleting the application.
- RajT88 3y agoInstallers are supposed to do that. But they have to be well-written installers (many aren't). And anyways, lots of installers are written by companies which want to leave their footprint behind even if you do uninstall. Finding orphaned registry entries is hard - it's not always clear what application put them there, and how to determine that the application is still installed.