4 ms·
> Easier to work with files, I can grep them, version them, diff them, edit them with any tool I want. Microsoft could have exposed the registry as a filesyste
by skissane 3y ago
> Easier to work with files, I can grep them, version them, diff them, edit them with any tool I want.
Microsoft could have exposed the registry as a filesystem. R: drive or \\winreg\ or whatever.
They kind of have with Powershell, but that's Powershell-specific. They could have made it part of the OS so it was available to all apps, like /proc and /sys on Linux. And then you could do all those things to them too.
- JdeBP 3y agoIn terms of the native API, it is viewed as a filesystem, accessed via the Object Manager like everything else. The registry is under \REGISTRY .
- skissane 3y agoNot really, because although it is in the Object Manager namespace, it isn't composed of File objects, it is composed of Key objects. So the normal file APIs (e.g. NtOpenFile) don't work on it, instead you have to use NtOpenKey/etc If it were actually a filesystem, it would be composed of File objects, so you could manipulate it using the exact same API calls you use to manipulate files – which would mean that tools/utilities/apps which know how to manipulate files would just magically work on registry keys too.