Rants, Raves, and Praise → Re: Why do you hate Microsoft

Oh, you people have short memories.

The NT-style registry was introduced as a replacement for the text-file configuration of DOS and DOS-based Windows. The problem was that application installers kept screwing it up. To add a line loading your device driver requires such advanced programming as finding the right place in the file, adding a line, getting the format right, not re-doing the same thing on reinstall, etc. Certainly not rocket salad, but apparently beyond the capabilities of many application programmers.

A popluar complaint was "my system won't boot because this idiot app installer scrozzled config.sys/win.ini/autoexec.bat".

So a key/value database where changes can be made, without rewriting the whole thing, was a definite improvement. It made the OS more resilient against idiot programmers.

Windows is to some extent a victim of its own success. The original design was that the registry would live in the system virtual address space. But it worked so well that every app and its brother wants to keep stuff there, and the address limits (on a 32-bit system) are strained.

Mind you, I don't subscribe to this registry-rot theory. That is propaganda from people who hawk voodoo 'cleaning' software.

Well Dave there is nothing wrong with keeping your registry clean buddy.... I have cleaned tons out of my registry and you can see the difference..... (Better performance,etc) -- Think of it like just buying your computer.... The reg is clean then right??

Yeah, let me know when you start running the same operating system as I do (DOS-based Windows 98 has nothing in common wth today's Windows family derived from NT). And then I'll ask you for your performance metrics.

Really? It's a bad idea. How many viruses and malware hide out in the registry? How many people try to clean things out and have no clue about the registry with the GUIDs and other junk. Contrast that with Linux with config files and OS X with .PLIST files. Much easier to troubleshoot and see what's going on.

Have an issue with a Mac program? Search in 1 of 2 locations for com.manufacturer.app.plist file. Either edit it or remove it. The app will recreate it on its next launch.

Have an issue with Windows? Good luck searching the registry.

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Mind you, I don't subscribe to this registry-rot theory. That is propaganda from people who hawk voodoo 'cleaning' software.

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Sure it exists - as things don't get cleaned up, the file gets bloated.

Probably none. Putting a virus 'in' the registry would achieve nothing. What you want is to arrange that your virus gets automatically executed unknowingly. You can achieve this equally well by putting your virus-startup command in the 'automatic startup' part of a Windows registry, or in the /etc/init/rc structure of a Linux system, or whatever. It's simply the case that (a) you want to put the startup command somewhere, and (b) all useful operating systems provide such a place.

If you're trying to make the case that somehow a tree-structured key-value database is somehow 'more hidden' than a file in a special directory, fine. I think the distinction is trivial.That there are idiots who delete things does not make the desgn bad. That there are snake-oil salesmen who sell crap to idiots does not make the design bad. That there are people who dislike large numbers does not make the design bad.If you find a tree-structured key-value database difficult, I can't really help.Ah, 'bloated', the vague and meaningless complaint of the uninformed. I agree that the original VM limit can be troublesome, but it's an extreme case. But if all you're talking about is access speed, all I can say to that is, O(log(N)).

W.r.t. "don't get cleaned up" - lousy uninstallers.

Good luck getting a virus in /etc/init since that directory is root owned. It would require the user to manually install a malicious file as root. (The root user could just as easily run rm -rf /). Tricking a user into installing a malicious file is unlikely since Linux has something known as package managers (a concept unknown to Windows where Microsoft leaves users on their own). Sure it's possible to bypass the package manager by downloading some random .deb or .rpm from somewhere, but an inexperienced user will likely have a hard time getting it to install properly in the first place (and experienced users would never do it to start with).

Another option is malware that runs in userspace. This is possible with something like a Java exploit in the browser. However, what this malware can do will be severely limited and it will never own the whole box.I find it difficult to understand (though I haven't dealt with Windows in many years, so my memory is fuzzy). Much simpler is a mere config file a la Unix.

Gook luck getting a virus in HKLM, the 'run' key (etc) are admin-owned. It would require the user to be tricked into running the installer as admin.

(I think here we're back into the perennial debate over OS security versus a vast untrained user base that clicks before reading).

Windows has a 'package manager' too, it's called the MS Installer.

Re a 'mere config file' -- I'm not sure the maze of /etc/rc.N can be referred to as 'simple' any more. Sure, foobar.rc is simple in itself, but then again so is the HKLM/Software/FooBarCo/foobar subtree.