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Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

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Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#191

Post by djakjxnanjak »

w1nst0nsm1th wrote: post #114

It's not related to the actual article but the footnote about advertisment is what strike me the most : > Advertising revenue is falling fast across the Internet, and independently-run sites like Ghacks are hit hardest by it. The advertising model in its current form is coming to an end, and we have to find other ways to continue operating this site. It's no wonder Google is pushing to remove (partially) the ability…

The proportion of Google’s ad revenue coming from ads displayed on Google properties keeps growing.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#193

Post by jodrellblank »

toyg wrote: post #179
jodrellblank wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Holding the phone wrong" referred to people using something as they'd expect, but it not working at all. The registry turned to trash by people using it wrongly, because people don't write software very well. When ordinary users needed admin rights because developers stored per-user settings in the system-wide config, that's developers misusing the registry. When tools register themselves as file-format-handlers in…

The minute you make third-party developers potentially responsible for the overall stability of your system, the fault is yours, sorry. Microsoft simply did not grok security principles when building Windows 95, and they have been paying the price ever since. > your /home/.program/program.conf file is from a newer version and the program doesn't run. But a problem in program.conf would sabotage the program, not the e…

Windows 95 wasn't multi-user and was from a time when the only software most people would install was some they bought from a company you trust. I hazard a guess that with NT4 and Windows 2000, the user hive was unlikely to be able to crash your system - sure something probably could, but it was at that point separate between what a user could do and what an admin could do. At that point, giving an installer root access to affect the system areas and then complaining that it could screw up a computer, would happen on any OS from any company. If your argument is really that "it was a free for all initially therefore I discount anything they learned or changed since" - that isn't very convincing.

> But a problem in program.conf would sabotage the program, not the entire system. Whereas a bad registry can stop you from booting. That is the main problem.

A bad user hive stored on a network drive, can stop a terminal server from booting? Can it? That's the comparison with /home/.program/program.conf that you're replying to.

> A real unix equivalent could maybe be a problem with something in /etc, but that stuff is supposed to be 1) set to basic defaults that will work in any circumstance

Like a kind of "safe mode" that can boot after something has screwed up the registry?

> That's why developers end up managing text files: because they work everywhere, in 1995 as in 2019; whereas APIs come and go.

Yeah, I've never had to fix character encoding issues in text files, or line ending, or newline at end of file, or escaping or quoting issues in text files, because they're all the same and never cause any problems. Microsoft APIs from years ago still work.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#194

Post by Razengan »

partiallypro wrote: post #80
Waterluvian wrote: post #37

I just booted up a windows 10 machine earlier today for the first time in many months. It absolutely bewilders me how terribad the UI is. You have this fancy UI but if you ever click one or two options deep you end up getting these alternately styled legacy interfaces. It's so incoherent. It really makes windows 10 feel like a skin on top of windows xp. So when the article says Microsoft wants to push users into wind…

OSX does the same thing across apps and tools, with different menu styles that don't match etc.

It's not a matter of "it must either be a desert or either a rainforest."

Neither OS is faultlessly perfect in any area, but the macOS side of the UI consistency fence is definitely, objectively, much greener.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#196

Post by Razengan »

Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists?

I can usually intuitively infer where the plist for a particular app or subsystem may be stored, or just search for it using regular file system tools, and I can use many tools to read, edit and selectively backup/restore plists as well as compress them (something I make use of often, to restore settings only for specific apps on a fresh machine/installation, something that was very cumbersome to do with the Registry.)

I also have yet to experience plist corruptions even once for even one file on macOS, but several times with the Registry during my time on Windows, with multiple unrelated parts of the monolith crumbling at the same time.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#197

Post by krackers »

Razengan wrote: post #196

Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists? I can usually intuitively infer where the plist for a particular app or subsystem may be stored, or just search for it using regular file system tools, and I can use many tools to read, edit and selectively backup/restore plists as well as compress them (something I make use of often, to restore settings only for…

Storing configuration as plaintext files is definitely a big positive, as it allows you to use standard and battle-tested file apis to manipulate them instead of an opaque blob that then requires an additional platform specific API.

The only benefit I can see of a monolithic registry is that it's technically all organized in one central place, compared to say the Linux practice of scattering app settings in home directories (although XDG does help standardize this). But in practice the Windows approach seem to provide an unnecessarily tight coupling.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#198

Post by grzm »

Razengan wrote: post #196

Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists? I can usually intuitively infer where the plist for a particular app or subsystem may be stored, or just search for it using regular file system tools, and I can use many tools to read, edit and selectively backup/restore plists as well as compress them (something I make use of often, to restore settings only for…

> "Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Rationale

The Registry has been around since Windows 3.1. While it's not required to use the Registry, I can imagine there's a large installed base of applications that do use it, and migrating off of something like this can take concerted effort if they decide it's worth the effort.

When there's something I initially find incredulous, I try to take step back and recognize that very likely the people involved in making those decisions have a better perspective on the situation than I do. I've found Chesterton's Fence to be a useful metaphor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

Taking that into account, even my explanation is likely wrong. And even given everything you've said is true, there are any number of additional issues known to those involved than the ones you've put forth.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#199

Post by mr_toad »

earenndil wrote: post #181
jrockway wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does the advertiser know they're not being ripped off, reaching their target demo, etc. The same way print ads have worked for ... centuries?

Print ads have worked for centuries. Digital ads with analytics work 1000 times better .

> Digital ads with analytics work 1000 times better.

In what way could they possibly work 1000 times (or, ignoring the hyperbole) 10x or even 2x better?

They don’t magically grant consumers more money to spend on goods and services.

It’s a zero-sum game in which companies compete in advertising budgets, instead of producing better cheaper products.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#200

Post by Razengan »

grzm wrote: post #198
Razengan wrote: post #196

Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists? I can usually intuitively infer where the plist for a particular app or subsystem may be stored, or just search for it using regular file system tools, and I can use many tools to read, edit and selectively backup/restore plists as well as compress them (something I make use of often, to restore settings only for…

> "Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Rationale The Registry has been around since Windows 3.1. While it's not required to use the Registry, I can imagine there's a large installed base of applications that do use it, and migrating off of something like this can take concerted effort if they decide i…

Windows used to have lots of .INI files, but almost all apps kept them all in C:\Windows or System or some such place.

If only they had discovered the concept of subfolders, instead of shuttling them off into another monolithic container. I suspect having many subdirectories degraded filesystem performance at the time.

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