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Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

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Re: Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

#171

Post by trevorishere »

trevorishere wrote: post #66
veltas wrote: post #39

A point being overlooked by article and commenters: the records in the registry probably use in the order of 10-100 bytes each, while every actual file takes up at least around 1024 (EDIT: maybe more like 4096?) bytes. Putting tiny 'files' into a special format is a no-brainer on the older computers that existed when the Registry was first created. I am assuming this was one of the motivations to create the Registry…

However, by default on NTFS, there will be 4096-N bytes of used space each time the specific hive needs to grow to accommodate those 10-100 bytes (this varied historically if we're talking about NT 4 and below, depending on volume size) due to format cluster size. That said, it is still smaller than 100 files that are 10-100 bytes each taking up 4096 bytes, though with NTFS, those would be stored in the MFT anyways..…

I should add to this, as we know file system filters (e.g., anti-virus) slow down access to read (and write, but irrelevant here) files from any file system format on Windows (NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, etc), storing configuration data in configuration files would be less optimal, though minimal in terms of performance (given your app wasn't constantly re-reading the file). This wouldn't be the case with the Registry, as the hives are already open.

Re: Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

#173

Post by secondcoming »

silvestrov wrote: post #83
Someone1234 wrote: post #9

I really appreciate when people use technical facts to criticize something, like with this. It is a well written take-down of the implementation of the Windows Registry as of both today and 2010. I suspect if the concept of the registry was created today it would look more like a database (e.g. Sqlite), although organizing it like a virtual FileSystem does have a certain appeal, and unfortunately I don't know of a da…

If I was to reimplement it, I would not let any app read the DB directly. Instead I would make an HTTP like interface where you talk to a service that provides the get/set functionality and which always use a text format like an extended JSON with native support for date, int32, etc. This also enabled much easier and better backwards compability as you can specify app-version in the requests, so a version 5 server ca…

I assume the service will run in a docker container too??

Re: Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

#175

Post by RajT88 »

stockerta wrote: post #35
bluetomcat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UNIX way is undeniably more flexible since it isn't a virtual filesystem, it is just a filesystem. Unix simply doesn't have a "way" in that regard, other than a loose convention to put text files in "/etc". Every application comes up with its own format. Parsing that file is application-specific. Updating a value in a text file means re-writing the whole file again. It is a technically-inferior approach that ha…

I hate this fanatical love of the UNIX way. I really hate that as of today Windows is the only non UNIX OS. I trully believe that this fact set us back. No more exciting new OSes only boring unix.

TempleOS is radically different than either Windows or Unixy OS's.

I would actually not even compare it to them, and just say it's flat out Radical.

Re: Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

#178

Post by _tom_ »

mvaliente2001 wrote: post #177

https://www.libelektra.org/home is an attempt to bring a registry to linux. It doesn't have the problems of its windows equivalent. I wish this project was more popular.

Why?

The windows registry is a disaster.

The whole idea is wrong. You want to keep configuration with the thing being configured.

Most Mac installs are "drag the folder on to your disk". You are done.

Re: Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

#179

Post by a-dub »

i think the windows registry probably sucks because windows was primarily built to enable developers and end users to use microcomputers to make money (where messes are acceptable as long as it makes money) and unix differs in that it was built to enable telephony engineers to operate a telephone network reliably and efficiently.

so if you're an engineer or scientist or care about operations, you like unix style systems because they were built with you in mind. you, like internal bell system engineers and researchers, are the end user.

if you only care about money, windows is your jam because who cares you can always use money to make people suffer whatever horrendous mess that results from using windows and everybody dumping crap in the registry because who cares it makes money.

Re: Why the Windows Registry sucks technically (2010)

#180

Post by monocasa »

There's a mountain of valid complaints for the windows registry, but it not being a database is not one.

It's a pretty standard (albeit very simple) hierarchical database like IMS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Information_Management_Sys...

Hierarchical DBs have fallen out of favor a bit, but they were the first DBs.

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