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> the registry is the perfect place to put configuration data, provided Microsoft's guidelines[0] on registry key creation/deletion and hive use are followed

Few people follow that stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft's own people didn't follow that stuff. The result is of course a mess that users have to clean up with software like CCleaner or whatever people use these days.

It sucks even if those guidelines are followed. Configuration is data and belongs to the users. I know people who really like portable applications that they can keep on a USB drive and use anywhere and this registry bullshit breaks that.

> I would argue every OS should have its own 'registry' for a universal location to set configuration for programs.

And I would argue otherwise. The Windows registry is essentially a poor excuse for a proper file system. I think at least one Linux desktop environment tried to reinvent this crap and it sucked just as hard.

> every application shall have its own configuration file parsing/serialising/deserialising routine

The Windows registry values are essentially memory dumps of C types. It's perfectly possible to simply dump raw bytes into binary files on Linux too if you don't care about stuff like endianness. The result would be strictly superior to the Windows registry because the files are being stored in a real file system.

> I guess this is why people dislike systemd so much: it reminds them too much of Windows.

I like systemd.




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