Why does windows registry exist

It created a single point entry for the entire system's application configuration control. It would have been a nice usecase for an embedded network database e. Raima used by Rational or a text database Bernstein's cdb. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Why does the Windows registry exist? Asked 12 years ago.

Active 1 year, 7 months ago. Viewed 9k times. Improve this question. I'd be interested in seeing you justify the claim that a filesystem is a more natural way of doing it. I count files in totat, including subdirs. It's not conherent, not simple, and though some of it might be unserstandable - stuff like sendmail. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes.

Centralized - which is useful for roaming profiles. Transactional - which makes it harder to smash your configuration. Improve this answer. Kevin Montrose Kevin Montrose Nice to-the-point summary.

What's transactional about registry? Do you mean that individual value updates are atomic? Or do you mean Vista's Transactional Registry which is quite obviously a very recent development?

I believe this is actually down to the historical point that the registry acts as a kind of common interface for application settings. No need to "ensure user profiles", no need to directly access the file system at all. Win32 looks after all that. In addition to simply storing application settings, the registry is the means by which programs and components locate other programs and components.

Ultimately, I think this is why its centralized into a single database as opposed to spread across thousands of text or xml files. For example, a component that performs, say, video effects 'registers' itself in the registry, allowing other video related applications to know of its existence and use it. By having a centralized system for this, it avoids what would be serious mess as thousands of systems and applications use different methods to achieve that level of integration.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why is Windows registry needed? Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 8 months ago. Active 3 years ago. Viewed 9k times. In Mac OS you can install and remove apps by just dropping them into a particular folder. So, A What essential problem it is trying to solve?

B How do other operating systems solve it? Improve this question. Job Job 6, 3 3 gold badges 31 31 silver badges 54 54 bronze badges.

Applications can be installed by Drag-and-drop on Windows as well. The Eclipse IDE is the first example that comes to mind. There are others, I'm sure. The registry is also used to configure many other aspects of the operating system I always thought that was the primary purpose of its existance and other programs, and can also be abused in all kinds of interesting and creative ways.

See fun. See en. You can have two versions of office installed so the "limitation" you mention isn't just artificial its fictional — Conrad Frix. When did you experience this problem where you wanted run two Office installs side by side?

Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. The registry is a hierarchical database manager -- nothing more and nothing less. Improve this answer. Jerry Coffin Jerry Coffin Conrad Frix: what makes you think ACID transactions or a query language is necessarily part of a database? Jerry, of course. I agree with you there. But as evidenced by Conrad's comment many are inclined to assume certain things about the properties of something called a "database", so I guess my attempt at mediation is just a lose-lose.

Conrad Frix: some file systems aren't hierarchic, of course. JBRWilkinson: You have things backwards. There are other components that depend on hard-coded locations in the registry just as there are components on Unix that depend on hard-coded file paths. That doesn't change what the registry is or does though. Show 12 more comments. The fact that Mac OS has a near one-to-one match for organizational groups of system and application data illustrates that the Windows Registry is a completely justified system that is just a different way of doing things The non-file-system nature of the registry does make it harder to back up, restore or migrate parts of it while leaving others, so I do prefer the Mac system, but the purpose is nearly identical.

Community Bot 1. Nicole Nicole True, the registry originally started out as a settings repository, as a replacement for INI files, however these days, it is often used as a general data storage, hence the bloated hives. Add a comment. I have never understood what essential problem it is trying to solve.

XML file security is not granular enough. But since the XML configuration file is read-only, the primary objection is sidestepped. But if you want only administrators to have permission to read specific parts of the XML, then you're in trouble. This helps the registry perform efficiently. The maximum size of a value is as follows:. Before you edit the registry, export the keys in the registry that you plan to edit, or back up the whole registry.

If a problem occurs, you can then follow the steps in the Restore the registry section to restore the registry to its previous state. To back up the whole registry, use the Backup utility to back up the system state. For more information about how to use the Backup utility to back up the system state, see the following articles:. Back up and restore your PC. How to use the backup feature to back up and restore data in Windows Server To modify registry data, a program must use the registry functions that are defined in Registry Functions.

Administrators can modify the registry by using Registry Editor Regedit. We recommend that you use the Windows user interface to change your system settings instead of manually editing the registry. However, editing the registry may sometimes be the best method to resolve a product issue. If the issue is documented in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, an article with step-by-step instructions to edit the registry for that issue will be available.

We recommend that you follow those instructions exactly. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved.

Modify the registry at your own risk. The navigation area of Registry Editor displays folders. Each folder represents a predefined key on the local computer. Microsoft Management Console MMC hosts administrative tools that you can use to administer networks, computers, services, and other system components. The Group Policy MMC snap-in lets administrators define policy settings that are applied to computers or users.

Create a Registration Entries. You can run the. For more information, see How to add, modify, or delete registry subkeys and values by using a Registration Entries. For more information about these methods, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:. RegDelete method. RegRead method. RegWrite method. WBEM is an industry initiative to develop a standard technology for accessing management information in an enterprise environment.

You can use WMI to automate administrative tasks such as editing the registry in an enterprise environment. For help with the Reg. To restore registry subkeys that you exported, double-click the Registration Entries.