Does the registry grow and never shrink in new versions of windows?

[Maximilian]

Yeah yeah i know the other thread was locked... that was XP though, have things changed in vista/7/8? I also have some follow up questions about the registry im curious about:

1. Why dosent linux have a registry? Does every application to just store its config data in the install directory or?

2. From my brief skim of wiki it seems the registry isnt even necessary, a program can use XML files or inis or whatever to store its config data, why bother with the registry then?

3. Can someone give a simple example of a situation where a program would use the registry? I gather its for storing config data of some kind but... like... what exactly?

 

[corkyg]

Many programs use the Registry to execute automatic functions. You can see if you open RegEdit, and under MyComputer, look in HKEYUsers, Default, and Software. Two well known lines are from Google, the Toolbar and Toolbar Notifier. I have no clue about Linux.

 

[lxskllr]

GNU/Linux doesn't have one cause it doesn't :^D It isn't necessary. GNU/Linux uses config files in a couple directories. I prefer that method cause they're human readable without special software. The registry isn't a terrible idea, but I prefer things less abstracted.

 

[Doomer]

I too would like to know if the registry still only grows and never shrinks.

 

[Mushkins]

I too would like to know if the registry still only grows and never shrinks.

I think the same answer that was posted in the locked thread applies here: it's a couple megabytes, it's 2013, it doesn't matter.

From a technical standpoint, you continue to add settings and data to the registry over time, you rarely delete entries. It works the same as any other file: the filesize continues to increase as you continue to work with it. In this specific case the actual filesize is totally negligible.

 

[dighn]

yes it grows over time. in general new applications, new settings go into the registry. when you uninstall applications, many don't clean up all its registry entries, so over time the entries accumulate.

examples of things that go into the registry

- most recent documents list
- user configuration (e.g. view settings)
- internal application uses (e.g. registration of DLLs)

linux as previous said store configurations in special directories (e.g. /etc). those actually also grow over time as you install new applications and use them. the only difference is that it's a file system representation instead of a proprietary database. in the end, it doesn't matter. the size of the database can be considered negligible with the kind of storage, memory and CPU capacities we have today.

 

[taq8ojh]

The registry's size is not a problem, the complexity is. There are gazzilions of entries, and searching for something takes pretty long even with really fast CPU, so I can see how it can be a bottleneck in some situations. Of course it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's annoying to wait for a program to uninstall while seeing there's nothing going on, not even any disk activity at all.

But considering what I wrote, I don't think it can get worse over time as more stuff is added. It's bad already

 

[mikeymikec]

I've heard that it can't/doesn't shrink during normal use, but I've never read anything that I would consider to be conclusive about it.

I can see a reason for the registry (one place for all settings), but Microsoft has hardly kept to that ideal (e.g. WMI data, off the top of my head), and I think that Microsoft wanted a way to make things unnecessarily complicated, possibly to make it more difficult for amateurs to tinker with; case in point: CLSIDs.

Btw, to the person who said "it's a couple of megabytes": On my Win7 64 setup, the SOFTWARE hive file is 71.25MB in size and the SYSTEM hive file is 32.25MB.

 

[zCypher]

I bet it shrinks when you delete some of its entries

 

[mikeymikec]

I bet it shrinks when you delete some of its entries

That would require a method of reclaiming the space that was originally used by the registry data. You may think that's a sensible assumption, but it isn't, partly because that's not how allocation for file data works.

 

[Dude111]

Yeah yeah i know the other thread was locked... that was XP though, have things changed in vista/7/8? I also have some follow up questions about the registry im curious about:

1. Why dosent linux have a registry? Does every application to just store its config data in the install directory or?

That would be nice!! (EVERY APP DOING THAT)

I love the scanreg/fix option -- RECREATES THE REG!! (Removing spaces where stuff has been removed thus making it smaller)

 

[amenx]

The registry's size is not a problem, the complexity is. There are gazzilions of entries, and searching for something takes pretty long even with really fast CPU, so I can see how it can be a bottleneck in some situations. Of course it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's annoying to wait for a program to uninstall while seeing there's nothing going on, not even any disk activity at all.

But considering what I wrote, I don't think it can get worse over time as more stuff is added. It's bad already

The registry is loaded into ram and should be pretty damn quick in finding whatever the needed values are.

 

[taq8ojh]

You don't say?

 

[CSMR]

The registry is a terrible idea.

If you install an application and then uninstall it, your registry may have changed. So uninstalling applications is not clean.

Also what is to stop application B from editing application A's registry entries? I think nothing, in which case the registry is a very insecure way to store settings.

 

[lxskllr]

Also what is to stop application B from editing application A's registry entries? I think nothing, in which case the registry is a very insecure way to store settings.

You could say the same with config files in GNU/Linux. You install programs with root privileges, so obfuscated(or not) code could change settings it's not supposed to change. Bottom line is you need to trust the software you're installing. That's why the "Wheee! Lets install a bunch of Windows junk" approach Ubuntu takes is a bad idea. Proprietary software is bad regardless of platform, because the code can't be reviewed.

 

[glugglug]

The registry is loaded into ram and should be pretty damn quick in finding whatever the needed values are.

The thing is, RAM isn't truly random access (and it keeps getting farther from it, since RAM bandwidth keeps improving with technology, but latency for the most part does not).

Defragmenting the registry hives on a machine that has had a lot of crap installed/uninstalled actually does make a noticable performance difference. Note I am talking about a defragger like WinMend Reg Defrag, not a cleaner, which stands a better chance of breaking something.

 

[Dude111]

If you install an application and then uninstall it, your registry may have changed. So uninstalling applications is not clean.

This is true....... Running Regseeker after an uninstall ALWAYS PRODUCES MANY INVALID KEYS!! (Sometimes a 2nd pass is needed to clean it up 100%)

 

[CSMR]

You could say the same with config files in GNU/Linux. You install programs with root privileges, so obfuscated(or not) code could change settings it's not supposed to change. Bottom line is you need to trust the software you're installing. That's why the "Wheee! Lets install a bunch of Windows junk" approach Ubuntu takes is a bad idea. Proprietary software is bad regardless of platform, because the code can't be reviewed.

I am sure you are right about Linux also having this problem. In fact if you install applications with root privileges that would seem worse than Windows. While you need administrator privileges to install an application, you don't need to give full administrator privileges to the installer, only a limited set. I think that's true at the moment in Windows but that limited set is still too large and applications can interfere with each other.

WinRT applications cannot access the registry, so have clean installation and uninstallation. I hope that Microsoft introduces a similar framework for desktop applications.