One big "flaw" in Windows...

[flexy]

Well there are many, but one of the biggest problem in ANY flavors of windows is how it manages all important data in the registry, appdata folders etc..etc...

I see it right now migrating from a borked W7 install to a fresh W7 and it makes moving programs really, really difficult.

I remember the old times when i had non PCs where there was no such thing as a registry, and all data belonging to a program was usually in the program folder belonging to the program.

You just copied the folder to another computer, done.

On windows, you not only have the registry, but appdata and userdata folders, and *.ini files and data belonging to a game or app can be ALL OVER.

It can happen that an application stores important data in multiple places PLUS multiple registry hives and all those data are required for the program.

Idea:

All program related and user data should be in ONE fricking folder, always. You could then move and copy whole installs easily. For "registration" it only would need ONE single central file where there is a list of the installed programs on a PC, with entries pointing to the folder where the program is installed.

I really think how windows does that right now is just a total mess.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: flexy
Well there are many, but one of the biggest problem in ANY flavors of windows is how it manages all important data in the registry, appdata folders etc..etc...

I see it right now migrating from a borked W7 install to a fresh W7 and it makes moving programs really, really difficult.

I remember the old times when i had non PCs where there was no such thing as a registry, and all data belonging to a program was usually in the program folder belonging to the program.

You just copied the folder to another computer, done.

On windows, you not only have the registry, but appdata and userdata folders, and *.ini files and data belonging to a game or app can be ALL OVER.

It can happen that an application stores important data in multiple places PLUS multiple registry hives and all those data are required for the program.

Idea:

All program related and user data should be in ONE fricking folder, always. You could then move and copy whole installs easily. For "registration" it only would need ONE single central file where there is a list of the installed programs on a PC, with entries pointing to the folder where the program is installed.

I really think how windows does that right now is just a total mess.

And Linux isn't the same way?

 

[postmortemIA]

solution to this is: software makers don't have to use registry, they can put all user data in one folder.

Most gaming companies figured this out, so you have folder My Games in My Documents that usually contains 100% of user data.

 

[Snapster]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
solution to this is: software makers don't have to use registry, they can put all user data in one folder.

Most gaming companies figured this out, so you have folder My Games in My Documents that usually contains 100% of user data.

They don't have to but do it for fear of anyone being able to just copy the folder structure and play it on another computer. I'd rather installers were proper disk images as well rather than the transactional MSI mess we have atm.

 

[Nothinman]

I remember the old times when i had non PCs where there was no such thing as a registry, and all data belonging to a program was usually in the program folder belonging to the program.

And in those times the PC you were using was so much less capable that it's not even funny.

It can happen that an application stores important data in multiple places PLUS multiple registry hives and all those data are required for the program.

As was said, that's up to the developers of the program. No one forces them to use the registry. However without something like the registry it's impossible to register things like file associations, DCOM servers, pretty much anything that is supposed to be exposed to the rest of the system.

I really think how windows does that right now is just a total mess.

It does if you're trying to pick it apart and work around the system, but when you work with the system it generally works fine.

And Linux isn't the same way?

Generally, no. All of your data for everything you have installed should be in your home directory, so you can copy /home/username and get all of your settings. But the system-wide settings, if there are any, are still stored in /etc/ so you need to reinstall the package if you want it to be setup properly.

I'd rather installers were proper disk images as well rather than the transactional MSI mess we have atm.

MSI's would be fine if they were done properly, i.e. like Linux package managers. Right now it's like 75% of the way there though.