On 10/28/2012 3:04 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 28/10/2012 09:41 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Snort.. Actually, the problem with the windows registry are:
>>
>> 1. Can't read the damn thing, without the editor.
>
> Well, see, the idea is that *you* should never have to look at it. The
> program in question is supposed to provide a real UI for editing it.
> Much like you should never have to look at a JPEG file in a hex editor;
> you should use a real image viewer / editor.
>
A naive assumption imho. But, then, Windows is based around, "Sorry, but 
you can't be trusted to do that." lol Still, even something like, 
"Export all keys specific to this application.", would have been nice.

>> 2. Things don't always uninstall cleanly.
>
> Gsettings might plausibly do this better. It looks like you just delete
> that program's XML file and then recompile the schemas... but I haven't
> tested this.
>
> Under Windows, any program can just add or delete arbitrary keys.
>
Yep, more or less, though you do sort of contradict yourself later.

>> 3. There are no safeguards to stop program X from screwing with a key
>> for program Y.
>>
>> This might require some sort of, "mark this key as editable", or
>> something, since there may be a few cases where you do want to allow
>> this, for specific things.
>
> You realise that the Windows registry has ACLs, right? Exactly like
> files do? I'm not sure whether Gsettings does this, come to think of
> it... I suspect not. (After all, Unix doesn't have ACLs for files yet.)
>
Meaningless, since, as others have said, it only protect based on user, 
not application. A better solution, having thought a bit about it, would 
be if there was like a security key, which the installer, uninstaller, 
and the application itself (and any sub-apps) had, which let them 
manipulate the "non-public" parts of its key list, so that short of 
logging in as administrator, and using a tool/hand editing, the keys as 
the super user, nothing could make those changes.

>> 4. It doesn't clean itself up.
>
> That's really more a problem with crappy software than with the registry
> itself. It's like, very commonly you uninstall some program, and then
> months later realise that some of its files are still sitting on your
> harddrive. Is that a problem with filesystems? No, not really; it's a
> problem with badly written installers and uninstallers.

Well, yes and no. In principle, just nuking the entire key for that 
application should work. The problem is, its often got a dozen keys, 
there are assumptions made about other things installed, no way to 
double check if, for example, two application use the same extra things, 
and only one is being uninstalled, so its safer to just leave the key 
for that in there, even if its not being used, etc. Its not just bad 
uninstaller design, its just bad design from the stand point of the DB 
itself. A better design would be able to inform the application that 
something else is using something it wants to uninstall, not have the 
uninstaller tell you, "This is known to be sometimes used by a lot of 
other things, should I remove it anyway?" 99% of the time, it is in fact 
*not* used by anything else. Data is a bit iffier. Some of it you don't 
want to nuke, some of it is just settings, temp files, etc., which 
bloody well do need to be removed from the disk, not just from the 
registry. But.. almost everything leaves bits of that stuff floating around.

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