Criticisms of the Registry concept
Friday, February 23rd, 2007But, as good as computer registry proved to be, it also introduced some problems that can cause severe damages to computers. One of the most severe problems of the centralized registry proved to be the HKEY local machine part. It has turned out that it was a point of failure and any damage to the registry rendered an unbootable system. In many cases this problem was unfixable a complete and new system installation being necessary. In some instances there are secondary backup files that will be loaded if the primary ones can’t be processed by the system.
Another week point of registry is that it does not actually document itself as a configuration system does. if you want to restore any part of the registry it will be a difficult job because it cannot extract data from registry files that were backed up. It is extremely difficult for the system to do that. Again, if you want to extract data from another system or a boot cd is not impossible, but much closed to it. Another week point in the registry it that it holds information even from files applications that were wrongly installed and don’t have an uninstall option. Usually this causes stability or performance problems if the application is registered as a class in the HKEY CLASSES ROOT.
Usually, the applications that utilize the registry for the saving and retrieving of the settings are not fit for portable devices that are used for carrying applications from system to system. Doing this means that all settings changes must be reentered for all new ones on which it will be installed. Why? Because the registry cannot be installed on any mobile devices and all changes are in the registry. So, by copying something anything, all changes made from the initial installation are lost.
So before working with such a application think twice at both positive and negative aspects. Because no matter how tempting it sounds, you always must take into account both the plusses and the minuses of it. But, in the end if you find computer registry useful or not it is up to you.