Ezt a posztot különböző önző indokoktól vezérelve angulul írtam. Pontosabban lefordítottam az eredeti magyar verziómat.
For various selfish reasons this post was written in English. Actually I just translated the original Hungarian version. Translation after the jump.
The registry is a database (well, sort-of) where your Windows system and almost all installed programs store their data in a folder/file structure. All-in-one. This is good for the developers, since they don’t have to worry about config files.
But it’s bad for everyone else. At least it ain’t the best. The whole thing is stored in a single file, so if it gets damaged you’re screwed and you can start looking for your install disc. At least if you don’t have backup. Which most people don’t. Than, after a while it gets filled with junk. Apps come and go, but you can’t be sure that they clean up after themselves when they uninstall. This slows the system after a while. (At least it’s said so, my few-year-old XP works fine.) Also, copying settings from a computer to another is tough. If the app hasn’t got import-export function for settings, then copying the settings directory might not be sufficient. If it exists anyway. Average user ain’t export from regedit.exe. (Well, the sum of these problems is what’s called Registry Hell.)
But now I’ve got a revolutionary idea. It is said that Windows Se7en will have native support for virtual drives. There’s not much info about this feature—and what we have isn’t official either—but let me tell you what I thought up:
You can install your programs on virtual harddisks. These have their own registry. Say HKCV (for HKey_Current_Virtual). This would mean that just by rewriting a few lines of code in the source the users could effectively delete or copy their programs with a single move—copying or deleting the virtual drive container file. Or you could create a sandboxed registry and if you’ve had enough of yet another crappy thing you can confidently wipe it away.
What would you do with “legacy” apps “still writing” to HKCU (current user’s registry) or HKLM (local machine registry)? Well, my semi-hackish solution would be redirecting requests to HKCV.
Well, you get almost the same by installing another OS with different config onto one of these virtual drives. You can delete and copy ’em around (to the extent allowed by applicable law [or whatsoever]). But booting these is actually a solution to something else, and is much slower.
For example, having an VHD dedicated to gaming with optimized system configurations is entirely feasible then. A dynamic VHD would mean it would only take up as much room as it needs, you could move the file on many system and have the same experience, but best of all, you can still enjoy the maximum native performance at the same time being able to load it as a virtual machine to maintain and configure without rebooting.
Conclusion: My idea is better.