Vista and the Registry
If this information is factual, Microsoft’s Vista system may prove to be a lot less attractive than may assumed. Or should I say “hoped” or more precisely… “hyped”?).
The reference is both long and relatively technical. but it’s worth your time. If you have the expertise to dispute what they say, let me know and I’ll gladly publish your rebuttal.
[tease]
Microsoft Windows Vista was to finally dispense with the Registry, but it’s proved impossible. The Registry will be with Windows users for the foreseeable future.
This is a fatal blow.
Microsoft were to finally morph the Registry into something better with their coming Windows Vista. This is no longer in their plans. Dispensing with the Registry proved impossible. Windows users may very well have been dealt a fatal blow.
What is the Registry?
The Registry is a repository for configuration data of all kinds. Before looking at what’s in the Registry and how the Registry works, it might be good to look at how an ideal system would work.Multiuser
All modern Internet connected systems have to be multiuser. This has been noticed and proven too many times over. Being multiuser means configuration settings have to be user-specific. Being multiuser means users have different privilege levels. All users are able to manage their own settings, but not necessarily others. Sun Microsystems are planning on introducing additional ‘granularity’ into this concept for a future release of their OS.
[tease]
The Foreseeable Future
Clearly the Registry represents a great part of all the ‘evils’ for which Windows has become notorious over the years: it is an Achilles heel, it does not have any domain hierarchy, it is mostly inaccessible to users while being wide open to hackers, it is the perfect hiding place for malware settings, it is not user specific as it should be on a modern multiuser computer.
Windows was never conceived as a multiuser system anyway. Its heritage comes from MS-DOS where the issue of who was using the computer was moot. The only security came from a lock on the front of the box or on the door to the room where the computer was kept.
The Internet changed all that: suddenly only the systems designed as multiuser from the get-go could survive. Wide-open systems became ducks in the water. Malware came through the gaping security holes and hid themselves in the wide open unprotected Registry.
While it is clear that too much has to change with its basic architecture to make Windows secure in this new Millennium, having the Registry relegated to the trash heap and replaced by a safer system would have meant a significant improvement in user security.
But as things stand, the attacks will continue with Vista, the hackers and professional gangs will continue to break in and hide where users can’t find them, and the system will continue to crash, hang, and - as everyone is aware by now - grow sluggish over time.
[suggested by Jim Soriano]
[via Rixstep]