I guess every program you install puts something in the registry - so how does that work if you have an OS partition and a separate drive or partition for programs, and then you format your OS drive and reinstall Windows? Do none of the programs work any more?
Registry?
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Registry? Not everything puts stuff in the registry beyond the scope of the stuff that gets put there for Add/Remove Programs and so on. So those things will still work (but won't appear in Add/Remove programs, or your Start menu).
Stuff that is dependent on, say, DLLs its installed into your OS partition, registry settings for specific paths and so on, are going to fail and will need to be reinstalled if you flatten your OS partition at any point.
Stuff that is dependent on, say, DLLs its installed into your OS partition, registry settings for specific paths and so on, are going to fail and will need to be reinstalled if you flatten your OS partition at any point.
Hmm, interesting. I wish that the OS was completely insulated, and all programs were installed completely separately. It would be so much cleaner... or am I being completely naive?
Well, INI files can be used to achieve the same goal as the registry. A lot of software just uses the registry, though.
strangley enuff - I've just reinstalled XP this morning. You will have to reinstall apps too
Naive up to some point as the registry stuff is important for security as well.
Best thing to do is get an app that is able to export your registry. reinstall, import it again.
Best thing to do is get an app that is able to export your registry. reinstall, import it again.
Use a registry monitoring tool and you'll see that the registry gets several hundred read/writes per minute even with no other apps open.
The registry seems like a good idea gone horribly wrong.
Under windows 3.x, all you had were .ini files. The vast majority of programs would allow you to just zip up its install folder, copy it wherever you want, and run from the new location. That flexibility is pretty much gone with win95 and above, thanks to the registry...
Under windows 3.x, all you had were .ini files. The vast majority of programs would allow you to just zip up its install folder, copy it wherever you want, and run from the new location. That flexibility is pretty much gone with win95 and above, thanks to the registry...