WinUAE exposing how crappy Windows is

[Trev]

And you'll often find that well-written installers do not remove files added or modified after the installation, e.g. configuration files and user data.

[Trev]

If I have program I just delete the folder. Everything is gone.

Are you sure about that? The progam didn't install a library, overwrite SetPatch, modify S:Startup-Sequence, or any of the other things Amiga software tends to do? There is no standard "uninstall" process on the Amiga.

On Windows this isn't even possible for most programs.

That is not the fault of the registry.

There is an entire industry around speeding up, cleaning up, repairing the registry.

I think you've misunderstood the market. It's not fixing a problem, it's selling an unnecessary product to unsuspecting, uneducated, and paranoid users. Belief in a thing by a majority of people does not necessarily make a thing true.

[Trev]

No it's the fault of Microsoft. Glad they didn't skip using folders on the HD. Just throw all the files in the root of C: users shouldn't be sorting stuff out anyway.

How do you figure? Microsoft provides a standard setup API and guidelines for using the registry correctly. It's up to software developers and publishers to use and follow them.

Yeah, none of them do anything. That's why Microsoft themselves even made "Microsoft RegClean".

You missed a key quote from Microsoft: "The RegClean utility is no longer supported and has been removed from all Microsoft download sites." RegClean was designed to detect and remove references to COM components that were no longer installed on the local system. It had the nasty side effect of removing references used by DCOM, which supports components installed on remote systems. This and other weirdness led to its removal.

Microsoft isn't a single cohesive entity, and the various units within Microsoft are often out of sync. They're no different than any other large organization in that respect. When they make mistakes, they deserve just as much ridicule as everyone else; however, you can't blame the system team for problems caused by the application teams.

Still if the problem didn't exist people wouldn't be looking for solutions in the first place.

The solution is to force software publishers to adhere to standards by not buying their products until they do, i.e. treat the cause, not the symptom. (And there's crap software on every platform, not just Windows.)

[Trev]

That really sums up my thoughts nicely. Microsoft themselves can't even make a regtool that doesn't break something because the registry is such a huge mess.

No. DCOM aside, the Microsoft Office developers couldn't create a general purpose tool that didn't accidentally delete foreign keys and values because the owners of those entities couldn't be bothered to follow guidelines.

If I accidentally shred a vital document because it was in the wrong folder, it's not the fault of the file cabinet maker.

[Trev]

After removing my REG now has 251KB of crap data.

No running CCleaner won't help. :-)

But writing a note to Apple about their broken installer might help.

[Trev]

1. Windows Genuine Advantage

I agree with the sentiment, if not the reasoning. All software should be free of DRM.

But to make many changes, you need to edit the Registry, and it's a tough, dangerous thing to do.

No, it's not, but if you don't know what you're doing, it's best to leave it alone. That's a life lesson we all learn as children, yes?

3. ActiveX Controls

I'm going to sound like an a**hole here, but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. :-) ActiveX is a marketing term used to describe user interface elements built using COM. Internet Explorer is a consumer of COM components, just like many other Windows applications. For what it's worth, Microsoft has been trying to replace COM with .NET for the last ten years. Neither of those technologies is specifically tied to the "web," however. The Internet is not the end all, be all of computing.

4. User Account Control

I'm assuming you allow strangers to wander into your home because door chimes, locks, and doors themselves are cumbersome and inconvenient. And you always run as root. Regardless, you can disable UAC completely if necessary.

EDIT: Incidentally, I only rebuild my primary Windows system when I replace the motherboard (and CPU and anything else that might be upgraded as a result), which is roughly every three years. I've been working professionally with enterprise-level Windows architecture for roughly 15 years, but that's neither here nor there. Anyone with access to Wikipedia (yes, it's more accurate than you think), Microsoft's web site, or a library can sort Windows fact from Windows fiction.

[Trev]

To me apps should be separate from the OS

That would be ideal, but it's a problem that's not limited to Windows. It is possible to write and install self-contained Windows applications, even ones that--*gasp*--use the registry. (You can isolate and virtualize access to the registry in a way that's transparent to applications. Really, you can do whatever you want. A developer is only limited by their own imagination.)

[Trev]

I shove USB nonsense into my PC 24/7 all the time, I swap with friends, we shove em in. Instant success.

Oh, keep it up! I'm about to whip out my Win7 CD and urinate all over it! Then we'll see who's cryin'.

This thread has turned decidedly homoerotic. Before you know it, you'll be cage fighting.

[Trev]

They didn't like black dudes in Poland, apparently.

[Trev]

We just need to photoshop each others faces on DoomMaster's body and then it will be the perfect thread.

Or you could stage the cage fight inside a greased Amiga 2000 chassis. EDIT: With camouflage face paint, of course.