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To be honest, it is quite complicated now as well with all of the proprietary software
(sh.itjust.works)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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And half the time you'll find it in the registry too. Linux has proven quite well that an OS doesn't need a registry.
Oh, and what's with ProgramData and AppData being two completely different things. I understand the difference between the two directories, but there is no difference between a program and an app. Everywhere else it's Machine/User.
Gnomes dconf would like to have a word with you. It's really interesting how the Gnome people seem to get rid of every useful feature as it might confuse the user or be complex, but on the other hand add this registry-like anti-feature to make the system just as unmanageable as Windows.
What you can find in dconf is well organized compared to what is inside of the regedit hell.
Funny thing is, most 3rd-party utility tools don't use registry but a config. Which makes them portable, btw.
Nowadays, yes. Go back 15+ years, the registry was used extesively.
My reasoning as to why, Linux was never a targeted platform for software back then, now it is. There was only GTK back then and it didn't look "nice" (appealing) at all. Plus GTK apps were huge for Windows, since you'd have to also install the GTK runtimes and all that... that just took a lot of disk space, which was expensive back then. Compared to an app that does the same, but spends only 10% of the disk space needed for GTK (you could even go a lot lower with compressors), it's obvious why GTK was never a viable option when making a GUI app.
And since Linux doesn't have a registry (or even if it did, it'll probably be completely optional to have it or not, so you can't rely on users having it installed), you'd have to just save the settings in a file, just like the rest of the FOSS applications. So, it makes no sense to have completely different codebases for the same app for Windows and everything else. In fact, most apps nowadays that aim to be cross platform just use Qt. You can compile it for watever you like, there is no need to keep separate codebases.
Yeah the naming is confusing. The reason is what you said - machine vs app.
Back on Windows 9x, some apps would store files directly in the
C:\Program Filesdirectory. This was 'fine' at the time since every app ran with full permissions. Users were atC:\Windows\Users, but users were optional so not every install used it.Windows XP had a better NT-based permission model (not nearly as improved as Vista, but better than 9x) and allowing regular users to write to the Program Files and Windows folders wasn't really a good idea. It added two directories for settings:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Datafor user-specific dataC:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Datafor non-user-specific dataVista kept the former but moved the latter to
C:\ProgramData. I can't remember why.Windows 7 moved the user stuff to
C:\Users.ProgramData is for admin stuff and things that need to be shared between users. AppData is for personalized settings per user. For example, AnyDesk stores the unattended access password in ProgramData, as well as the ID. Sure they do get copied to AppData when AnyDesk runs on boot/login on any user, but you could also have some user specific options (like language) and they get stored in a separate file in AppData.