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Black Screen of Death Not Microsoft's Fault
Barence follows up to the ongoing Black Screen of Death Saga by saying "Microsoft says reports of 'Black Screen of Death' errors aren't caused by Windows Updates, as claimed by a British security firm. The software giant claims November's Windows Updates didn't alter registry keys in the way described by Prevx, which said that the Microsoft Patches caused PCs to boot with just a black screen and a Windows Explorer window. Microsoft is now blaming the problem on malware. Prevx has issued a grovelling apology on its own blog."
The reason why the registry exist is that the filesystems on Windows OS' have historically been lock on read (more than one program using the same file at the same time is a no-no.) Meaning that having a place where this was not the case was VERY meaningful to lessen access bottlenecks, thus enter the registry.
Having hundereds of conf files in /etc or having them in a registry "hive" is "same same but different" that's ALL. Gnome has a form of registry hive as well... organizing data whether being direct in the filesystem or special filesystem (DB or what have you) is the same.
I have to say that it is easier to edit a config file with vi/edit/ed/sed IF one knows where to go. Regedit command line tools sure... GUI... not efficient... Gnome registry either conf-editor or command line... I personally stick to CLI.
I agree that Windows should "drop the registry..." but only because they should drop the ancient approach of their locking behavior on the filesystem... this would also cure the reboot till you drop at update times. Later OS-X versions have started to reboot machinery after updates just to be more like Windows because that's what users EXPECT. It is painful!
I have 700-800 plist files in my Preferences directory. All those widgets I tried, apps I installed, removed, run one time.
It must be like 1 line of command on Terminal or basic "Finder" order by date to find the old/unneeded ones and delete them but I don't bother. Why? Because it has zero effect on OS X. OS X wouldn't really care if there were 1000000 pref files there since it is not its business to maintain them let alone read them.
On Windows, while I hate the idea from the beginning, if you don't clean up your registry, OS will do it for you. Last time it was like 20% overhead required to clean it up at boot. If you get enough junk on that already huge, complex file, it will effect the entire performance of system. Windows _has to read_ that gigantic database to function and find its way in it.
ps: Now you understand why Windows technical user switchers insist on having "uninstall tool" or be amazed at "no add remove programs" on OS X? They generally think having redundant, old files, needless files will somehow effect their system. You can even add "universal binary haters" to that camp. I don't blame them, I blame Windows.