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if your program uses the windows registry you're absolutely a cop
this is one of those things where i know i'm wrong *after a fashion* but my position is that if something prevents you from using a local conf file located next to the programs .exe you should quit your job
the windows registry is an inaccessible, opaque war crime and storing things there is anti-user. the only possible excuse i can think of is that you want per-user settings which you could solve by storing a conf in %appdata%
it's weird because there has *never* been a good reason for this, ever. i mean i've used both sets of APIs, the registry gets you absolutely nothing. windows even HAS an INI API, conveniently, if you don't want to write your own
so even in like 1998 i don't understand why you'd use the registry. i don't understand why the registry exists. i don't understand why people used win.ini. why on EARTH would you not just write a file right next to your program exe?
i am inviting ANY explanation for this. why, in 1994, would your videogame write it's settings to win.ini instead of literally anywhere else i DON'T GET IT
maybe this was just because the win 3 INI API only wrote to win.ini and it was *slightly* easier than writing your own config file routine? i mean at least I can get that, but from 95 onwards you could always write to your own INI. why on EARTH would you use the REGISTRY
i guess maybe there were no user directories pre-NT? so per-user settings were a lot harder than just doing %appdata%. so that pegs things at like 2001; if your app was made in the 2000s and uses the registry you're a cop
