Using ReactOS Registry format

[Brad DeMorrow]

James Liggett wrote:

>Brad,
>Last night Martin Fuchs suggested that we look into using ReactOS's
>registry format in order to be compatible with Windows registry
>databases.
>
    I'm really not convinced that we need to be compatible with Windows' 
registry file format at that level. . .  That would only benefit 
applications that don't use the Win32API to access the registry - and as 
far as I know, Windows doesn't allow you to access the registry like 
that, so there shouldn't be any applications that would benefit from 
that. . .

    I know there are linux applications that access the windows registry 
- and those are the only ones I can think of that would actually benefit 
from this, and even those would need modification to access Wine's 
registry if we did have binary compatibility with windows.

. . .

    If I'm completely wrong and there are applications that do this, 
please tell me and I'll gladly put my foot in my mouth lol - but as far 
as I know, such a move wouldn't really do much for us except let us say, 
"We're compatible with windows' registry file format". . .

hmm. .

I suppose one benefit of this would be the ability to copy the registry 
from an actual windows drive to Wine. . . - but I think using a helper 
application for that would probably take care of that, and I'm still 
convinced that we shouldn't try to use the actual windows registry format.

> I have the latest release of ReactOS running on QEMU on my
>box, so I checked it out. Basically, they're using the same regedit
>program from Wine, missing find command and all (Which I too feel is a
>pain in the neck). I looked at the config stuff, and I found what looked
>like some binary database files for each of the main registry sections.
>Unfortunately, there's no documentation at all on any of this on their
>website. If we decide to go this route, we may be in for a hell of a lot
>of work. But, I do agree with all of your points. I think the current
>system could use some improvement, especially in the area of searching.
>Let me know what you think of all this.
>
>Kind Regards,
>James Liggett
>
>
>  
>
    Thanks everyone for keeping this topic active, I'm glad so many 
people are interested.

--Brad DeMorrow