Yuku free message boards

The Registry has many purposes, some to the benefit of Windows users and some against their interests.

One fundamental purpose is to bind all apps you install to your copy of Windows and to ensure Microsoft's control of the user's software environment. The Registry is Microsoft's control point over Windows and the apps you "own."

This is why MS didn't go with the application-directory model of Unix. With that model, you can do things MS doesn't want to allow, for example:

1. Copy apps across like machines merely by FTP-ing over its app directory
2. Take an OS install disk from one machine and plunk it into another (gasp!)
3. Allow users to upgrade their machines without software interference when clearly they should be buying new machines (and new copies of MS software)

A big downside coming out of the Registry model is that you have to have Administrator rights to install Windows apps (you don't in the Unix model). This has led directly to years of conflict for customers between being secure (using a non-Admin account for normal work) and being able to install apps (using the Admini user account). This problem is aggrevated by MS's initial browser design, in which users would seamlessly install add-on's and plug-in's and ActiveX widgets while surfing. What a miscalculation that turned out to be .

With UAC, MS tries to address some of these problems by copying the longstanding Unix/Linux practice of allowing non-admin users to perform admin work by interactive provision of a password.

As far as Microsoft's keeping the Registry clean, why would they? That Windows requires a complicated "software tune-up" after a few years -- or else it slows down -- works well for their revenue requirements. Since consumers don't sign SA contracts, there have to be pressure points that force them to buy new hardware every several years. Registry bloat and clutter works well in this role with non-technical consumers.

While I'm negative towards MS's Registry goals, I'd like to mention that I feel MS has done excellent work in many other areas, for example, popularizing GUIs, emphasizing ease of use, aiding in adoption of new devices, etc. Microsoft's negative side comes out when they believe they gain advantage by consumer manipulation -- and the Registry is the linchpin of that strategy.

>>>>>> RichardK wrote -- Why are retail versions of the OS so expensive while the copy with a new PC seems to be heavily discounted? If you can build or upgrade your own then you should pay more? Is that the strategy or is it simply a volume discount?


Key characteristics of monopolies are market segmentation and slight product differentiation. In plain English -- it is absolutely critical to Microsoft's monopoly that they maintain Windows' total dominance on newly purchased computers. These have to ship with Windows for the monopoly to continue... hence MS lowballs the price (industry sources peg a full copy of Windows sold with a computer purchase at about $50).

The retail price represents what MS can charge when they can leverage the monopoly without worry about its maintenance. Windows 7 retail prices currently run from $200 for Home Premium to $320 for Ultimate. Their monopoly allows MS to raise street prices much faster than inflation (Windows 98 was $89.95 full edition).

Interesting, this ARS Technica article points out that MS has decreased Windows 7 street prices a tad since Vista days. MS is responding to their marketing struggles with their prior product (Vista), gently increasing marketshare for Apple, and the fact that Linux initially grabbed big marketshare on the newly-popular Netbooks.

BTW, the "slight product differentiation" I referred to -- that's why Windows 7 now has 6 editions versus the single edition it had a decade ago. This product differentiation and market segmentation is how monopolies milk their markets for whatever they can get while still exerting control.

Windows 7 has 6 editions so far... since XP days, MS has added more editions after initial launch when segmentation and differentiation require it. (Examples include the special Windows XP N edition in response to MS's loss of a monopoly case in the EU, and their special Windows XP K and KN editions in response to their loss against monopoly charges in S Korea, the Starter edition to maintain the monopoly in high-theft regions like SE Asia, and others).