Programming Sins Regarding the Registry (Using the Example of Microsoft Excel)
While browsing through the registry I found the following “gem”. It illustrates nicely how programmers are not supposed to store settings in the registry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\Nach Microsoft E&xcel exportieren]
@="res://C:\\PROGRA~2\\MICROS~1\\Office12\\EXCEL.EXE/3000"
"Contexts"=dword:00000001
What is wrong with this? Several things:
- Localization: Never localize keys or values in the registry (the same applies to configuration files, of course).
- Spelling: Do not misspell the name of your product.
- Short paths: Never use short paths.
- Absolute paths: Use variables like %ProgramFiles% instead of absolute paths.
- Default value: A registry key’s default value is relict from Windows 3.1. Use named values instead.
Note: This is from a Windows 7 machine with Office 2007 installed (no older Office versions present!).
1 Comment
Thanks Helge! This was a good laugh and I really needed that today. BTW, you can\’t fault them too much for the shortened paths. Because they used the default value key they couldn\’t exact use a REG_EXPAND_SZ. Though they could certain do the delayed expansion in their code I supposed. There\’s just so many things wrong with this it\’s funny.
Shawn