I think alot of the posters are missing the point: the registry is a tool like any other. It has both benefits and drawbacks.

Pros:
* Database-like architecture means reads and particularly writes are fast
* Standard API
* Easy to share among various instances of a running program, run by the same user (yes it does happen sometimes, get used to it)
* Theoretically harder to muck up at a low level than text-based files
* Everything is in the one place

Cons:
* Everything is in the one place
* It is hard to split out the settings for an application. In comparison a gamer-level user can manage to extract file-based settings
* Low level implementation not as fast or robust as it could be
* Cannot use "xcopy" deployment
* COM was built on top: COM is an even bigger problem
* centralised packaging not common in windows: packaging is an even bigger problem
* Contents are not self documenting
* Contents are not externally documented (Try to *accurately* enumerate *all* the com ports in a windows system sheesh!)

-Andrew