Dick Pountain/12:51/09 June 1995/Idealog 10
If you've very recently returned from the Highlands of New Guinea you might (perhaps) have missed the news that Microsoft has been caught red-handed spying on the contents of our hard disks and networks - or not, depending on whom you believe. Very briefly, the story concerned the Registry Wizard in Windows 95, which according to the story buzzing around the Internet is designed to compile a list of all the software installed on your computer and LAN, and then post this data back to Microsoft in Seattle via your modem (without telling you) when you log on to MSN. Microsoft defends itself by saying the Wizard will only check for MS products, and the innocent intention is to make it easier for customers to register their software.
Frankly my dears, I don't give a damn. Microsoft is welcome to inspect the contents of my hard-disk whenever it wishes - it will discover that the only MS products I use are Windows/DOS, Visual Basic and Word (and the latter only under duress because my PC Pro contributors send me DOC files.) In fact Microsoft is welcome to look inside my fridge as well, if it can sort out the interfacing problems; I have nothing to hide and Microsoft has no power over me, apart from the threat of junk mail.
This story did direct my attention to the concept of 'registration' though, reminding me of a gripe which is related in a way. I've been practicing 'data-centric' computing ever since Windows 3.0 arrived, by the simple expedient of associating the file extension of every file type I use with the application that I want to open it (not necessarily the one that created it incidentally, thank you very much Windows 95). The file extensions section of my WIN.INI right now contains 189 entries. I can double-click on any file in my file manager, or any icon on my desktop and it will perform some appropriate action. This scheme worked beautifully for a long time, to the point where I'm completely lost on most other people's PCs where I click things and usually nothing happens.
One of my very favourite utilities is Nico Mak's excellent shareware program WinZip, which I use extensively to archive documents, pictures and source code - not so much for the space saving nowadays, hard disks being so cheap, as for the convenience of bundling everything into one file. I like to double-click a .ZIP file, see the WinZip window pop up, double-click the file I want and have that appear in the appropriate viewer or editor ('four clicks and you're in'). And so it did until sometime around March when I upgraded to WinZip 5.0. All of a sudden I clicked on a .TXT file and WinZip refused to open it, muttering about not being able to find JERKEDIT.EXE (name changed to protect the innocent.) I checked my WIN.INI and saw that .TXT files were still associated with DESKEDIT.EXE, my editor of choice at the time.
Then I inspected the View dialog in WinZip and, sure enough, next to the first option button it said clearly 'Associated program (JERKEDIT)'. 'WTF is going on here?' said I aloud. This was the moment that I discovered the Registration Database; or to be more exact, after an evening of pestering folk on CIX, I discovered the Registration Database. I didn't find out from the Windows 3.1 User Manual, because it ain't there - people have since told me it's documented in the Windows Resource Kit, and in all NT manuals, which is bully for those that have them.
The Registration Database is a fundamental part of the future strategy for Windows - OLE 2 and all that - but it appears that Microsoft refrained from telling anyone but developers about it for fear of scaring them. The cause of my problem was simply that file associations made in the Registration Database now take precedence over those in WIN.INI (which is old technology and on the way out, only they forgot to tell us.) JERKEDIT was a pushy little program and had registered itself in the database and grabbed .TXT files for itself, while the new version of WinZip had become OLE-ready and now believed the Registration Database rather than WIN.INI. Trouble is I don't even remember installing JERKEDIT - I must have hated it so much I rubbed it out again straight away.
Since then things have only got worse. For example I installed Corel Draw 5.0 from a CD-ROM last week and it raped my Registration Database, grabbing every single graphics file extension you've ever heard of for itself. And, yes, I hated it so much I deleted it within 24 hours. And, yes, I forgot to back up REG.DAT. I think I'd like to see an extension to the Data Protection Act that makes tampering with your computer's configuration, without asking first, a civil offence subject to punitive damages - my time will be valued at £500 per hour for these purposes.
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BOX OUT
CYBERPHOBE OF THE MONTH
The Adidas TV ad which exhorts you to buy a new pair of trainers and 'escape while you can' because Nicholas Negroponte (aka '...a professor from MIT...') is planning to turn us all into robots. What a very far cry from Apple's famous '1984' ad in which the Macintosh, rather than a pair of shoes, was going to save us all from tyranny. Anyway I won't wear trainers even to save my soul.
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