Quote Originally Posted by Yamaneko
Gnome has gconf which is similar to the Windows registry, but not as extensible as the Windows registry. The great thing about Linux is that you can only really break the system one feature at a time through xml file editing and the like. The Windows registry is like one big .txt file that you hope does not get corrupted.
Heck, I'd be happy if it was plaintext. No, it's a nice mangled binary mess of crap you can only view via regedit. It's like this just in case you had some kind of misguided notion of recovering from a system crash that renders the GUI unusable.

Gnome's gconf also sucks, but at least it's just a gui on top of XML and at least it doesn't control your whole system. And if/when the thing becomes corrupt you rm -rf ~/.gconf* and Gnome makes you a new default one next time you start it. Far far cry from the Windows Registry.