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Yeah--Why does it matter that the registry is endian-specific? Doesn't Windows only run on little-endian processors (x86, x86-64) or am I mistaken?

Is there any reason why a new version of Windows couldn't do away with the registry and create a layer of abstraction to allow programs in a "compatibility mode" to run normally but have its registry interactions translated to the new system? Wouldn't that be a similar principle to what Wine does?

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It would mean that if you port windows to a large endian machine, then you can't share registry files (ie. as in roaming profiles). It's not as much about the file format as it is about the implementation (simply dumping C structures to disk). I think what the author is saying is that it's just a crappy implementation.

I don't think there's any way at all to share the whole registry file even in the same endian machine. It wouldn't fly anyway since it's very machine specific.

The way you'll share parts of the registry will be using .reg files, those are just plain text so could easily be read anywhere.

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