I believe Windows 8 hit the same problem as Vista. Too ambitious plans for the available time frame so engineers did not have time to get things right. For example the Modern UI was actually pretty neat idea, but of course the version that shipped with Windows 8 was completely useless. They should have waited until the screen splitting was working and figure out a way to easily split the screen between traditional and modern apps.

What's the main issue with registry or what would be better alternative? I think this kind of database oriented way of storing the settings with transaction support is actually pretty good approach.