Why aren't .NET “application settings” stored in the registry?

Question

Some time back in the nineties, Microsoft introduced the Windows Registry. Applications could store settings in different hives. There were hives for application-wide and us

Answer 1

I think that one of the main reasons for this was application updates. When you install an update (i.e. using ClickOnce), the new settings actually go into a new folder. When you uninstall it, the new folder is deleted and the old settings are still around. If the registry were used instead, there would be no way to do this "versioning."

Other reasons might include:

• Permissions (app settings always go into AppData/LocalAppData which requires no privileges)
• Ease of maintenance/backups
• Portability (it's rather difficult to deal with the registry using the .NET Compact Framework, and god help you if you're trying to support Mono).