Why aren’t Windows settings stored in %HOMEPATH%?

Normally, this is the kind of question I’d pose and then provide an answer, but this time I just don’t have one.

If my Word settings were stored in %HOMEPATH%\WordSettings.xml, I could edit the file, back it up, carry it to other machines and generally manage it. Instead, my settings seem to be stored in the Registry, %LOCALAPPDATA% or %APPDATA%, but who knows what’s stored where or how to manage it.

Obviously, Unix already does just this and I’m jealous. If I had settings stored somewhere I could understand and apps that actually used XCOPY deployment, I wouldn’t have to uninstall at all — I could just delete.

These are the thoughts you have uninstalling VS05 and VS08b2…