Last time I wrote briefly about the concept of self-documenting systems, and mentioned that Group Policy in Server 2008 finally allows you to comment your GPO’s. Another opportunity for creating self-documenting systems is to annotate your Registry settings. (Of course if you can avoid direct Registry edits, it’s good to do so, but sometimes you don’t have a choice – for example, if you want to completely disable IPv6 on your systems.)
So how could you annotate Registry settings? The principle of putting documentation close to the point of use suggests that your documentation be in the Registry itself, and that’s actually not a bad way to go. For example, in the same Registry key where you made a change, addition, or deletion, you can add a string value named “Comment” and type in a short note like this: “GW set DisabledComponents to 0xFF in May 2009 to turn off IPv6.” (If you’re worried about applications that might actually use a Registry key named “Comment,” you could name it “CommentXYZ” where XYZ are the initials of your company or organization, for example.) The nice thing about this method is that you can use REGEDIT to search for all occurrences of “Comment” and see all your custom documentation. (Unfortunately you have to search one at a time, because REGEDIT remains one of the most brain-dead apps that Microsoft has ever written.)
A technique like this doesn’t necessarily obviate the need for fuller documentation someplace else, but it increases the likelihood that a troubleshooter, technician, or consultant might get a quick answer instead of a slow one. And these days, quick answers are more valuable than ever.
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