* From a windows CLI type
SET
and all environment variables will be listed along with their values.* From a windows CLI type
SET APP
and all environment variables prefixed with "app" will be listed along with their values (eg: APPDATA ).* With path location variables, open up file explorer and enter %appdata% in address bar and press enter / click "goto" arrow. File Explorer will expand the variable and show the expanded directory path and contents.
It's only the program that is used to browse is different.
It's like you don't use explorer but regedit. It's the only difference.
On macOS it's not like you can always type what's inside the plist files with a text editor, sometimes you need to use 'plutil' anyway (if a plist is binary). So to browse Application Support you still often need thirdparty software anyway.
Years ago I did a small project that mapped windows hive (registry) files as a filesystem through fuse on linux. It mapped to a filesystem concept nearly flawlessly.
edit: can't reply anymore for today ('posting too fast'), so i just reply here: What is a file if not a key/value entry in a directory? Anyway, you can put custom binary data in registry, one value type is just "binary". But you shouldn't! Just like in Application Support - you can but you shouldn't. Registry just enforces it more. Entering regedit also requires to elevate it if you want to change system settings (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE). Changing user settings doesn't need elevation (HKEY_CURRENT_USER).
Also, Mac plists have two formats, xml and the non-text kind. Now mentioning that, I kinda hate both formats.
The closest analogue to the registry on macOS are the ~/Library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences folders.