26 ms·

Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

111 points by ytNumbers 7y ago

ytNumbers 7y ago
This sort of thinking might have been understandable back during the '90's. However, today, people have plenty of free space on their hard disk. The track record of Windows 10 has been so poor lately that it's surprising that MS got so overconfident that they decided that they didn't need safeguards like this any longer.
- Causality1 7y ago
  Meanwhile Microsoft steals 7GB for "reserved storage" just in case they happen to have a giant update to install without your consent. "we disabled registry backups and made the dialog box lie to the user to save storage space" is a nauseatingly transparent lie.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    If it’s that transparent, what’s the truth? Whats the REAL reason for this nauseating, unacceptable, decision?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - brynjolf 7y ago
      I think bug that they are embarrassed about
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rando444 7y ago
50-100MB seems like a miniscule amount of space to warrant something like this. My WinSxS folder alone is almost 10GB. If they wanted to save space, even a modest improvement in managing updates would yield space saving results orders of magnitude greater than this.
- close04 7y ago
  Between the traditional Disk Cleanup and a quick DISM cleanup (which should already be running as a scheduled task) you can get pretty good results on any Windows 8.1/2012R2 and above: Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
  - yebyen 7y ago
    > quick DISM cleanup (which should already be running as a scheduled task) Is this a recommendation/suggestion of yours, or a default state?
    - smitty1110 7y ago
      Last I knew you had to set it up yourself.
  - theandrewbailey 7y ago
    More info on what that does: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/clean-up-the-winsxs-folder https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      I don't really see the need to have the ability to uninstall service packs... Especially not if it's wasting 25% of the space on my tiny SSD! The original windows installation media could be used to restore the system if something went horribly wrong anyway. Why the need to keep every previously used version of every dll?
      - arpa 7y ago
        Because Microsoft. We will lie to you about making registry backups successfully to save a few megs of space, bud god forbid we touch the winsxs elephant in the room.
      - 7y ago
docker_up 7y ago
I'm still on Windows 7 on a 2012 desktop. There's no reason for me to change. I've yet to run into any situation that has required me to upgrade. Since the world is generally web-first, the only thing that matters is Chrome and Firefox. Even running 4K video just required a codec upgrade as opposed to CPU upgrade. Yes there are security concerns but I'm pretty vigilant. I haven't run a virus scanner in 15 years, I'm just extremely paranoid over what I click on and which sites I visit. I run an ad-blocker and pi-hole to decrease any attack vectors. If attacks like spear-phishing become a lot more prevalent and much harder to detect then maybe I'll have to upgrade to keep up with security patches but until then I'm keeping status quo with a lot of backups.
- romanovcode 7y ago
  > I haven't run a virus scanner in 15 years, https://i.imgflip.com/34p4uf.jpg https://i.imgflip.com/34p4uf.jpg
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    I do run them occasionally, but haven't found anything on any Linux install I've ever had (except files I've actively quarantined from email to a) test virus checking and b) analyse for activity [deobfuscating js from Wordpress hacks is fun!]).
  - antisthenes 7y ago
    This is not constructive. Security is 90% about good operational procedures and maybe 10% about what OS/Antivirus/whatever you have. And that's being generous. It seems like the 2018+ trend is pushing poor software in the name of security.
- iknowstuff 7y ago
  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how we get botnets.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a great example of FUD.
close04 7y ago
> The system registry is no longer backed up to the RegBack folder starting in Windows 10 version 1803 > This change is by design, and is intended to help reduce the overall disk footprint size of Windows. To recover a system with a corrupt registry hive, Microsoft recommends that you use a system restore point. > If you have to use the legacy backup behavior, you can re-enable it by configuring the following registry entry, and then restarting the computer: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup Type: REG_DWORD Value: 1 The issue being not that they stopped doing it but that they failed to properly communicate it to the users.
cmurf 7y ago
Meanwhile, after the latest 1809, there were over 2GiB of update clutter not cleaned up automatically. It took two rounds of Disk Cleanup run manually to get rid of which took over an hour with laptop fans running on high the whole time. This was on a non-OEM, directly from microsoft.com, clean installation of Windows 10 Pro 1709. Windows updates are an abomination.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Update clutter is cleaned up a few weeks later, they keep it so you can 'roll back' the update. I've had to use the roll back feature before, it's useful. I guess it's an abomination, though?
godson_drafty 7y ago
Omitting automatic registry backups is a defensible policy. Telling the user that a backup was completed while a 0 byte file was saved is lying. Seems like a criminal act under the circumstances.
- Sujan 7y ago
  What crime in what country do you think this should fall under?
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    It's a very minor fraud, if a product you purchase says it will do backups, but doesn't do them, then you were defrauded. I think you could sue for actual damages if you had them and be successful if it's in the documentation anywhere, or the system actively informed you that a backup was made. I'm in the UK, fwiw; I'd expect most English law systems to be broadly similar but IANAL.
    - gruez 7y ago
      keyword being >if it's in the documentation anywhere A quick search for "RegBack" doesn't turn up any MSFT documentation on it. But it does turn up an article titled "How to restore Registry from its secret backup on Windows 10". This makes me think the feature is undocumented.
    - Sujan 7y ago
      Fraud usually requires that the entity doing it gains something from it, especially if we are talking about a "criminal act" as the parent did. (IANAL) The civil side might be different, but that is not what the parent insinuated. (And yes, my question to the parent was obviously meant to show that I disagree.)
      - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
        >Fraud usually requires that the entity doing it gains something from it // They got your money; so it's obtaining benefit by deception. If it says in the product specification that it does something that it doesn't do then it's fraud, which is criminal. It's a de minimis form of selling you a product that they know to not include the features they sold. But, police wouldn't pursue it (they don't even bother with burglary under O(£1000s) in UK); but you could sue for lost damages and you should in theory be successful.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 7y ago
Really if you need a registry backup it has to be on a different system, backing it up to a folder on the same system seems inadequate.
- chris_wot 7y ago
  Not really. If the update you apply trashes your registry, having the backup on disk is actually very helpful.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    And if the current OS is completely borked, a clean re-install is probably a better route than trying to restore the registry.
    - chris_wot 7y ago
      Getting the last known good state of the registry can often tell you what install caused issues. Reinstalling is fine, but IMO should be a last option in many cases. Especially if you are trying to quickly recover from an incident - reinstalls take time!
      - cm2187 7y ago
        Actually if you maintain a batch file with all your settings plus use chocolatey, it can be pretty quick (under 40 minutes to reinstall everything from scatch in my case).
  - pjc50 7y ago
    As Microsoft point out, this can be achieved with System Restore points.
    - acqq 7y ago
      > this can be achieved with System Restore points. Is that on by default? Here it is claimed it isn't: https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-use-system-restore-in-windows-10 https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-use-system-restore-i... "System Restore isn’t actually enabled by default in Windows 10, so you’ll need to turn it on."
srfilipek 7y ago
Wouldn't this break the functionality of "system restore points"? Because those have saved me so many times in the past.
- tomku 7y ago
  System restore points are the recommended and supported way to backup/restore critical system information including the registry, and they don't depend on the "secret" RegBack folder backups that this Forbes article is spreading panic about.
gaze 7y ago
Disable backups, fine. Ok. But don't _lie to the user_
- antisthenes 7y ago
  Actually no, why is disabling backups in the name of saving 100MB of disk space ever OK? Did we go back to 1995 when disk space was expensive? I'd like to look the manager/developer who approved that change in the eye and ask them what the hell were they thinking. As far lying to the user goes...hasn't that been MS's motto for at least since W10 came out? That's the least surprising part. A poor technical decision is much more worrying.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    The registry is still backed up via system restore points and versioned file history. It is still possible (albeit hard) to restore the registry to any point in time via those. These backups were really a bad plan - they were making a copy of the registry, and then a system restore point or 3rd party full system backup would backup all the backups.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      I can't believe I had to scroll this far to see this comment. Thankyou for talking sense.
Waterluvian 7y ago
I just booted up a windows 10 machine earlier today for the first time in many months. It absolutely bewilders me how terribad the UI is. You have this fancy UI but if you ever click one or two options deep you end up getting these alternately styled legacy interfaces. It's so incoherent. It really makes windows 10 feel like a skin on top of windows xp. So when the article says Microsoft wants to push users into windows 10 all I can think of is that it's for the good of Microsoft. But they had to add a little window dressing to make the users happy.
- wrs 7y ago
  It’s a skin on a skin on a skin on a skin. Its always been this way. By clicking on “advanced” buttons you can easily end up with four different eras of UI on the screen, including different system fonts and different font rendering algorithms! I can tell you first-hand from trying to get some of that fixed years ago, there’s just so much STUFF in Windows that is hardly ever seen, or should only be seen by “IT professionals” who supposedly don’t care, that there will never be enough resources or time to fix it all.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    That sounds like it was the intent. But I got into old menus simply by trying to change the clock time. Definitely not an IT professionals who don't care kind of action.
    - derefr 7y ago
      Sure it is. What home user even realizes they can change the clock time any more? Consider: can you change the clock time on your phone? I've never even considered doing so, personally. Seems like it'd screw up the GPS, if it was possible. Anyone whose first computer was a smartphone isn't going to think of changing their computer's clock time. To them, the time is a network feature, not a local feature.
      - Taniwha 7y ago
goodiegood 7y ago
This is good, right? We constantly moan on HN about those diabolical Electron apps which waste 50 MB of disk. Microsoft saved 50 MB of disk here, they are true heros. We applaud. After all, why did I pay for all that sweet SSD disk space if not to keep it free.
- jimbob45 7y ago
  That is not the chief complaint of Electron apps.
kabwj 7y ago
Page won’t stop refreshing on iOS Safari.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  Same here. Im guessing relating to adblock modal as it’s second page in past days i’ve noticed
JadeNB 7y ago
> The scheduled task to create the backups was still running and the run result indicated that the operation completed successfully, but Registry backups were not created anymore. > This change is by design, and is intended to help reduce the overall disk footprint size of Windows. To recover a system with a corrupt registry hive, Microsoft recommends that you use a system restore point. I suppose I can see removing the automatic backup feature to save disk space, but what is the argument for silently pretending that you're backing up?
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Presumably because they needed to maintain compatibility with other tools which require those backups to exist or interact with that scheduled task or the logs it creates. Windows really is a recursive backwards-compatibility hack...
- anticensor 7y ago
  Backwards "Compatibility". A program might check for those files and folders exist and warn you to complete your backups.
inlined 7y ago
How the heck are you supposed to use the backup without the registry? You might as well just handpick which document folders you want to back up. Without the registry you can’t even load a DLL; interfaces are loaded via UUID which seeks to the registry to find the dll and its threading model.
- kyberias 7y ago
  The Microsoft response tells you this: you use a system restore point.
barneygumble742 7y ago
Coincidentally, I got bit by this on a family computer over this weekend (had to reinstall). I went around enabling the backup via the registry on all of them.
bsder 7y ago
I suspect the simplest explanation is "Microsoft is tired of people being able to use really old versions so they are breaking that ability any way they can." See the current situation of Windows 10. There are specific "checkpoint" versions and they force you really aggressively to come up to them when they get released.
w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
It's not related to the actual article but the footnote about advertisment is what strike me the most : > Advertising revenue is falling fast across the Internet, and independently-run sites like Ghacks are hit hardest by it. The advertising model in its current form is coming to an end, and we have to find other ways to continue operating this site. It's no wonder Google is pushing to remove (partially) the ability to block ads in Chrome. If the business model based on ads is seriously at stake, a big chunk of the revenues of Alphabet is compromised.
- uponcoffee 7y ago
  Not that I necessarily disagree, but I think there's a bit of leap between ghack's footnote and assumptions about Google's behavior. One could leap to the assumption that ghack's target demographic are more likely to embrace ad-blockers, which is why they're being hit hard.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  To me the absurd thing is that this site could probably just embed ads as if they were normal website elements and not hosted by some ad CDN with lots of Javascript. As long as the ads weren't terrible, I doubt visitors would go to the effort of manually blocking the elements. But that fundamentally breaks the absolute fraud and house of cards of the entire web ad industry and make layers of ad people obsolete so it won't happen. It feels a lot like cable companies: "Our model is absolute shit but we don't need to change, you do." It's why I'm completely unsympathetic to the pending death of the cable and ad industries. They both were in a Sears position to dominate whatever paradigms come next.
  - aedocw 7y ago
    Not to defend the current model, but it's a lot more complicated than "just embed ads". Where do they get the ads from? How do they handle charging for them? How does the advertiser know they're not being ripped off, reaching their target demo, etc. The whole model with ads on the internet and the related tracking and profiling of everyone's activity is just terrible. But it's also going to take a lot to replace it with something less bad.
andrewstuart 7y ago
The Registry is the biggest architectural mistake in Windows - it's a great pity they haven't had the courage to remove it entirely.
- Forge36 7y ago
  They've indirectly stated support for it so long as VB6 (and COM) continue to be supported. I suspect a 32bit runtime deprecation is probably slatted for a sooner deprecation than the registry
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  They can't remove it. It's insane the amount of code that would break without the registry.
  - andrewstuart 7y ago
    Gotta start somewhere, - they should announce that it's being deprecated in future version of Windows.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      And here's how to do it instead of using the registry (for all uses - COM garbage included). And here's how to migrate, and here's some tools to help you...
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    Why not? I think they could deprecate the interface and replace the implementation with wherever the new thing is (config files?) transparently. Make Visual Studio emit warnings for a version or two, then errors (and LTS the last Visual Studio version that supports it until official EOL). They're not going to do that because it's not important to them (and the registry is a bit of an icon at this point).
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  The registry is a fantastic idea - it's a great pity software developers misused and screwed it up so badly, and a shame other OSs haven't copied it and built on it. Instead of every tool making its own incompatible, undocumented, non-standard config file/database/format/tools.
DonHopkins 7y ago
>The Registry backup option has been disabled but not removed according to Microsoft. Administrators who would like to restore the functionality may do so by changing the value of a Registry key: [...Steps 1-6...] Step 0: Back up your registry!
deleted 7y ago
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deleted 7y ago
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Razengan 7y ago
Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists? I can usually intuitively infer where the plist for a particular app or subsystem may be stored, or just search for it using regular file system tools, and I can use many tools to read, edit and selectively backup/restore plists as well as compress them (something I make use of often, to restore settings only for specific apps on a fresh machine/installation, something that was very cumbersome to do with the Registry.) I also have yet to experience plist corruptions even once for even one file on macOS, but several times with the Registry during my time on Windows, with multiple unrelated parts of the monolith crumbling at the same time.
- krackers 7y ago
  Storing configuration as plaintext files is definitely a big positive, as it allows you to use standard and battle-tested file apis to manipulate them instead of an opaque blob that then requires an additional platform specific API. The only benefit I can see of a monolithic registry is that it's technically all organized in one central place, compared to say the Linux practice of scattering app settings in home directories (although XDG does help standardize this). But in practice the Windows approach seem to provide an unnecessarily tight coupling.
  - CameronNemo 7y ago
    plists are XML, not plain text. Structured data need not be binary. Also on Linux you have dconf, which is literally a centralized, binary configuration storage backend. I believe it is being replaced with a more decentralized mechanism to ease container use cases.
- grzm 7y ago
  > "Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Rationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Rationale The Registry has been around since Windows 3.1. While it's not required to use the Registry, I can imagine there's a large installed base of applications that do use it, and migrating off of something like this can take concerted effort if they decide it's worth the effort. When there's something I initially find incredulous, I try to take step back and recognize that very likely the people involved in making those decisions have a better perspective on the situation than I do. I've found Chesterton's Fence to be a useful metaphor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence Taking that into account, even my explanation is likely wrong. And even given everything you've said is true, there are any number of additional issues known to those involved than the ones you've put forth.
f4stjack 7y ago
Yeah considering May 2019 iso takes 26.6 gigabytes post install and updates I'm having a hard time believing this excuse. This is a system with no additional tools by the way, no python, no office, no nothing. Just straight up windows install -> check updates & wait.

111 points by ytNumbers 7y ago

This sort of thinking might have been understandable back during the '90's. However, today, people have plenty of free space on their hard disk. The track record of Windows 10 has been so poor lately that it's surprising that MS got so overconfident that they decided that they didn't need safeguards like this any longer.

Causality1 7y ago
Meanwhile Microsoft steals 7GB for "reserved storage" just in case they happen to have a giant update to install without your consent. "we disabled registry backups and made the dialog box lie to the user to save storage space" is a nauseatingly transparent lie.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  If it’s that transparent, what’s the truth? Whats the REAL reason for this nauseating, unacceptable, decision?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - brynjolf 7y ago
    I think bug that they are embarrassed about

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rando444 7y ago

50-100MB seems like a miniscule amount of space to warrant something like this. My WinSxS folder alone is almost 10GB. If they wanted to save space, even a modest improvement in managing updates would yield space saving results orders of magnitude greater than this.

close04 7y ago
Between the traditional Disk Cleanup and a quick DISM cleanup (which should already be running as a scheduled task) you can get pretty good results on any Windows 8.1/2012R2 and above: Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
- yebyen 7y ago
  > quick DISM cleanup (which should already be running as a scheduled task) Is this a recommendation/suggestion of yours, or a default state?
  - smitty1110 7y ago
    Last I knew you had to set it up yourself.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  More info on what that does: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/clean-up-the-winsxs-folder https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    I don't really see the need to have the ability to uninstall service packs... Especially not if it's wasting 25% of the space on my tiny SSD! The original windows installation media could be used to restore the system if something went horribly wrong anyway. Why the need to keep every previously used version of every dll?
    - arpa 7y ago
      Because Microsoft. We will lie to you about making registry backups successfully to save a few megs of space, bud god forbid we touch the winsxs elephant in the room.
    - 7y ago

docker_up 7y ago

I'm still on Windows 7 on a 2012 desktop. There's no reason for me to change. I've yet to run into any situation that has required me to upgrade. Since the world is generally web-first, the only thing that matters is Chrome and Firefox. Even running 4K video just required a codec upgrade as opposed to CPU upgrade. Yes there are security concerns but I'm pretty vigilant. I haven't run a virus scanner in 15 years, I'm just extremely paranoid over what I click on and which sites I visit. I run an ad-blocker and pi-hole to decrease any attack vectors. If attacks like spear-phishing become a lot more prevalent and much harder to detect then maybe I'll have to upgrade to keep up with security patches but until then I'm keeping status quo with a lot of backups.

romanovcode 7y ago
> I haven't run a virus scanner in 15 years, https://i.imgflip.com/34p4uf.jpg https://i.imgflip.com/34p4uf.jpg
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I do run them occasionally, but haven't found anything on any Linux install I've ever had (except files I've actively quarantined from email to a) test virus checking and b) analyse for activity [deobfuscating js from Wordpress hacks is fun!]).
- antisthenes 7y ago
  This is not constructive. Security is 90% about good operational procedures and maybe 10% about what OS/Antivirus/whatever you have. And that's being generous. It seems like the 2018+ trend is pushing poor software in the name of security.
iknowstuff 7y ago
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how we get botnets.
- Crinus 7y ago
  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a great example of FUD.

close04 7y ago

> The system registry is no longer backed up to the RegBack folder starting in Windows 10 version 1803 > This change is by design, and is intended to help reduce the overall disk footprint size of Windows. To recover a system with a corrupt registry hive, Microsoft recommends that you use a system restore point. > If you have to use the legacy backup behavior, you can re-enable it by configuring the following registry entry, and then restarting the computer: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup Type: REG_DWORD Value: 1 The issue being not that they stopped doing it but that they failed to properly communicate it to the users.

cmurf 7y ago

Meanwhile, after the latest 1809, there were over 2GiB of update clutter not cleaned up automatically. It took two rounds of Disk Cleanup run manually to get rid of which took over an hour with laptop fans running on high the whole time. This was on a non-OEM, directly from microsoft.com, clean installation of Windows 10 Pro 1709. Windows updates are an abomination.

kevingadd 7y ago
Update clutter is cleaned up a few weeks later, they keep it so you can 'roll back' the update. I've had to use the roll back feature before, it's useful. I guess it's an abomination, though?

godson_drafty 7y ago

Omitting automatic registry backups is a defensible policy. Telling the user that a backup was completed while a 0 byte file was saved is lying. Seems like a criminal act under the circumstances.

Sujan 7y ago
What crime in what country do you think this should fall under?
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  It's a very minor fraud, if a product you purchase says it will do backups, but doesn't do them, then you were defrauded. I think you could sue for actual damages if you had them and be successful if it's in the documentation anywhere, or the system actively informed you that a backup was made. I'm in the UK, fwiw; I'd expect most English law systems to be broadly similar but IANAL.
  - gruez 7y ago
    keyword being >if it's in the documentation anywhere A quick search for "RegBack" doesn't turn up any MSFT documentation on it. But it does turn up an article titled "How to restore Registry from its secret backup on Windows 10". This makes me think the feature is undocumented.
  - Sujan 7y ago
    Fraud usually requires that the entity doing it gains something from it, especially if we are talking about a "criminal act" as the parent did. (IANAL) The civil side might be different, but that is not what the parent insinuated. (And yes, my question to the parent was obviously meant to show that I disagree.)
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      >Fraud usually requires that the entity doing it gains something from it // They got your money; so it's obtaining benefit by deception. If it says in the product specification that it does something that it doesn't do then it's fraud, which is criminal. It's a de minimis form of selling you a product that they know to not include the features they sold. But, police wouldn't pursue it (they don't even bother with burglary under O(£1000s) in UK); but you could sue for lost damages and you should in theory be successful.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 7y ago

Really if you need a registry backup it has to be on a different system, backing it up to a folder on the same system seems inadequate.

chris_wot 7y ago
Not really. If the update you apply trashes your registry, having the backup on disk is actually very helpful.
- cm2187 7y ago
  And if the current OS is completely borked, a clean re-install is probably a better route than trying to restore the registry.
  - chris_wot 7y ago
    Getting the last known good state of the registry can often tell you what install caused issues. Reinstalling is fine, but IMO should be a last option in many cases. Especially if you are trying to quickly recover from an incident - reinstalls take time!
    - cm2187 7y ago
      Actually if you maintain a batch file with all your settings plus use chocolatey, it can be pretty quick (under 40 minutes to reinstall everything from scatch in my case).
- pjc50 7y ago
  As Microsoft point out, this can be achieved with System Restore points.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > this can be achieved with System Restore points. Is that on by default? Here it is claimed it isn't: https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-use-system-restore-in-windows-10 https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-use-system-restore-i... "System Restore isn’t actually enabled by default in Windows 10, so you’ll need to turn it on."

srfilipek 7y ago

Wouldn't this break the functionality of "system restore points"? Because those have saved me so many times in the past.

tomku 7y ago
System restore points are the recommended and supported way to backup/restore critical system information including the registry, and they don't depend on the "secret" RegBack folder backups that this Forbes article is spreading panic about.

gaze 7y ago

Disable backups, fine. Ok. But don't _lie to the user_

antisthenes 7y ago
Actually no, why is disabling backups in the name of saving 100MB of disk space ever OK? Did we go back to 1995 when disk space was expensive? I'd like to look the manager/developer who approved that change in the eye and ask them what the hell were they thinking. As far lying to the user goes...hasn't that been MS's motto for at least since W10 came out? That's the least surprising part. A poor technical decision is much more worrying.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  The registry is still backed up via system restore points and versioned file history. It is still possible (albeit hard) to restore the registry to any point in time via those. These backups were really a bad plan - they were making a copy of the registry, and then a system restore point or 3rd party full system backup would backup all the backups.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    I can't believe I had to scroll this far to see this comment. Thankyou for talking sense.

Waterluvian 7y ago

I just booted up a windows 10 machine earlier today for the first time in many months. It absolutely bewilders me how terribad the UI is. You have this fancy UI but if you ever click one or two options deep you end up getting these alternately styled legacy interfaces. It's so incoherent. It really makes windows 10 feel like a skin on top of windows xp. So when the article says Microsoft wants to push users into windows 10 all I can think of is that it's for the good of Microsoft. But they had to add a little window dressing to make the users happy.

wrs 7y ago
It’s a skin on a skin on a skin on a skin. Its always been this way. By clicking on “advanced” buttons you can easily end up with four different eras of UI on the screen, including different system fonts and different font rendering algorithms! I can tell you first-hand from trying to get some of that fixed years ago, there’s just so much STUFF in Windows that is hardly ever seen, or should only be seen by “IT professionals” who supposedly don’t care, that there will never be enough resources or time to fix it all.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  That sounds like it was the intent. But I got into old menus simply by trying to change the clock time. Definitely not an IT professionals who don't care kind of action.
  - derefr 7y ago
    Sure it is. What home user even realizes they can change the clock time any more? Consider: can you change the clock time on your phone? I've never even considered doing so, personally. Seems like it'd screw up the GPS, if it was possible. Anyone whose first computer was a smartphone isn't going to think of changing their computer's clock time. To them, the time is a network feature, not a local feature.
    - Taniwha 7y ago

goodiegood 7y ago

This is good, right? We constantly moan on HN about those diabolical Electron apps which waste 50 MB of disk. Microsoft saved 50 MB of disk here, they are true heros. We applaud. After all, why did I pay for all that sweet SSD disk space if not to keep it free.

jimbob45 7y ago
That is not the chief complaint of Electron apps.

kabwj 7y ago

Page won’t stop refreshing on iOS Safari.

dzhiurgis 7y ago
Same here. Im guessing relating to adblock modal as it’s second page in past days i’ve noticed

JadeNB 7y ago

> The scheduled task to create the backups was still running and the run result indicated that the operation completed successfully, but Registry backups were not created anymore. > This change is by design, and is intended to help reduce the overall disk footprint size of Windows. To recover a system with a corrupt registry hive, Microsoft recommends that you use a system restore point. I suppose I can see removing the automatic backup feature to save disk space, but what is the argument for silently pretending that you're backing up?

londons_explore 7y ago
Presumably because they needed to maintain compatibility with other tools which require those backups to exist or interact with that scheduled task or the logs it creates. Windows really is a recursive backwards-compatibility hack...
anticensor 7y ago
Backwards "Compatibility". A program might check for those files and folders exist and warn you to complete your backups.

inlined 7y ago

How the heck are you supposed to use the backup without the registry? You might as well just handpick which document folders you want to back up. Without the registry you can’t even load a DLL; interfaces are loaded via UUID which seeks to the registry to find the dll and its threading model.

kyberias 7y ago
The Microsoft response tells you this: you use a system restore point.

barneygumble742 7y ago

Coincidentally, I got bit by this on a family computer over this weekend (had to reinstall). I went around enabling the backup via the registry on all of them.

bsder 7y ago

I suspect the simplest explanation is "Microsoft is tired of people being able to use really old versions so they are breaking that ability any way they can." See the current situation of Windows 10. There are specific "checkpoint" versions and they force you really aggressively to come up to them when they get released.

w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago

It's not related to the actual article but the footnote about advertisment is what strike me the most : > Advertising revenue is falling fast across the Internet, and independently-run sites like Ghacks are hit hardest by it. The advertising model in its current form is coming to an end, and we have to find other ways to continue operating this site. It's no wonder Google is pushing to remove (partially) the ability to block ads in Chrome. If the business model based on ads is seriously at stake, a big chunk of the revenues of Alphabet is compromised.

uponcoffee 7y ago
Not that I necessarily disagree, but I think there's a bit of leap between ghack's footnote and assumptions about Google's behavior. One could leap to the assumption that ghack's target demographic are more likely to embrace ad-blockers, which is why they're being hit hard.
Waterluvian 7y ago
To me the absurd thing is that this site could probably just embed ads as if they were normal website elements and not hosted by some ad CDN with lots of Javascript. As long as the ads weren't terrible, I doubt visitors would go to the effort of manually blocking the elements. But that fundamentally breaks the absolute fraud and house of cards of the entire web ad industry and make layers of ad people obsolete so it won't happen. It feels a lot like cable companies: "Our model is absolute shit but we don't need to change, you do." It's why I'm completely unsympathetic to the pending death of the cable and ad industries. They both were in a Sears position to dominate whatever paradigms come next.
- aedocw 7y ago
  Not to defend the current model, but it's a lot more complicated than "just embed ads". Where do they get the ads from? How do they handle charging for them? How does the advertiser know they're not being ripped off, reaching their target demo, etc. The whole model with ads on the internet and the related tracking and profiling of everyone's activity is just terrible. But it's also going to take a lot to replace it with something less bad.

andrewstuart 7y ago

The Registry is the biggest architectural mistake in Windows - it's a great pity they haven't had the courage to remove it entirely.

Forge36 7y ago
They've indirectly stated support for it so long as VB6 (and COM) continue to be supported. I suspect a 32bit runtime deprecation is probably slatted for a sooner deprecation than the registry
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
They can't remove it. It's insane the amount of code that would break without the registry.
- andrewstuart 7y ago
  Gotta start somewhere, - they should announce that it's being deprecated in future version of Windows.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    And here's how to do it instead of using the registry (for all uses - COM garbage included). And here's how to migrate, and here's some tools to help you...
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Why not? I think they could deprecate the interface and replace the implementation with wherever the new thing is (config files?) transparently. Make Visual Studio emit warnings for a version or two, then errors (and LTS the last Visual Studio version that supports it until official EOL). They're not going to do that because it's not important to them (and the registry is a bit of an icon at this point).
jodrellblank 7y ago
The registry is a fantastic idea - it's a great pity software developers misused and screwed it up so badly, and a shame other OSs haven't copied it and built on it. Instead of every tool making its own incompatible, undocumented, non-standard config file/database/format/tools.

DonHopkins 7y ago

>The Registry backup option has been disabled but not removed according to Microsoft. Administrators who would like to restore the functionality may do so by changing the value of a Registry key: [...Steps 1-6...] Step 0: Back up your registry!

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Razengan 7y ago

Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists? I can usually intuitively infer where the plist for a particular app or subsystem may be stored, or just search for it using regular file system tools, and I can use many tools to read, edit and selectively backup/restore plists as well as compress them (something I make use of often, to restore settings only for specific apps on a fresh machine/installation, something that was very cumbersome to do with the Registry.) I also have yet to experience plist corruptions even once for even one file on macOS, but several times with the Registry during my time on Windows, with multiple unrelated parts of the monolith crumbling at the same time.

krackers 7y ago
Storing configuration as plaintext files is definitely a big positive, as it allows you to use standard and battle-tested file apis to manipulate them instead of an opaque blob that then requires an additional platform specific API. The only benefit I can see of a monolithic registry is that it's technically all organized in one central place, compared to say the Linux practice of scattering app settings in home directories (although XDG does help standardize this). But in practice the Windows approach seem to provide an unnecessarily tight coupling.
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  plists are XML, not plain text. Structured data need not be binary. Also on Linux you have dconf, which is literally a centralized, binary configuration storage backend. I believe it is being replaced with a more decentralized mechanism to ease container use cases.
grzm 7y ago
> "Can someone explain why a monolithic Registry is a good idea, compared to something like macOS's .plists?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Rationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Rationale The Registry has been around since Windows 3.1. While it's not required to use the Registry, I can imagine there's a large installed base of applications that do use it, and migrating off of something like this can take concerted effort if they decide it's worth the effort. When there's something I initially find incredulous, I try to take step back and recognize that very likely the people involved in making those decisions have a better perspective on the situation than I do. I've found Chesterton's Fence to be a useful metaphor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence Taking that into account, even my explanation is likely wrong. And even given everything you've said is true, there are any number of additional issues known to those involved than the ones you've put forth.

f4stjack 7y ago

Yeah considering May 2019 iso takes 26.6 gigabytes post install and updates I'm having a hard time believing this excuse. This is a system with no additional tools by the way, no python, no office, no nothing. Just straight up windows install -> check updates & wait.