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Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

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Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#111

Post by rhinoceraptor »

robocat wrote: post #83
gemjam wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One super useful hidden feature but terrible ui is you can start typing as soon as Win 10 start menu is open... example 'notepad'... I used to install classic shell just to get the [run] input box

Except if you start typing just after booting, the search service (or something) isn't running yet and it doesn't give you any results even if you wait... I hate using Windows 10 because I am constantly hitting new unique bugs in the UI, and regularly enough I run into complete show-stoppers. Windows UI is just so broken. I do run into bugs on Ubuntu, but usually there is a workaround. And I have lower expectations w…

I would prefer if it would just give me no results. Half the time when I hit the windows key, type what I want and hit enter it will open an Edge window with Bing search results for what I typed.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#112

Post by jve »

autoexec wrote: post #82
jorvi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that terrible UI? It's basically what Spotlight does for Macs. Cmd+space and it overlays a text box from which you can find and open any file, application, event etc. or even do stuff like calculations and unit conversions.

because there is no indication to the user that they can or should enter text. One my favorite things to type in the old "run" box was "." and that doesn't work anymore in 10. I can still open a command prompt and type "start ." at least.

Oh, wow, thanks for tip. I always though why they don't include %USERPROFILE% to quick links :/

Btw, as others mentioned - Win+R gives you Run dialog. Or Win+X gives you admin tools and a Run button approximately where it used to be. Or just right click on start button...

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#113

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ushg wrote: post #61
rando444 wrote: post #5

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.

I wonder if it's related to the trend in recent years of manufacturers marketing ultra low-budget Windows 10 laptops (and to a lesser extent tablets) with critically small amounts of non-upgradeable storage? An install of Windows 10 typically takes up ~26GB and there's already a problem with consumers discovering that their 32GB soldered eMMC machines are unable to perform any OS updates without jumping through extra…

Those machines are already mostly unusable under Windows because MS only requires 2GiB minimum so it's an instant swapfest to eMMC. Put Linux on them and they're quite nice.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#114

Post by w1nst0nsm1th »

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.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#115

Post by Litmus2336 »

zbentley wrote: post #95
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a big company and Windows is a big product. Is fully remaking the Control Panel really such a monumental task? The Control Panel isn't that deep. It's not as though Microsoft needs to create a UI for every advanced Group Policy setting. The new Settings app was introduced with Windows 8 in 2013. That means Microsoft has had six years to complete the transition.

> The Control Panel isn't that deep. It really, really is.

This week in "HN looks at software that took thousands of devs 30 years to write and says 'eh I could've done that in a day!'"

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#117

Post by blattimwind »

zbentley wrote: post #95
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a big company and Windows is a big product. Is fully remaking the Control Panel really such a monumental task? The Control Panel isn't that deep. It's not as though Microsoft needs to create a UI for every advanced Group Policy setting. The new Settings app was introduced with Windows 8 in 2013. That means Microsoft has had six years to complete the transition.

> The Control Panel isn't that deep. It really, really is.

There are still dialogs for configuring 56k dial up connections in Windows 10. NETBIOS is probably somewhere in there, too.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#118

Post by AnimalMuppet »

andrewstuart wrote: post #116

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

They can't remove it. It's insane the amount of code that would break without the registry.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#119

Post by blattimwind »

jjwhitaker wrote: post #79
nogridbag wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just booted up my Surface Book for the first time in months. It attempted to download and install Windows 10 update 1903. The update failed with a large dialog telling me my system isn't ready to install update 1903. I'm going to sound like the naive end user now, but isn't it the job of the update manager to only download and install updates that are ready to be installed? It did eventually install 1903 after abou…

In my case there is a glitch in the 1903 install where having external drives attached forces a fail as the installer can't determine which is the Windows drive or something (per an error/forum I read at the time). I had coped the ISO from a USB so removing the USB drive resolved the error. I think it's picky to prevent issues similar to 1809 install. That was a mess and I'm sure MSFT would rather have an error befor…

> In my case there is a glitch in the 1903 install where having external drives attached forces a fail as the installer can't determine which is the Windows drive or something (per an error/forum I read at the time).

All things old become new again. In the Vista and 7 era there were a bunch of updates that you just could not install if you booted Windows by chainloading its bootloader. You had to boot Windows straight from BIOS, otherwise they'd fail to install, because some obscure component in Windows couldn't figure out what C:\ was otherwise.

Re: Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10

#120

Post by jodrellblank »

andrewstuart wrote: post #116

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

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.

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