Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10 • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by Causality1 » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #78

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.

Yes but isolated registry backups make as much sense as a full backup of a modern Linux Desktop's /etc folder. Probably not much. The config's content depends a lot on the things installed and vice-versa, even more so on Windows (unless they changed something fundamentally since 7). At least on Linux and in particular Ubuntu (Desktop) installations I aim for as little manual configuration changes as possible anyways,…

Isolated registry backups are handy if you do a lot of poking around in the registry by hand or if you're about to install a .reg file. Regardless, the dialog box actively lying to the user is what's completely unacceptable.

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

#132

Post by Causality1 » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #65

Waterluvian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

A feature that's partially broken on Windows 10 considering I have never once had the "set time zone automatically" option work properly.

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

#133

Post by maccard » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #65

Waterluvian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

It screws up SSL certs, that's for sure.

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

#134

Post by FigBug » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #129

jodrellblank wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think Apple solved this problem well with the .app application files. All application files and resources are self-contained. Drag the .app file to the Trash to completely remove it. Some apps are non-conforming, and store data elsewhere, but as a general model I think it works very well.

.apps aren't really analogous to the registry, they are more like the contents of the Program Files directory.

On macOS, the registry equivalent is all the plist files stored in ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Application Support. These just get left behind when the .app is deleted.

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

#135

Post by cardiffspaceman » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

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…

One of the earliest Win10 updates was "bricking" machines if a device was in the SD card slot during the update process. Guess where my update media were?

The machine became a Debian machine. It was "bricked" only to the extent that there was no way forward from the failed update to getting Windows back.

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

#136

Post by gmueckl » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #127

birdman3131 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not mind the newer interface if it did not screw with half the settings I need.

I actually like the newer interface... when it isn't trying to take over my entire 32" screen to show me information that would have fit in a 2" square window, or doesn't bother exposing more than a quarter of the functionality you get with the older UIs.

How many parts of Settings do you actually like then? I think that almost every part falls into one of these categories for me.

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

#137

Post by gmueckl » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

anticensor wrote: post #71

barrkel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The settings screens dating from the iconic control panel era can't easily be dumped because third party drivers add tabs and extend the dialogs. That's a big part of the problem.

They could have made a partial machine translator to convert to the modern control panel and an API wrapper for runtime compatibility in the interim.

How would you automatically translate hand-layouted dialogs (originally even manually adjusted for localizations where required) into a completely different layout and design language? Never mind the few dialogs that do custom controls and custom rendering (joystick test and joystick calibration, for example). In plain Win32, that stuff is often part of the window repaint event handler and not encapsulated in a way that allows it to be repositioned reliably. It is a huge mess.

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

#138

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

jve wrote: post #112

autoexec wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

A nice thing about Win+X (but not Win+R) is you get the pop-up on your current monitor on multimonitor systems. (Unfortunately, if you do “Run” from the Win+X menu, the Run app does not show up on your current monitor.)

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

#139

Post by jlg23 » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #78

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.

Yes but isolated registry backups make as much sense as a full backup of a modern Linux Desktop's /etc folder. Probably not much. The config's content depends a lot on the things installed and vice-versa, even more so on Windows (unless they changed something fundamentally since 7). At least on Linux and in particular Ubuntu (Desktop) installations I aim for as little manual configuration changes as possible anyways,…

But config not being read by things not installed does not hurt either. And once I install these missing things, the config is read again. And I usually spend a lot more time with configuration than with installing...

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

#140

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #109

Bartweiss wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still on Windows 7 on a 2012 desktop... 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. To be blunt, this is a bad idea. I'm sympathetic to the general motivation. I think the value and effectiveness of antivirus is generally overstated; it's often a replacement for vigilant brows…

>we've seen zero-days compromising servers and numerous other threats that could affect you indirectly. If your machine was Lenovo, it quite possibly came with malware. If you've used Sennheiser's setup app, your root certificate store may be poisoned. Further back, if you put Sony BMG music CDs into your machine, they may have given you a rootkit. >But I think it's valuable to have something that keeps up with the h…

The MO a long time ago was to test it on multiple AV's until it passed on enough that were widely-deployed or used by the target. Those AV's were disconnected from the network where they couldn't send the samples back. There was a risk they'd keep something to send when networking came back on.

Although not a malware developer, my recommendation was installing the software in a VM or something, updating to current sigs, cutting off networking, testing sample till it passes, and delete the VM. Then, restart the process with clean VM or (more likely) from snapshot. I'm not up-to-date on what they're doing these days, though.