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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

#141

Post by andrewstuart »

jodrellblank wrote: post #120
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.

>> it's a great pity software developers misused and screwed it up so badly

So the Registry is a great idea and great software design, but developers are "holding the phone wrong"?

I think applications should be standalone and not tied into some giant central spaghetti shared knot of chewing gum.

The beauty of Linux/Unix is that stuff is configured by text files. Windows was on that path i the early days when everything was configured with ini files before someone had the idea of introducing the registry.

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

#142

Post by gmueckl »

gemjam wrote: post #48
Waterluvian wrote: post #37

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 wind…

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

This search feature was actually good in Win7. On its way into Windows 10 it has regressed into something awful. The way it inconsistently comes up with different results in different orders when you repeat the same search multiple times in quick succession is a good example of how maddening it can be to use this thing. I want to start a program from the start menu, type its name and I often get a Bing link as first result or a document which is replaced by a Bing link in first place just in time for everything to shift under my cursor so that I pick the wrong thing. The actual menu entry that I'm looking for can be 20 seconds late at times (when it shows up in the program list without delay and probably popped up in an earlier search in first place after only 2 seconds or so).

I don't get why this thing is messed up the way it is.

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

#143

Post by jodrellblank »

Causality1 wrote: post #3
ytNumbers wrote: post #2

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.

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.

If it’s that transparent, what’s the truth?

Whats the REAL reason for this nauseating, unacceptable, decision?

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

#144

Post by cwyers »

rolph wrote: post #45
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if i spent all day tweaking peoples registries, only to find that they are not backed up to be restored when you desire a sane configuration uuum, "pissed off" would not even begin to approach describing the emotional carnage evoked. I get the hunch MS is set on controlling the users configuration at all times. On the flipside i remember the hell of restore point trojans, and perhaps this is MS best go at mitigating…

> if i spent all day tweaking peoples registries, only to find that they are not backed up to be restored when you desire a sane configuration uuum, "pissed off" would not even begin to approach describing the emotional carnage evoked.

Step one to editing the Registry is _stop editing the Registry._

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

#145

Post by andrewstuart »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #118
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.

Gotta start somewhere, - they should announce that it's being deprecated in future version of Windows.

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

#146

Post by rstuart4133 »

nightski wrote: post #130
peterangular wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on the 50-100MB being minuscule. I don't even provision a Windows VM without 60G worth of space due to how bad it is on cleaning itself up/bloat. I wasn't even able to install Windows 7 a few months ago due to the WinSxS folder continuously bloating to fill the disk (stock on a T440p - super weird issues). It's almost as if they broke new-install update cycles on Win7 on purpose =/ My question is why the hell w…

That sounds like something was seriously wrong with your install. I am on a desktop running windows 10 since its release on which I use daily and install a lot of software - and the windows folder is sitting at 12 GB.

> the windows folder is sitting at 12 GB

I don't think the Windows folder is a particular good indication of Windows space usage.

A while ago Microsoft put a tablet killer design out there: 11 Screen, 4GB RAM, Touch Screen and 32GB SSD. Man+dog shipped them. Then man+dog found the machines died because Windows ran out of disk space on patch Tuesday. So regardless of what is in the windows directory 32GB is not enough to run Windows.

We "fixed" the problem by replacing Windows with Linux. Total size of Linux install, which included Libre Office and a selection of browsers: less than 4GB.

Microsoft attempting to fix the size issue by removing 100M of backups when the scale of the problem they are trying to solve is 4GB vs 32GB is a almost laughable.

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

#147

Post by kevingadd »

cmurf wrote: post #11

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.

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?

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

#148

Post by Avamander »

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…

There's at least the possibility that the malware gets removed with signature updates.

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

#149

Post by geegoo »

chris_wot wrote: post #52
jamklda wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using Dism++ (GUI) for this job https://www.chuyu.me/en/index.html

Is this open sourced?

Only the parts that they took from other reverse engineered header projects are opensource (because they have to). They answered on one of their Github issues that the actual core code is not open source. I wouldn't touch this.

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

#150

Post by mackal »

jodrellblank wrote: post #120
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.

GNOME used to have GConf, which is basically the same thing as Windows Registry. GNOME 3 replaced that with dconf/gsettings which serves very similar purposes.
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