
Microsoft explains the lack of Registry backups in Windows 10 - ytNumbers
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/06/29/microsoft-explains-the-lack-of-registry-backups-in-windows-10/
======
rando444
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.

~~~
blablabla123
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, so updates don't break things...

~~~
outworlder
If you backup etc and home, you can pretty much restore a linux machine back
to working order. Yes, you might be missing packages in a brand new install,
but then the extra files are harmless.

People put etc in git even:
[https://joeyh.name/code/etckeeper/](https://joeyh.name/code/etckeeper/)

The registry is much more magical and it is difficult to find and remove
cruft, so I suppose there's an argument against it.

~~~
la_barba
>If you backup etc and home, you can pretty much restore a linux machine back
to working order.

Hmm, I've never done this. In terms of config files, are there never any
breaking changes between versions? Like ..is a v1.0 config file always
guaranteed to work with v2.0 and vice versa? I guess and a related question -
what is the best way to determine if an /etc/ config file isn't required?

~~~
velosol
Usually breaking changes are highlighted in your update cycle and if something
is added or slightly modified you might find a *.conf.rpmnew or similar.
rpmconf [1] helps with those sorts of updates.

[1]: [https://github.com/xsuchy/rpmconf](https://github.com/xsuchy/rpmconf)

------
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.

~~~
Waterluvian
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
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.

~~~
Waterluvian
I do kind of agree. But I think that can be a process and tooling problem that
can be solved in numerous ways that don't involve handing over the keys to
those blocks to the ad industry.

I do kind of disagree. I don't think it needs to be a lot more complicated. I
just think the industry kept growing to a point that it needed to justify
complexity. There's entire categories of jobs that don't need to exist.

Consider how advertising works for YouTube sponsorship. It's literally just
some person emailing another person saying, "hey I've seen your site and based
on a bit of research (the thing that justifies my jobs existence) I think your
personality and demographic and other factors are all a match for advertising
this product. Want to talk about it more?" And then the advertising agency
hands over a package for the YouTuber to fit into their channel in an organic,
appropriate way. Why oh why is that so hard for the web ad industry to do?
Let's hash out the details, and then our guys will send your guys some html
and other assets and you can plug it in to run for a month, using whatever
technical architecture you use to run ads.

~~~
Guvante
300 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded every minute. Assuming that the
average video is 2x the minimum required to maximize ad revenue (10 min so 20
min per) that is 25 videos per second. Assuming you can do a deal every 10
minutes you would need 630 people to get ads for 1% of the videos uploaded.

The entire point of that complicated web is to eliminate the cost of all those
people and move that 0.1% that you could actually do to closer to 80%.

While it is true that we have given too much power to advertisers the
solutions to the privacy problems that solve the advertisers requirements is
hard (remember they are the only ones paying into the system so dropping their
requirements won't happen). There have been some technical papers put forward
but they are as complex as BitCoin is in order to actually allow for a small
subset of the features the terrible leaky privacy of the modern web gives them
for no effort.

------
Waterluvian
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.

~~~
gemjam
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

~~~
robocat
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 when it costs $0 (and without the trillion dollar market
cap of Microsoft).

I also regularly find bugs in macOS, which annoys me since we pay such a
premium for Apple software.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
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.

~~~
lexicality
You can turn that off. It's not easy and they keep changing how you do it, but
with enough registry keys you can kill Cortana and all the associated bollocks
and return to an actually useful system search.

~~~
WorldMaker
Windows 10 is back to system search focused by default in 1903. Cortana was
refocused to voice-centric and the interfaces (and buttons) are now distinct
between system search and Cortana. Rumors are Cortana may even be an optional
install in 19H2 or 20H1.

------
Razengan
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.

~~~
grzm
> _" 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.

~~~
Razengan
Windows used to have lots of .INI files, but almost all apps kept them all in
C:\Windows or System or some such place.

If only they had discovered the concept of subfolders, instead of shuttling
them off into another monolithic container. I suspect having many
subdirectories degraded filesystem performance at the time.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Or just stick them all in a global store specifically for config files, say
somewhere like /etc?

This problem has been solved since the 1960s.

------
cmurf
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
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?

------
JadeNB
> 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
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...

------
docker_up
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.

~~~
iknowstuff
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how we get botnets.

~~~
gruez
True, but you're just under 1 year too early. Windows 7 is getting security
patches till 2020 so he's fine for now.

~~~
antisthenes
And another 3 years of paid support. There's no reason to believe that those 3
years of patches won't leak to regular consumers.

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

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

~~~
brynjolf
I think bug that they are embarrassed about

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

~~~
antisthenes
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
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
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to see this comment. Thankyou for
talking sense.

------
DonHopkins
>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!

------
inlined
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
The Microsoft response tells you this: you use a system restore point.

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

~~~
jodrellblank
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.

~~~
andrewstuart
>> 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.

~~~
jodrellblank
"Holding the phone wrong" referred to people using something as they'd expect,
but it not working at all. The registry turned to trash by people using it
wrongly, because people don't write software very well. When ordinary users
needed admin rights because developers stored per-user settings in the system-
wide config, that's developers misusing the registry. When tools register
themselves as file-format-handlers in the registry directly instead of going
through Windows' API and getting user permission, so they can steal file
format registrations, that's developers being malicious or bad at their jobs.
When developers persist things in the registry without taking into account the
documentation that warns things like "the user hive might be loaded on a
desktop then on a terminal server with a different version of the installed
application", that's developers not using it properly.

A central configuration database with standard ways of accessing it, doubling
as an early 'service-discovery' place (e.g. registration of COM components),
with system-wide config and per-user hives loaded when needed, is a great
idea, and the registry is tolerably good software design as a way to do that,
considering it came from the early 1990s, but developers have carelessly
misused it for years, and Microsoft take the blame for that.

Imagine you logged onto a server by SSH and your /home/.program/program.conf
file is from a newer version and the program doesn't run. Nobody would attack
"the concept of storing configuration in a text file" for that - but people
would attack "the registry" when that equivalent happens on Windows.

How many times have people written scripts to "parse" and add/remove lines of
config from text files, without ever saying "we're reinventing the wheel for
the hundred thousandth time, what a miserable waste of human life, if only
there was a standardised key/value store we could put data in with a standard
tool"?

And I put "parse" in scare-quotes because how many actually implement a full
and correct Apache/Bind/iptables/etc config file parser, instead of a quick
regex/sed/AWK/Python hack? JSON changed this a little, but now you'd easily
expect to configure a server/service using a REST interface, and the config
would be persisted in some unknown not-user-facing database behind the scenes,
and that's just "fine".

~~~
toyg
The minute you make third-party developers potentially responsible for the
overall stability of your system, the fault is yours, sorry. Microsoft simply
did not grok security principles when building Windows 95, and they have been
paying the price ever since.

 _> your /home/.program/program.conf file is from a newer version and the
program doesn't run._

But a problem in program.conf would sabotage the program, not _the entire
system_. Whereas a bad registry can stop you from _booting_. That is the main
problem.

A real unix equivalent could _maybe_ be a problem with something in /etc, but
that stuff is supposed to be 1) set to basic defaults that will work in any
circumstance, and 2) kept under lock and key. Whereas the Registry was born as
a free-for-all, and only much later got a permission system retrofitted on
top.

Was the Registry a good idea? Maybe; but it certainly had a terrible
execution, and now we're stuck with the results.

 _> if only there was a standardised key/value store_

Yes, if only - but there isn't, the Registry is Windows-only. That's why
developers end up managing text files: because they work everywhere, in 1995
as in 2019; whereas APIs come and go.

~~~
jodrellblank
Windows 95 wasn't multi-user and was from a time when the only software most
people would install was some they bought from a company you trust. I hazard a
guess that with NT4 and Windows 2000, the user hive was unlikely to be able to
crash your system - sure something probably could, but it was at that point
separate between what a user could do and what an admin could do. At that
point, giving an installer root access to affect the system areas and then
complaining that it could screw up a computer, would happen on any OS from any
company. If your argument is really that "it was a free for all initially
therefore I discount anything they learned or changed since" \- that isn't
very convincing.

> _But a problem in program.conf would sabotage the program, not the entire
> system. Whereas a bad registry can stop you from booting. That is the main
> problem._

A bad user hive stored on a network drive, can stop a terminal server from
booting? Can it? That's the comparison with /home/.program/program.conf that
you're replying to.

> _A real unix equivalent could maybe be a problem with something in /etc, but
> that stuff is supposed to be 1) set to basic defaults that will work in any
> circumstance_

Like a kind of "safe mode" that can boot after something has screwed up the
registry?

> _That 's why developers end up managing text files: because they work
> everywhere, in 1995 as in 2019; whereas APIs come and go._

Yeah, I've never had to fix character encoding issues in text files, or line
ending, or newline at end of file, or escaping or quoting issues in text
files, because they're all the same and never cause any problems. Microsoft
APIs from years ago still work.

~~~
toyg
_> Windows 95 wasn't multi-user_

Indeed, at that was a major mistake. Multi-user systems had existed for 20
years, Windows 95 was a huge step back.

 _> I hazard a guess that with NT4 and Windows 2000, the user hive was
unlikely to be able to crash your system_

... you wish.

 _> A bad user hive stored on a network drive, can stop a terminal server from
booting?_

Maybe, I honestly have no idea - I've only seen it happening locally. I
wouldn't put anything past registry corruption anyway.

 _> Like a kind of "safe mode" that can boot after something has screwed up
the registry?_

Access to Safe mode requires hardware action at boot. The worst you can get
from a userland program in unix failing on logon is that you have to log on
via shell.

 _> Yeah, I've never had to fix character encoding issues in text files_

The difference is that you can fix all that _yourself_ , with a shell and an
editor, whereas if Windows says the registry is borked, the registry is borked
and you have no recourse.

~~~
jodrellblank
_Indeed, at that was a major mistake. Multi-user systems had existed for 20
years, Windows 95 was a huge step back._

Single-user systems had existed for longer. They were dominant at the time
especially on small systems - many variants of DOS, Windows 3.1, OS/2 up to
version 3, Apple MacOS up to version 8, Amiga, Acorn, Atari, every console,
every 8-bit micro, Symbolics Genera[1], BeOS pretended to be single-user. The
days of a central computer with tons of connected terminals requiring multi-
user auditing, separation, and billing - were fading. Individual computers
were becoming cheaper, the internet hadn't risen. Looking back with hindsight
of how things turned out, and saying "huge step back" when it was not a step
back at the time, it was a step forward from Win 3.1 in many ways and a step
sideways in that way, seems weird.

We still have not-multi-user systems now, for embedded devices and mobiles and
similar. If it wasn't for network effects, it ought to be possible to make a
single-user OS which was simpler and therefore faster and cheaper, and I bet
it would be good enough for much of the computing done on the planet today -
the amount of personal computers where multiple people need to logon, compared
to the amount where you just want random people not to be able to poke at it
without permission. Although totally not worth doing these days.

[1]
[http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/symbolics/software/genera_8/Ope...](http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/symbolics/software/genera_8/Open_Genera_User_s_Guide.pdf)
page 12, last paragraph.

> _... you wish._

You started this bit by saying "once you give third parties control of the
stability of your system, you lose". That happens if you give root access to
anyone, on any platform. That happens in Windows 95, but the registry had
system/user separation since Windows 2000. So that's 5 years without, vs 20
years with.

Yes I wish it was without problems, and that it had some more standard offline
edit ability, but I don't think "userland can crash the system" was a design
plan for the registry, so I don't judge it as bad design because of that.

------
pjc50
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
Not really. If the update you apply trashes your registry, having the backup
on disk is actually very helpful.

~~~
pjc50
As Microsoft point out, this can be achieved with System Restore points.

~~~
acqq
> 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-i...](https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-use-system-restore-in-
windows-10)

"System Restore isn’t actually enabled by default in Windows 10, so you’ll
need to turn it on."

------
close04
> 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.

------
barneygumble742
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.

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

~~~
tomku
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.

------
f4stjack
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.

------
kabwj
Page won’t stop refreshing on iOS Safari.

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

------
goodiegood
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
That is not the chief complaint of Electron apps.

------
godson_drafty
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
What crime in what country do you think this should fall under?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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.

~~~
rolph
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 a currently guesstimated threat that is coming?

~~~
cwyers
> 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._

------
bsder
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.

