Microsoft: _"We removed automatic registry backups to save storage space."_ Literally everyone: _"If you're concerned about space, remove the extra bloatware and telemetry services. Pretty sure that junk takes up WAY more storage."_ Microsoft: *_"NOOOOO!!! ThOsE aRe EsSeNtIaL!!!"_*
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj It gets sent to Microsoft's servers where they store it and use it to send you ads and shit. One way to limit this is to type "services" in your search bar, click on the services application, and scroll down to "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry", double-click it, and change startup type to "Disabled" and then services status to "Stop", then hit "Apply" and "Okay". This can actually also help speed up older computers with mechanical hard drives because they're not constantly sending stuff to Microsoft.
@@DJdoppIer Correct....unfortunately I hear rumors regularly that Microshaft has gone in and changed settings, They also legally have power to REMOVE software from YOUR system per the End User license fine print. How can they do this? Only if they are monitoring the state of your system....telemetry. I am especially amazed Businesses are using Win10 still....you are digitally naked in the street essentially...
I used to work in an IT workshop in an MSP (managed services provider, IT services for small business). I had both of these added to a post-setup script on our deployment server to make sure that it was enabled on anything we deployed. It saved our bacon many times. One thing to note is that if you have BitLocker disk encryption enabled, you'll be prompted for the 48-digit recovery key when you use the F8 menu.
My work has the same philosophy as MS, giving us "improvements" to the software that we never asked for, making our job even harder to do than it was before.
I re-enabled System Restore a long time ago (WIN 10), but I've become very wary of Microsoft and choose to not place much faith in it working when I actually need it. My fallback plan doesn't involve reinstalling Windows and all the work that entails, I just do a monthly system disk image backup which is stored on a separate drive. If the worst happens, I just use my boot disk or USB key to start up and then install the system disk backup. At worst I lose a month of application data (not really a full month, I also do a weekly backup of User Data). I always do a lot of customization of my operating system, so the "install a fresh version of Windows and start over" is a non-starter for me. Frequent backups are my friends, and storage space is cheap these days.
@@CyberCPU thee is a tool to extract the folders and files of system restore point. So you can have on 1 removable driver with all your computers system restore points (extracted).
Show them the price of their sins. SWITCH to a Mac. Provided you don't need any Windows only programs, I'm sure you'll find macOS much more accommodating to letting you use your computer how YOU want.
Great tutorial, thanks so much for posting it! I haven't read through all the comments, so maybe someone else posted this already. I have 100 computers to enable on my windows domain so I turned your tips into a GPO (Group Policy Object): Created a new GPO, linked to the OU with my computer objects, named it Enable Automatic Registry Backup Right clicked the new GPO and chose Edit Expand Computer Configuration->Preferences->Windows Settings->Registry Added the two keys for EnablePeriodicBackup and BackupCount Expand Computer Configuration->Preferences->Control Panel Settings->Scheduled Tasks Right click on Scheduled Tasks and choose New->Scheduled Task (At least Windows 7) Setup the task as outlined in this tutorial. I also enabled the Setting tab option for Allow task to be run on demand.
I have found System restore to be unreliable as far as fixing problems after using restore points. Buying additional 1TB Nmve drives for clone backups is super cheap now. Cloning your boot drive is the most reliable way to "system restore" that i've found. There's no 100% foolproof method but that's the best one I've got. Obviously takes much longer than software based methods but that's what works the best for me :)
System restore is helpful only 10% times, But registry backup is helpful 40% of times And i also use Windows file backup , which is helpful 80% of times .. at least for me and my clients .
Yeah, honestly, I've spent the past couple of months learning how to tweak the living fk out of Windows 10/11 & disable all their BS. Got to say, I am very pleased with all my achievements, in big part because you inspired me to get into learning my system in a deeper level of understanding, so it won't blue screen me 24/7! Thank you for your amazing work! 😊😊
@@josephmeholick1300 With my wife's laptop she accidentally. She plays games on FB that will screw things up. It usually puts some kind of malware on her computer and have to use system restore to fix her problem. Telling her to stop playing these game is like talking to the wall. So like every six months ago I have to use system restore to solve the problem. Thankfully she has an older windows that still have this feature that I don't have to fix these settings.
Hey !!! Thanks for taking the time to post this video I carried out your instructions regarding the Automatic Registry Backup , and am pleased to inform you I now have Auto Reg Backup. Just want to say System Restore has saved me quite a number of times, usually after Microsoft updates have been installed. Thanks Again !! Malc U.K.
I remember falling into that boot loop rabbit hole several months ago. And the similar disappointments of not seeing any file size on regback and no restorepoints. Like you, I had to make a fresh install but was able to get most of my programs and all of my data using a combination of pctrans and laplink by connecting the bootlooped hard drive as an external drive. I really hate having to re-activate and fetch for all the keys most of my programs had or even worse, discontinued, so props for easus pctrans for saving me some time lol... But overall, it took a lot longer than it should have just because they disabled regback...
Hi Rich, 1st off - Thank you for this video/tip! Very Useful and it will save my butt later I'm sure! I just want to say that I created Scheduled Task without going through the additional steps you took. I left the Custom Handler alone and just set all the other parameters of the task I switched the task from Run As "System" to Run As "Admin" account to run the task. After saving the task changes, I then Right-Clicked the task from the Task Scheduler and selected 'Run" and it worked perfectly! The files that were in the folder = [C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack] went from 0 bytes to various Kilobytes sizes depending on the file. I will check that the files get updated on the interval(s) I have chosen for running this task, but I feel pretty confident it should run as scheduled. Hope you read this and try it for yourself!
Very true... unfortunately. I've noticed a few things since the release of Windows 11, but then it seems even worse. Now the best thing to do is to... do it manually, maybe creating some timed scripts.
I had a problem where bcdedit was not recognized as a command. So, if you have the same issue, run this command: dir %windir% /b /s | findstr "bcdedit" This should list all paths where bcdedit exists. Just copy one with the .exe extensions (not .mui or .dl) to system32 with this command: copy "_Path of bcdedit.exe_" %windir%\System32 Then you should be able to use bcdedit like shown in the video.
Great video! I would not be surprised if the disablement of those features is intended to encourage people to use a MS account on their PCs and more importantly, OneDrive backup subscriptions.
Wouldn't surprise me. Maybe that's why they removed Windows File History too (not that it was ever good enough for my use case when I used to run Windows). I'll never understand why Microsoft never came out with an app like macOS's Time Machine to make easy system backups and file recovery. I left Windows behind, I've gotten a Mac. And my sanity has been much better. Microsoft needs to do better, but again, I doubt they will when they can get recurring revenue with OneDrive subscriptions.
I recently purchased Microsoft Office instead of 365, and now subscribe to get 100 gigs of Onedrive space for $29 a year instead of paying $80 a year for 365. I got my office professional for $29. I don't let onedrive do any sort of auto backups. Right now I am only using 32 gigs. I use it strictly as a secondary backup for important files. I do have a task scheduled to backup my boot drive (C), and my program files drive (D) to run on the first Sunday of the month to an external drive. I have an 8-terabyte portable drive I use strictly for this purpose. I am a blogger, so I back up my system, website, images, business files, etc to that additional drive. I always keep several months worth of backups because, in my experience, backups will sometimes fail for various reasons. Just like my website. The database gets backed up twice a day and I keep 2 months' worth of backups of those. Imagery gets backed up once a week. Why do I do this? In case it gets hacked with ransomware. I can always go back to an older backup if I catch the problem within a 2-month time frame.
Yeah, they're really pushing us to use a Microsoft account. Recently, I was setting up a laptop And it requires an internet connection. Then, I have to turn on my phone's hotspot and connect to it to set it up.
@@blindtechworld Again, glad I went to Mac. It doesn't mandate an internet connection to setup your account. You just create a local account and skip iCloud setup if you don't want it. Apple gives you more control over your computer than Microsoft does. Might have issues on Right To Repair, but at least you control what you can and can't do with the software....unlike the BS Microsoft is pulling. macOS FTW!
I noticed this every time I ran into a problem with Windows 10. Despite all System Restores, none of them actually worked unless I went into safe mode. Then Microsoft made that harder to get into Apparently they decided that pressing F8 while the computer was booting just made it too easy. Then if your computer didn't start up to begin with, you couldn't get to the option to reboot in safe mode and I don't even see that anymore. When I rise to power, all this mishigas will end and Windows will be the BEST OS. And the versions will be Windows (Current Year) None of this weird H1N1 malarkey that sound like flu strains. The only things Microsoft consistently does is bloating their operating system, bombarding users that don't know better with ads, and making simple things difficult and spying on their customers. Ah, I made this comment before I got to your "Bonus" I will try that. Awesome !
There's an alternative trick to get into safe mode without F8 enabled. When the system is booting hold down the power button to kill the system 3 times. This will force Windows 10 into recovery mode and from there you can go to advanced startup and then choose safe mode from the menu.
I'd never heard of mishigas before. Delighted to find it was a real word and overjoyed to find out it meant just what I thought it should. It has now entered my vocabulary as my new favourite word
Great tip. Unfortunately I had a non-recoverable situation when it seemed my Win10 system locked up and after I hit my reset switch...no more booting and system recovery did not work. So I have to re-install windows and re-install all the apps. At least all the files were still in my User directory. I do hate windows some times.
I have actually just installed both Windows 10 and 11 (both are 22H2) on the same computer as a dual boot and both had System Restore turned on by default - I just had to set a percentage for the amount of space I wanted to reserve.
Yes, that's possible. It's rare but some wireless keyboards don't work in the BIOS or during post. My wireless mouse is completely worthless in the BIOS on my main system. I have to plug a USB mouse in to edit the BIOS. It's pretty annoying.
There're a couple of mistakes. at 13:55 you say click dstring value 32 Bit when you mean dword 32 bit. Apart from that this is brilliant. Thanks... Also, at 7:18 you say EnablePeriodicBackups with an S following it i.e. the plural. Whereas the green text you have on the screen is EnablePeriodicBackup singular. The singular seems to be correct. I hate to put junk in my registry, so I used the singular .
I had a really obscure registry bug that plagued me for a whole month untill i found a manual edit solution. One of my early access games crashed & windows along with it. Upon bootup there somehow had become a near 2 second long delay of audio playback. Not that audio was out of sync but it was annoying not having any audio the first 2 seconds of a YT video for example. Had to manually mess around inside Realtek regedit setting to fix it because Window "repair" did nothing. Dont get me wrong i know its a "self inflicted" playing "test" state alpha, beta & early access software, but it also speaks volumes about how huge & unstable windows has become to the point where its simply easier to do a complete fresh reinstall than trying to troubleshoot.
Rich, Thank you for posting this detailed and insightful video. I tried the registry backup procedure on Windows 11 and got it to work although the menu selections are slightly different than what you detailed in Windows 10. Now my Reg Back folder is populated with files with various amounts of kilobits in them. The question I have now is how can we use this backup. Could you make a video showing how and under what circumstances we can make use of the Reg Back folder? Thanks for your hard work on these videos. They are a great service to many people out there.
WoW! I just found my mysteriously used ~40GB of used up diskspace. Thank You! I am so thankful I found your video. When, I did tech stuff decades ago. I fully relied on Restore Points and restoring the Registry. And was annoyed that we were ALL - Microsofted. I wish I found your video about two days and then, 15 hours ago. I've been running out of disk space and couldn't find the reason. Nothing online tells about the restore points gobbling up tens of Gigs of disk space. No one pointed to restore points. And I'd been bent over and Microsofted into a stupor. I'd thought the restore points had been removed. Because, I'd needed one about a year ago. Now, memory returns and I had turned them on via registry - then. So, I'd given them about 3%, which equated to the ~40GB of mysteriously lost disk space. With MS tools I couldn't see what was using this lost disk space. It isn't shown anywhere. But, you and this video allowed me to find the settings - to see where ALL my mysterious Disk Real Estate had gone and I have now downsized the percent of disk space used. So, I get back about 20GB. THANKS!!!
Thanks for your guides, sir. I've also experienced that the snapshots has been turned of. But instead the registry backup is still in place and working (Windows 11 Pro).
Love this one. I also have stopped auto windows updates as I often leave my pc on over night to render videos so it save time in the day time for me. I did it once and windows restarted the pc no mater what it was doing to install updates
I made this discovery not too long ago. Sysinternals Autoruns wiped out the whole printer registry when I tried removing a nonexistent print monitor, and I suddenly had the need to mount a backup copy of Config/SOFTWARE. It was then that I realized that all PCs have stopped making registry backups, and have also stopped making restore points. I resorted to transplanting the keys from another pc, but damn. What freaked me out the most was the disabled System Restore, as I was relying on it being on for a bunch of other stuff, such a restoring previous versions of files.
Nice. Hey I noticed in the video that the task that has to be manually ran to get the registry backup had no trigger so perhaps that's why it didn't run on its own...
If you have no permissions to add a trigger directly to the regidlebackup task then download power run from sordum which allows you to run scheduler as trusted installer or anything else for that matter
No, that's not it. The task itself is broken. I tried all that. Spent like 2 hours trying to get it to work. The only solution was calling it from another task like I show in the video.
@@CyberCPU Hi! I also noticed there is no trigger set for the regidlebackup task and I've tried this way, but it still doesn't work on W11 23H2. So the only way to run it is either manually or called by another scheduled task, as you showed in the video. Thanks a lot for this tip! This makes me less worried in case of a registry corruption, as I have a way of restoring it.
I have been using Macrium Reflect to make a disk image of my computer. Over the years it has save me time and time again. No need for registry backups. Whenever I make any changes to my pc, which is often, I run a series of checks to make sure everything is ok - then I made a disk image. If I have any problem, like unable to boot into windows, I am able to use the startup menu which has the Macrium option, or a USB stick with the Macrium recovery on it. I can restore a 60GB system in about 5 minutes. I have used it scores of times and never had a problem restoring my pc.
I use this program as well and it works great! I do a full backup image every two weeks and then an incremental backup every say set up automatically. The best part about it is that it gives you a Macrium rescue option on boot instead of going into booting windows. I don't trust Microsoft to backup anything properly in a way that it can actually be restored and working and I don't know that I ever will. I test my Macrium backups on a regular basis and they always work and usually take less then 10 mins to finish
I remember that was the easiest way to fix Windows XP and lower with all the registry garbage it held on to. Also, it was just easier to reload the O/S than figure out where all the viruses were hiding. I guess Microsoft thinks this is a reinvention of an old idea that "worked," so they are returning to it.
I remember there used to be a time where you had to reload your operating system once a year. I like the fact that you no longer have to do that. I have windows installs that are not only years old but had actually moved to new upgraded hardware without reloading. My Plex server is Windows 10 and has moved between three different systems without reloading. Still runs solid as a rock.
@@CyberCPU When did that stop being a thing? LOL But seriously, for the o.s., and for most users, i largely agree it's not really a necessity these days. For nuts like me, yeah, it's still a thing. I wind up with so much junk i don't use, it's just way more efficient to nuke and start over yearly than to try and make sure the ruddy things actually got uninstalled and didn't leave remnants.(bleeping autodesk and adobe).
@@CyberCPU This was from registry bloat and it becoming a massive mess. People don't make their programs cleanly remove their registry entries and their registry is incredibly inefficient.
@@ahnilatedahnilated7703 I have never experienced a system with a registry that was so messed up it affected system performance. I know what you're talking about but I've never seen a negative impact from it. I highly recommend against tools that promise to clean registries up for this reason. I've seen those tools destroy systems far more then dirty registries.
Hey Rich, I just want to thank you. Im by no means a noob when it comes to Computers and Windows and any tech. I actually was thinking about contacting you to see if you had any advice regarding starting a business in computer repair. But anyway, your channel has been really helpful to me. So i just wanted to say thank you buddy. Youre a really good dude. 👍😀
The Apply button applies the changes to the settings that have been made, but does not close the dialog box. The OK button also applies the changes to the settings, but in addition closes the dialog box. Apply is useful only if you are trying out different settings and don't want to have to keep re-opening the dialog box.
The cynic in me thinks Microsoft is doing this because when you reset Windows, your custom settings will be reset back to Microsoft defaults that are optimised for Microsoft's revenue streams (e.g. Microsoft Edge/Bing as the default browser and search engine). For users with local accounts, they can also take another opportunity to push logging in with a Microsoft account. Microsoft doesn't get that benefit when you repair a PC with System Restore or Automatic Registry Backups.
You know, you might be on to something. I hadn't even thought about that. This would also solve the problem of technicians debloating a system for a customer. If the customer resets it all the bloat comes back.
That is an interesting thought. The cynic in me thought they were doing it because they'll need fewer Microsoft employees to support it. Reducing headcount is wall streets absolutely favorite thing to do.
This is convincing me to actually get around to figuring out why the settings app/calculator app fail to load properly half the time and why the start bars search keeps freezing every now and then. These issues have been there since i did a fresh install after wiping the drive “half because of similar issues” Though honestly I suspect it might be my C drive as its long overdue for a replacement The only drives in good health is my raid 5 array i have my misc files/steam and other game services game folders. Though they are newer “setup after a hdd failed”
When you make a restore point it backs up the registry already itself in another way. Unfortunately you can't access that backup without restoring the restore point.
@CyberCPU, thank you for the videos. On top of the valuable material, I like your engaging presentation and sense of humor. Question: how does the BackupCount setting work? I set it at 2 and am wondering where these two go. Question/Request: I like viewing the videos on my Pixel 8 Pro. As large as it is, deciphering the text is often hard. Would it make sense to Scale the display a bit?
I can so relate to this issue, as I have been fighting with my laptop for the last three days, so thank you so much for guiding me through the fixes I needed to get my files back and working properly.
As much as i hate the registry,, a massive blob of gunk.. MS will never kill it, because it would break compatibility too much, even those they have moves to self-contained apps, they must keep the registry for legacy reasons..but on the other hand if you know what your looking for, you can tweak to your harts content. Unfortunately that is not 90% of users because all we wanna do get "get our work done" .. With Microsoft making things harder and harder they force people to edit registry now just to to basic things that was once, a click of a mouse button. Thankfully, Microsoft doesn't hide it. They encourage it on their website, but a "warning" where as Apple just shakes their head.. and we all just follow like sheep.
This is why i store my important files on different drive than OS. Once a year clean OS installation by default, sometimes there can be issues you dont notice.
Oooooor.. and hear me out, In the Registry, navigate to whatever Hive Branch you want and go to File > Export. I think Microsoft got tired of the constant hand-holding they did with people potentially breaking Windows via the Registry. But, yeah, I don't recall any modern and recent computer just outright refusing to boot up into the OS normally. The new way to get into Safe Mode is: holding Shift when you restart OR going into Settings > (System >) Recovery > Advanced Startup > Safe Mode.
Question: Do new auto backup files over write the old one or do they just accumulate taking up more and more hard drive space? Thanks 4 sharing your knowledge!
Safemode is easier to get to... hold shift when clicking the restart option... and you can select for it to reboot into safemode or even the bios right from that menu which comes up. No need to hammer keys
I think the reason he's doing this is that one of the options in the legacy safe mode is the "Last Known Good Configuration" option. That's missing from the current safe mode since MS disabled it.
@@douglasbennett1768 To be fair, it's physically impossible for Windows to be so broken what whatever went awry to even use the last known good config option.
On all the mechanical drive systems I've performed fresh Win10/Win11 installs, System Restore is enabled by default. It appears to only be disabled by default on SSDs which makes sense, as many cheaper all-in-ones have tiny SSDs and SR takes GBs from your drive over time.
As far as having a separate registry backup, it's something that personally makes little sense to me to use. System Restore backs up and restores the Registry, important Windows files, and the programs.
As an experienced professional technician how do you know when to restore the registry or the system files (SFC)?? Or you just don't know and do try and error like throwing commands and see what happens
You set BackupCount to two. After running RegIdleBackup then the new task you created, why didn’t you have two copies of the registry files in your folder?
Nice 1 mate. FYI - interestingly, of the 4 x Win11 machines I created the schtasks in this morning, only 2 of them gave an 'argument' warning... The other 2 just accepted the string happily.
i agree registry backups and system restore points can be very helpful. ive also see system conflicts pop up inside of windows when you do successfully use a restore point. im not saying nuke and pave is always the way to go, but sometimes it can be better. ive seen files no longer be accessible, game installs be broken and driver conflicts happen due to system restores. and yes windows 11 has way too much bloat. and i hate the new task bar too. i bought stardock start11 and tweaked my win 11 install to look like win 7 and win 10. also i found it very obnoxious with win 11 that the usb stick i made of win 11 to clean install my pc that i even added device drivers for my motherboard couldnt access the onboard wireless out of the box, but win 10 could. and without network i couldnt even log in. i eventually found a workaround command prompt to disable the out of box experience. my board is an asrock x670e steel legend with a ryzen 9 7900x am5 processor, and win 10 did pick up the wireless driver for the motherboard out of box on launch of am5 last fall but win 11 wouldnt when i chose to clean install upgrade
Rich, After making these changes a few months ago on a Windows 11 PC I have noticed that registry backup files such as Default, Sam, Security, Software, etc. show up in their own separate files in the config folder, not under the RegBack folder. Is there any way to change this behavior? In case of emergency, I would like to know that the registry backup folders are where they should be rather than floating around in the config folder.
It's seldom that I log into youtube (don't judge me) to offer comments, but your videos have been extremely helpful in setting up my Win11 PC so I can recover in the future. My PC got stuck in a boot-loop after a MS update hosed everything up. My PC (MSI Gaming PC) is only 4 months old and there was no way to recover it - it wouldn't even boot into Safe Mode. I used my backup Win7 PC to search for answers, but nothing worked. No restore point or Reg backup, no disk drive and Media Creation Tool failed on Win7. The restore function did get me back up and saved my personal files, but I had to start from the beginning with everything else. I think I went a little too aggressive in deleting things after recovery because my PC stopped rebooting altogether at one point. Safe Mode worked this time and I was able to recover certain things, but "sfc" and "dism" from another video of yours did not find any issues (go figure). I have watched several of your videos and I'm taking a more practical approach to setting up my PC as a result. Backing up only personal data is no longer my preference. Much THANKS to you and your videos and keep them coming!!!
I have seen in some Windows 10 installs that the Restore Point feature has been disabled. The first thing I do is to first go into restore point (Make a desktop shortcut) and see if it is turned on. I will set it to about 6% or 18 gig's. I wish the old program called "Go Back" used in Windows 5 was still available.
I checked the new installation of Windows 11 22H2 on a new computer I just built and the system restore point is set to on already. It looks like Microsoft has fixed this feature.
I just went through the same experience. And found the same problem, no registry backup and no system restore. Ended up having to do the same, clean install and a lot of PITA. Having seen this video beforehand would have saved me hours. With copious amounts of storage being so affordable, it's ridiculous to be "saving" a few MB of storage at the cost being able to easily restore to the last stable settings. At the very least they should make it a user option to use more storage for registry backup with just a few clicks in a setup menu.
Thanks for these info, but the Last Known Good Config never been disabled rather than MS changed how you access it. hold down the left Shift key on your keyboard while you clicking on the restart button from the start menu. that will boot you into a recovery mode, where you can do advanced troubleshoot and choose advanced startup option. that will boot you into the recovery menu options where you have safe mode or last know good configuration. and let's say you don't have access to windows from the start and need that menu, simply force shutdown the pc during the boot up to get to the repair startup, skip that to the advanced recovery menu and you get access to the same page. Thanks
Yeah, I had a HID Driver issue with Windows that was making mice constantly double-click on Win10Pro. It was driving me nuts, so not wanting to reinstall windows I went looking for the "Refresh" function to find they have made it so if you want to keep your programs you have to get the Windows Installer ISO and mount and boot it in Windows 10 to refresh the PC. It doesn't work if you put the iso and boot into it. You have to run setup.exe on the ISO without autorunning it. Gee, want to bury it much? Thanks for the great video.
Excellent video, thank you. I use Win 11 and set "BackupCount" to 2 (as you in the video), but there is only one folder called "RegBack". Even when I manually run "RegIdleBackup" it's only updating the already existing files in RegBack. Where can I find the second backup?
Your description says To change back to new menu bcdedit /Set {Current} BootMenuPolicy Standard but you said change 'Legacy' to 'regular' to. Which is correct to use?
This is all really good stuff. But for those of us who might be trying to learn from your videos, how about some explanation as to why we might want to back up the registry and how to use that back up? What, disable telemetry? Blasphemy! I wonder how much resources that telemetry takes.
I don't quite understand the connection with the folder "RegBack" and restore points? According to Microsoft, restore points are stored in the hidden system folder "System Volume Information"? When I go into "Recovery" the list of restore points is displayed correctly. In general, my PC does not automatically create restore points, even though I have followed your instructions 100%, and have double-checked several times. When I run the created job manually, files are saved in "RegBack", so I don't quite understand what's going wrong? So I think something is going wrong with the automation? Maybe I should check this part out again, again. 🤔🤔🤨🤨
Now I am totally confused. Today there are new updated files in the "RegBack" folder, but no restore points appear in the "System Restore" overview with the date 07-04-2023.🤔🤨
Latest update: A restore point was automatically created in the RegBack Folder on 10 April 2023, but this restore point cannot be seen in the restore function you open via the control panel. So you cannot restore the system files via this point, since it is not shown. I don't think the correct method is to save the restore points in the RegBack folder, but they should probably be saved in the hidden system file 'System volume', which Microsoft says they are saved in.
I'm a new subscriber. I just found you by chance looking up "I don't want a Microsoft account for 11" but have a problem. I was following a video about system restore. When you open it's tiny and hard to read. I have made adjustments to the size of screen and text but does not solve this and similar problems like it. Is there a fix for this? Love what's happening on your channel!!!!
Many times when I redo a system I have found when there is an NVMe drive or a SATA SSD that frequently system restore isn't on. Sometiems it is on but I haven't figured out why sometimes it is or isn't on.
Thank u. The regback up tweak worked like a charm. But I noticed that you did not mention that there needs to be space between the forward slashes when typing out the schtask command line. I am scared of trying out the f8 tweak though. Has anyone tried it out and it worked?
Just came accross this looking for why the registry wasnt backed up - did one of these restores around windows 7 era and came accross one a week ago, and ended up doing a clean install after adding drive to other system to backup the users folder .. just re-enabled this on my pc :)
Isn't it much easier to run backup/restore software like Acronis True Image - and what happens to your reg changes after a big Windows future update by Microsoft ?
Thanks for your tips. Unfortunately, the last tip about bcdedit /Set {Current} BootMenuPolicy Legacy didn't work for me. I'm using Windows 11 Pro on a desktop. Any suggestions? Thank you.
Unfortunately I haven't tested it on Windows 11. I've had a few people comment that it didn't work. It might not be available for Windows 11. I would have to play with it.
Microsoft: _"We removed automatic registry backups to save storage space."_
Literally everyone: _"If you're concerned about space, remove the extra bloatware and telemetry services. Pretty sure that junk takes up WAY more storage."_
Microsoft: *_"NOOOOO!!! ThOsE aRe EsSeNtIaL!!!"_*
BTW: Where does the telemetry bullshit get stored?
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj It gets sent to Microsoft's servers where they store it and use it to send you ads and shit.
One way to limit this is to type "services" in your search bar, click on the services application, and scroll down to "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry", double-click it, and change startup type to "Disabled" and then services status to "Stop", then hit "Apply" and "Okay". This can actually also help speed up older computers with mechanical hard drives because they're not constantly sending stuff to Microsoft.
Differing point of view.
They are "essential" ONLY to MicroS**t. !@#$%&^* pirates & thieves.
@@DJdoppIer Correct....unfortunately I hear rumors regularly that Microshaft has gone in and changed settings, They also legally have
power to REMOVE software from YOUR system per the End User license
fine print. How can they do this? Only if they are monitoring the state of
your system....telemetry. I am especially amazed Businesses are using
Win10 still....you are digitally naked in the street essentially...
I used to work in an IT workshop in an MSP (managed services provider, IT services for small business). I had both of these added to a post-setup script on our deployment server to make sure that it was enabled on anything we deployed. It saved our bacon many times. One thing to note is that if you have BitLocker disk encryption enabled, you'll be prompted for the 48-digit recovery key when you use the F8 menu.
using Sccm? is there a how to?
My work has the same philosophy as MS, giving us "improvements" to the software that we never asked for, making our job even harder to do than it was before.
At least you are getting paid for the software you never asked for. Lol
It's what happens when HR takes over.
I re-enabled System Restore a long time ago (WIN 10), but I've become very wary of Microsoft and choose to not place much faith in it working when I actually need it. My fallback plan doesn't involve reinstalling Windows and all the work that entails, I just do a monthly system disk image backup which is stored on a separate drive. If the worst happens, I just use my boot disk or USB key to start up and then install the system disk backup. At worst I lose a month of application data (not really a full month, I also do a weekly backup of User Data). I always do a lot of customization of my operating system, so the "install a fresh version of Windows and start over" is a non-starter for me. Frequent backups are my friends, and storage space is cheap these days.
For me doing system images is just not efficient. I have way too many computers. I would have to image 10+ drives. It wouldn't be worth it.
@@CyberCPU thee is a tool to extract the folders and files of system restore point. So you can have on 1 removable driver with all your computers system restore points (extracted).
Virus System Restore 😂😂
@@STCatchMeTRACjRo I would be interested in that tool if you know the name of it.
@@CyberCPU guess ur not the only one interested in that tool :-:)
shame on you microsoft
It's just part of that wonderful Windows 11 experience. 😆
Show them the price of their sins.
SWITCH
to a Mac.
Provided you don't need any Windows only programs, I'm sure you'll find macOS much more accommodating to letting you use your computer how YOU want.
Bill Gates wants mandatory vaccines, I don't doubt their malice
I gotta wonder if this was Microsoft caving to the Linux crowd screaming "Windows takes up too much drive space!"
@@StaceyAyodele The Mac OS is nice, but the hardware is an anti-consumer nightmare.
Great tutorial, thanks so much for posting it! I haven't read through all the comments, so maybe someone else posted this already. I have 100 computers to enable on my windows domain so I turned your tips into a GPO (Group Policy Object):
Created a new GPO, linked to the OU with my computer objects, named it Enable Automatic Registry Backup
Right clicked the new GPO and chose Edit
Expand Computer Configuration->Preferences->Windows Settings->Registry
Added the two keys for EnablePeriodicBackup and BackupCount
Expand Computer Configuration->Preferences->Control Panel Settings->Scheduled Tasks
Right click on Scheduled Tasks and choose New->Scheduled Task (At least Windows 7)
Setup the task as outlined in this tutorial. I also enabled the Setting tab option for Allow task to be run on demand.
In my experience, Microsoft's "system restore" hasn't been reliable since Windows 7. Even in 8 and 8.1, it would almost always fail.
That is my experience as well. The many times I tried on different computers it only ever worked one single time.
Love that you summarized the steps and made it easily visible.
Great video! A bit confusing is that you put "Command For Task manager" in the description although you meant "Command For Task Scheduler"
My bad, sorry about that. It's copied and pasted directly from my notes. I didn't notice it was wrong. I'll fix it. Thanks for pointing it out.
I have found System restore to be unreliable as far as fixing problems after using restore points. Buying additional 1TB Nmve drives for clone backups is super cheap now. Cloning your boot drive is the most reliable way to "system restore" that i've found. There's no 100% foolproof method but that's the best one I've got. Obviously takes much longer than software based methods but that's what works the best for me :)
System restore is helpful only 10% times,
But registry backup is helpful 40% of times
And i also use
Windows file backup , which is helpful 80% of times .. at least for me and my clients .
Agree, an image of the boot drive should have been saved. 15-20 minutes would save a whole lot of trouble. Some people just don't learn and apply.
Yeah, honestly, I've spent the past couple of months learning how to tweak the living fk out of Windows 10/11 & disable all their BS. Got to say, I am very pleased with all my achievements, in big part because you inspired me to get into learning my system in a deeper level of understanding, so it won't blue screen me 24/7!
Thank you for your amazing work! 😊😊
Glad my videos have helped.
Ditto.
Same
system restore dosen't cover most of the registry period. i only had one or two times it actually corrected a problem.
@@josephmeholick1300 With my wife's laptop she accidentally. She plays games on FB that will screw things up. It usually puts some kind of malware on her computer and have to use system restore to fix her problem. Telling her to stop playing these game is like talking to the wall. So like every six months ago I have to use system restore to solve the problem. Thankfully she has an older windows that still have this feature that I don't have to fix these settings.
Hey !!! Thanks for taking the time to post this video I carried out your instructions regarding the Automatic Registry Backup , and am pleased to inform you I now have Auto Reg Backup.
Just want to say System Restore has saved me quite a number of times, usually after Microsoft updates have been installed. Thanks Again !! Malc U.K.
I remember falling into that boot loop rabbit hole several months ago. And the similar disappointments of not seeing any file size on regback and no restorepoints.
Like you, I had to make a fresh install but was able to get most of my programs and all of my data using a combination of pctrans and laplink by connecting the bootlooped hard drive as an external drive. I really hate having to re-activate and fetch for all the keys most of my programs had or even worse, discontinued, so props for easus pctrans for saving me some time lol... But overall, it took a lot longer than it should have just because they disabled regback...
Hi Rich,
1st off - Thank you for this video/tip! Very Useful and it will save my butt later I'm sure!
I just want to say that I created Scheduled Task without going through the additional steps you took. I left the Custom Handler alone and just set all the other parameters of the task I switched the task from Run As "System" to Run As "Admin" account to run the task. After saving the task changes, I then Right-Clicked the task from the Task Scheduler and selected 'Run" and it worked perfectly! The files that were in the folder = [C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack] went from 0 bytes to various Kilobytes sizes depending on the file. I will check that the files get updated on the interval(s) I have chosen for running this task, but I feel pretty confident it should run as scheduled. Hope you read this and try it for yourself!
Very true... unfortunately. I've noticed a few things since the release of Windows 11, but then it seems even worse. Now the best thing to do is to... do it manually, maybe creating some timed scripts.
I had a problem where bcdedit was not recognized as a command. So, if you have the same issue, run this command:
dir %windir% /b /s | findstr "bcdedit"
This should list all paths where bcdedit exists. Just copy one with the .exe extensions (not .mui or .dl) to system32 with this command:
copy "_Path of bcdedit.exe_" %windir%\System32
Then you should be able to use bcdedit like shown in the video.
System32 should already be in your path. Glad you got it worked out, because that would have stopped many DOS commands from working.
Too many comments for this one to be seen, but this video was SO helpful that I'm forced to leave a thank you!
Thanks!
You're welcome, appreciate it.
Great video! I would not be surprised if the disablement of those features is intended to encourage people to use a MS account on their PCs and more importantly, OneDrive backup subscriptions.
Good point!
Wouldn't surprise me.
Maybe that's why they removed Windows File History too (not that it was ever good enough for my use case when I used to run Windows).
I'll never understand why Microsoft never came out with an app like macOS's Time Machine to make easy system backups and file recovery.
I left Windows behind, I've gotten a Mac. And my sanity has been much better. Microsoft needs to do better, but again, I doubt they will when they can get recurring revenue with OneDrive subscriptions.
I recently purchased Microsoft Office instead of 365, and now subscribe to get 100 gigs of Onedrive space for $29 a year instead of paying $80 a year for 365. I got my office professional for $29. I don't let onedrive do any sort of auto backups. Right now I am only using 32 gigs. I use it strictly as a secondary backup for important files. I do have a task scheduled to backup my boot drive (C), and my program files drive (D) to run on the first Sunday of the month to an external drive. I have an 8-terabyte portable drive I use strictly for this purpose. I am a blogger, so I back up my system, website, images, business files, etc to that additional drive. I always keep several months worth of backups because, in my experience, backups will sometimes fail for various reasons. Just like my website. The database gets backed up twice a day and I keep 2 months' worth of backups of those. Imagery gets backed up once a week. Why do I do this? In case it gets hacked with ransomware. I can always go back to an older backup if I catch the problem within a 2-month time frame.
Yeah, they're really pushing us to use a Microsoft account. Recently, I was setting up a laptop And it requires an internet connection. Then, I have to turn on my phone's hotspot and connect to it to set it up.
@@blindtechworld Again, glad I went to Mac. It doesn't mandate an internet connection to setup your account. You just create a local account and skip iCloud setup if you don't want it.
Apple gives you more control over your computer than Microsoft does. Might have issues on Right To Repair, but at least you control what you can and can't do with the software....unlike the BS Microsoft is pulling.
macOS FTW!
This procedure has allowed me to fix so many computers that wouldn't boot.
Windows 11 actually comes with System Restore enabled for the system disk, enabled it for my Home disk as well
I noticed this every time I ran into a problem with Windows 10. Despite all System Restores, none of them actually worked unless I went into safe mode. Then Microsoft made that harder to get into Apparently they decided that pressing F8 while the computer was booting just made it too easy. Then if your computer didn't start up to begin with, you couldn't get to the option to reboot in safe mode and I don't even see that anymore. When I rise to power, all this mishigas will end and Windows will be the BEST OS. And the versions will be Windows (Current Year) None of this weird H1N1 malarkey that sound like flu strains. The only things Microsoft consistently does is bloating their operating system, bombarding users that don't know better with ads, and making simple things difficult and spying on their customers.
Ah, I made this comment before I got to your "Bonus" I will try that. Awesome !
There's an alternative trick to get into safe mode without F8 enabled.
When the system is booting hold down the power button to kill the system 3 times. This will force Windows 10 into recovery mode and from there you can go to advanced startup and then choose safe mode from the menu.
@@CyberCPU Thank you.
I'd never heard of mishigas before. Delighted to find it was a real word and overjoyed to find out it meant just what I thought it should.
It has now entered my vocabulary as my new favourite word
Great tip. Unfortunately I had a non-recoverable situation when it seemed my Win10 system locked up and after I hit my reset switch...no more booting and system recovery did not work. So I have to re-install windows and re-install all the apps. At least all the files were still in my User directory. I do hate windows some times.
Make sure it wasn't hardware failure. Check the smart data on your hard drive.
Really cool, well described and useful. Thank you so much!
Glad it helped.
I have actually just installed both Windows 10 and 11 (both are 22H2) on the same computer as a dual boot and both had System Restore turned on by default - I just had to set a percentage for the amount of space I wanted to reserve.
Nice to have those features back, thank you! I had to connect a USB keyboard for F8 to work well.
Yes, that's possible. It's rare but some wireless keyboards don't work in the BIOS or during post. My wireless mouse is completely worthless in the BIOS on my main system. I have to plug a USB mouse in to edit the BIOS. It's pretty annoying.
Great stuff CyberCPU Tech! Thanks for great tutorial video!
My pleasure!
the Windows-made backup task does not seem to have a trigger, I added one to check if it works if fixed this way
There're a couple of mistakes.
at 13:55 you say click dstring value 32 Bit when you mean dword 32 bit. Apart from that this is brilliant. Thanks...
Also, at 7:18 you say EnablePeriodicBackups with an S following it i.e. the plural. Whereas the green text you have on the screen is EnablePeriodicBackup singular. The singular seems to be correct.
I hate to put junk in my registry, so I used the singular .
Good catch.
Great information. Thanks. 👍 It appears that you forgot to put the various strings of text in the description for copy/paste.
Yes, sorry. I forgot. It's there now.
As a computer tech, you've saved my ass- sorry, my day.
Glad it's helpful.
I had a really obscure registry bug that plagued me for a whole month untill i found a manual edit solution. One of my early access games crashed & windows along with it. Upon bootup there somehow had become a near 2 second long delay of audio playback. Not that audio was out of sync but it was annoying not having any audio the first 2 seconds of a YT video for example. Had to manually mess around inside Realtek regedit setting to fix it because Window "repair" did nothing. Dont get me wrong i know its a "self inflicted" playing "test" state alpha, beta & early access software, but it also speaks volumes about how huge & unstable windows has become to the point where its simply easier to do a complete fresh reinstall than trying to troubleshoot.
Nice tip about the last known good as well as pointing out that you need to execute the scheduled task to get the reg backup started.
Rich, Thank you for posting this detailed and insightful video. I tried the registry backup procedure on Windows 11 and got it to work although the menu selections are slightly different than what you detailed in Windows 10. Now my Reg Back folder is populated with files with various amounts of kilobits in them. The question I have now is how can we use this backup. Could you make a video showing how and under what circumstances we can make use of the Reg Back folder? Thanks for your hard work on these videos. They are a great service to many people out there.
WoW! I just found my mysteriously used ~40GB of used up diskspace. Thank You!
I am so thankful I found your video. When, I did tech stuff decades ago. I fully relied on Restore Points and restoring the Registry. And was annoyed that we were ALL - Microsofted.
I wish I found your video about two days and then, 15 hours ago. I've been running out of disk space and couldn't find the reason. Nothing online tells about the restore points gobbling up tens of Gigs of disk space. No one pointed to restore points. And I'd been bent over and Microsofted into a stupor. I'd thought the restore points had been removed. Because, I'd needed one about a year ago. Now, memory returns and I had turned them on via registry - then. So, I'd given them about 3%, which equated to the ~40GB of mysteriously lost disk space. With MS tools I couldn't see what was using this lost disk space. It isn't shown anywhere. But, you and this video allowed me to find the settings - to see where ALL my mysterious Disk Real Estate had gone and I have now downsized the percent of disk space used. So, I get back about 20GB. THANKS!!!
Thanks for your guides, sir. I've also experienced that the snapshots has been turned of. But instead the registry backup is still in place and working (Windows 11 Pro).
Love this one. I also have stopped auto windows updates as I often leave my pc on over night to render videos so it save time in the day time for me. I did it once and windows restarted the pc no mater what it was doing to install updates
I knew about everything, but adding that Task Sheduler entry. Thanks!
Glad it helped.
@@CyberCPU Indeed
I made this discovery not too long ago. Sysinternals Autoruns wiped out the whole printer registry when I tried removing a nonexistent print monitor, and I suddenly had the need to mount a backup copy of Config/SOFTWARE. It was then that I realized that all PCs have stopped making registry backups, and have also stopped making restore points. I resorted to transplanting the keys from another pc, but damn. What freaked me out the most was the disabled System Restore, as I was relying on it being on for a bunch of other stuff, such a restoring previous versions of files.
Nice. Hey I noticed in the video that the task that has to be manually ran to get the registry backup had no trigger so perhaps that's why it didn't run on its own...
If you have no permissions to add a trigger directly to the regidlebackup task then download power run from sordum which allows you to run scheduler as trusted installer or anything else for that matter
No, that's not it. The task itself is broken. I tried all that. Spent like 2 hours trying to get it to work. The only solution was calling it from another task like I show in the video.
@@CyberCPU Hi!
I also noticed there is no trigger set for the regidlebackup task and I've tried this way, but it still doesn't work on W11 23H2.
So the only way to run it is either manually or called by another scheduled task, as you showed in the video.
Thanks a lot for this tip!
This makes me less worried in case of a registry corruption, as I have a way of restoring it.
Really nice tips, thank you!
You're so welcome!
I have been using Macrium Reflect to make a disk image of my computer. Over the years it has save me time and time again. No need for registry backups. Whenever I make any changes to my pc, which is often, I run a series of checks to make sure everything is ok - then I made a disk image. If I have any problem, like unable to boot into windows, I am able to use the startup menu which has the Macrium option, or a USB stick with the Macrium recovery on it. I can restore a 60GB system in about 5 minutes. I have used it scores of times and never had a problem restoring my pc.
I use this program as well and it works great!
I do a full backup image every two weeks and then an incremental backup every say set up automatically. The best part about it is that it gives you a Macrium rescue option on boot instead of going into booting windows. I don't trust Microsoft to backup anything properly in a way that it can actually be restored and working and I don't know that I ever will. I test my Macrium backups on a regular basis and they always work and usually take less then 10 mins to finish
I remember that was the easiest way to fix Windows XP and lower with all the registry garbage it held on to. Also, it was just easier to reload the O/S than figure out where all the viruses were hiding. I guess Microsoft thinks this is a reinvention of an old idea that "worked," so they are returning to it.
I remember there used to be a time where you had to reload your operating system once a year. I like the fact that you no longer have to do that. I have windows installs that are not only years old but had actually moved to new upgraded hardware without reloading. My Plex server is Windows 10 and has moved between three different systems without reloading. Still runs solid as a rock.
@@CyberCPU When did that stop being a thing?
LOL
But seriously, for the o.s., and for most users, i largely agree it's not really a necessity these days.
For nuts like me, yeah, it's still a thing.
I wind up with so much junk i don't use, it's just way more efficient to nuke and start over yearly than to try and make sure the ruddy things actually got uninstalled and didn't leave remnants.(bleeping autodesk and adobe).
@@CyberCPU This was from registry bloat and it becoming a massive mess. People don't make their programs cleanly remove their registry entries and their registry is incredibly inefficient.
Yes, lets reimplement the worst aspect of Windows XP that was fixed with later versions of Windows. Brilliant!
@@ahnilatedahnilated7703 I have never experienced a system with a registry that was so messed up it affected system performance. I know what you're talking about but I've never seen a negative impact from it.
I highly recommend against tools that promise to clean registries up for this reason. I've seen those tools destroy systems far more then dirty registries.
Hey Rich, I just want to thank you. Im by no means a noob when it comes to Computers and Windows and any tech. I actually was thinking about contacting you to see if you had any advice regarding starting a business in computer repair.
But anyway, your channel has been really helpful to me. So i just wanted to say thank you buddy. Youre a really good dude.
👍😀
Glad my videos are helpful.
I did a video a while back on starting a computer business. Here it is.
th-cam.com/video/QlZVF6l6BSg/w-d-xo.html
I really enjoyed this. Nice for me to get back into this kind of stuff. Just subbed.
The Apply button applies the changes to the settings that have been made, but does not close the dialog box. The OK button also applies the changes to the settings, but in addition closes the dialog box. Apply is useful only if you are trying out different settings and don't want to have to keep re-opening the dialog box.
Thank you, so we can create a schedule with the SFC and DISM tools?
Great find. Thanks. I added to all of my systems.
The cynic in me thinks Microsoft is doing this because when you reset Windows, your custom settings will be reset back to Microsoft defaults that are optimised for Microsoft's revenue streams (e.g. Microsoft Edge/Bing as the default browser and search engine). For users with local accounts, they can also take another opportunity to push logging in with a Microsoft account. Microsoft doesn't get that benefit when you repair a PC with System Restore or Automatic Registry Backups.
You know, you might be on to something. I hadn't even thought about that.
This would also solve the problem of technicians debloating a system for a customer. If the customer resets it all the bloat comes back.
That is an interesting thought. The cynic in me thought they were doing it because they'll need fewer Microsoft employees to support it. Reducing headcount is wall streets absolutely favorite thing to do.
This is convincing me to actually get around to figuring out why the settings app/calculator app fail to load properly half the time and why the start bars search keeps freezing every now and then.
These issues have been there since i did a fresh install after wiping the drive “half because of similar issues”
Though honestly I suspect it might be my C drive as its long overdue for a replacement
The only drives in good health is my raid 5 array i have my misc files/steam and other game services game folders.
Though they are newer “setup after a hdd failed”
Is there any way to setup the triggers on automatic registry backup to be lockstepped with whenever a restore point is created?
When you make a restore point it backs up the registry already itself in another way. Unfortunately you can't access that backup without restoring the restore point.
Amazing video. Liked, saved, shared. Cheers!
Glad it helped.
@CyberCPU, thank you for the videos. On top of the valuable material, I like your engaging presentation and sense of humor.
Question: how does the BackupCount setting work? I set it at 2 and am wondering where these two go.
Question/Request: I like viewing the videos on my Pixel 8 Pro. As large as it is, deciphering the text is often hard. Would it make sense to Scale the display a bit?
I can so relate to this issue, as I have been fighting with my laptop for the last three days, so thank you so much for guiding me through the fixes I needed to get my files back and working properly.
As much as i hate the registry,, a massive blob of gunk.. MS will never kill it, because it would break compatibility too much, even those they have moves to self-contained apps, they must keep the registry for legacy reasons..but on the other hand if you know what your looking for, you can tweak to your harts content.
Unfortunately that is not 90% of users because all we wanna do get "get our work done" .. With Microsoft making things harder and harder they force people to edit registry now just to to basic things that was once, a click of a mouse button. Thankfully, Microsoft doesn't hide it. They encourage it on their website, but a "warning" where as Apple just shakes their head.. and we all just follow like sheep.
This is why i store my important files on different drive than OS.
Once a year clean OS installation by default, sometimes there can be issues you dont notice.
Oooooor.. and hear me out, In the Registry, navigate to whatever Hive Branch you want and go to File > Export.
I think Microsoft got tired of the constant hand-holding they did with people potentially breaking Windows via the Registry.
But, yeah, I don't recall any modern and recent computer just outright refusing to boot up into the OS normally.
The new way to get into Safe Mode is: holding Shift when you restart OR going into Settings > (System >) Recovery > Advanced Startup > Safe Mode.
That task on my machine... had no triggers... it seemed it could just have automated triggers added to it to get it to run.
still not working on W11 23H2, unfortunately
Question: Do new auto backup files over write the old one or do they just accumulate taking up more and more hard drive space? Thanks 4 sharing your knowledge!
Safemode is easier to get to... hold shift when clicking the restart option... and you can select for it to reboot into safemode or even the bios right from that menu which comes up. No need to hammer keys
I think the reason he's doing this is that one of the options in the legacy safe mode is the "Last Known Good Configuration" option. That's missing from the current safe mode since MS disabled it.
@@douglasbennett1768 To be fair, it's physically impossible for Windows to be so broken what whatever went awry to even use the last known good config option.
@@Mario583a I've had instances where Windows wouldn't boot and Last Known Good worked to get me back in, but YMMV.
@@douglasbennett1768 i've had this too on older windows where that was the only option what worked so i've set it back up on windows 11
That option is more cumbersome and not useful if you can not start the system...
On all the mechanical drive systems I've performed fresh Win10/Win11 installs, System Restore is enabled by default. It appears to only be disabled by default on SSDs which makes sense, as many cheaper all-in-ones have tiny SSDs and SR takes GBs from your drive over time.
As far as having a separate registry backup, it's something that personally makes little sense to me to use. System Restore backs up and restores the Registry, important Windows files, and the programs.
As an experienced professional technician how do you know when to restore the registry or the system files (SFC)??
Or you just don't know and do try and error like throwing commands and see what happens
You set BackupCount to two. After running RegIdleBackup then the new task you created, why didn’t you have two copies of the registry files in your folder?
Nice 1 mate. FYI - interestingly, of the 4 x Win11 machines I created the schtasks in this morning, only 2 of them gave an 'argument' warning... The other 2 just accepted the string happily.
i agree registry backups and system restore points can be very helpful. ive also see system conflicts pop up inside of windows when you do successfully use a restore point. im not saying nuke and pave is always the way to go, but sometimes it can be better. ive seen files no longer be accessible, game installs be broken and driver conflicts happen due to system restores. and yes windows 11 has way too much bloat. and i hate the new task bar too. i bought stardock start11 and tweaked my win 11 install to look like win 7 and win 10. also i found it very obnoxious with win 11 that the usb stick i made of win 11 to clean install my pc that i even added device drivers for my motherboard couldnt access the onboard wireless out of the box, but win 10 could. and without network i couldnt even log in. i eventually found a workaround command prompt to disable the out of box experience. my board is an asrock x670e steel legend with a ryzen 9 7900x am5 processor, and win 10 did pick up the wireless driver for the motherboard out of box on launch of am5 last fall but win 11 wouldnt when i chose to clean install upgrade
Rich, After making these changes a few months ago on a Windows 11 PC I have noticed that registry backup files such as Default, Sam, Security, Software, etc. show up in their own separate files in the config folder, not under the RegBack folder. Is there any way to change this behavior? In case of emergency, I would like to know that the registry backup folders are where they should be rather than floating around in the config folder.
Wow. Thanks for sharing these tips!
You're welcome.
It's seldom that I log into youtube (don't judge me) to offer comments, but your videos have been extremely helpful in setting up my Win11 PC so I can recover in the future. My PC got stuck in a boot-loop after a MS update hosed everything up. My PC (MSI Gaming PC) is only 4 months old and there was no way to recover it - it wouldn't even boot into Safe Mode. I used my backup Win7 PC to search for answers, but nothing worked. No restore point or Reg backup, no disk drive and Media Creation Tool failed on Win7. The restore function did get me back up and saved my personal files, but I had to start from the beginning with everything else. I think I went a little too aggressive in deleting things after recovery because my PC stopped rebooting altogether at one point. Safe Mode worked this time and I was able to recover certain things, but "sfc" and "dism" from another video of yours did not find any issues (go figure). I have watched several of your videos and I'm taking a more practical approach to setting up my PC as a result. Backing up only personal data is no longer my preference. Much THANKS to you and your videos and keep them coming!!!
I have seen in some Windows 10 installs that the Restore Point feature has been disabled. The first thing I do is to first go into restore point (Make a desktop shortcut) and see if it is turned on. I will set it to about 6% or 18 gig's.
I wish the old program called "Go Back" used in Windows 5 was still available.
Great tutorial. Glary Utilities has an easy-to-use registry backup and restore tool for the less technically minded, but it isn't automated.
I checked the new installation of Windows 11 22H2 on a new computer I just built and the system restore point is set to on already. It looks like Microsoft has fixed this feature.
it was set to off on my windows 11 22h2 only just turned it on so no and i had a new install not so long ago
My question is will WIndows Update undo the registry operations? Maybe an export is in order.
I dont have the function of Pressing Ctrl Alt and Delete could you make a video of putting it back in on windows 10.Thanks
Not sure what you're referring to. Do you mean making people hit cont alt delete before they log in?
What's the best method to restore those backup files that were created here?
I just went through the same experience. And found the same problem, no registry backup and no system restore. Ended up having to do the same, clean install and a lot of PITA. Having seen this video beforehand would have saved me hours. With copious amounts of storage being so affordable, it's ridiculous to be "saving" a few MB of storage at the cost being able to easily restore to the last stable settings. At the very least they should make it a user option to use more storage for registry backup with just a few clicks in a setup menu.
Thanks for these info, but the Last Known Good Config never been disabled rather than MS changed how you access it. hold down the left Shift key on your keyboard while you clicking on the restart button from the start menu. that will boot you into a recovery mode, where you can do advanced troubleshoot and choose advanced startup option. that will boot you into the recovery menu options where you have safe mode or last know good configuration. and let's say you don't have access to windows from the start and need that menu, simply force shutdown the pc during the boot up to get to the repair startup, skip that to the advanced recovery menu and you get access to the same page. Thanks
Yeah, I had a HID Driver issue with Windows that was making mice constantly double-click on Win10Pro. It was driving me nuts, so not wanting to reinstall windows I went looking for the "Refresh" function to find they have made it so if you want to keep your programs you have to get the Windows Installer ISO and mount and boot it in Windows 10 to refresh the PC. It doesn't work if you put the iso and boot into it. You have to run setup.exe on the ISO without autorunning it. Gee, want to bury it much?
Thanks for the great video.
love *Win7 F8 feature*
Thanx for the tip
Now that we have the registry backup files, how do we use them to restore the registry?
I have Windows 11 and when I try to create new trigger and set it up I don't have the option of Windows 11 only 10. Will 10 work for 11?
Excellent video, thank you.
I use Win 11 and set "BackupCount" to 2 (as you in the video), but there is only one folder called "RegBack". Even when I manually run "RegIdleBackup" it's only updating the already existing files in RegBack. Where can I find the second backup?
Your description says To change back to new menu
bcdedit /Set {Current} BootMenuPolicy Standard
but you said change 'Legacy' to 'regular' to. Which is correct to use?
Hey Rich, will the F8 boot solution in this video work on windows 11?
This is all really good stuff. But for those of us who might be trying to learn from your videos, how about some explanation as to why we might want to back up the registry and how to use that back up? What, disable telemetry? Blasphemy! I wonder how much resources that telemetry takes.
I don't quite understand the connection with the folder "RegBack" and restore points? According to Microsoft, restore points are stored in the hidden system folder "System Volume Information"?
When I go into "Recovery" the list of restore points is displayed correctly.
In general, my PC does not automatically create restore points, even though I have followed your instructions 100%, and have double-checked several times. When I run the created job manually, files are saved in "RegBack", so I don't quite understand what's going wrong? So I think something is going wrong with the automation? Maybe I should check this part out again, again. 🤔🤔🤨🤨
Now I am totally confused. Today there are new updated files in the "RegBack" folder, but no restore points appear in the "System Restore" overview with the date 07-04-2023.🤔🤨
Latest update: A restore point was automatically created in the RegBack Folder on 10 April 2023, but this restore point cannot be seen in the restore function you open via the control panel. So you cannot restore the system files via this point, since it is not shown. I don't think the correct method is to save the restore points in the RegBack folder, but they should probably be saved in the hidden system file 'System volume', which Microsoft says they are saved in.
I'm a new subscriber. I just found you by chance looking up "I don't want a Microsoft account for 11" but have a problem. I was following a video about system restore. When you open it's tiny and hard to read. I have made adjustments to the size of screen and text but does not solve this and similar problems like it. Is there a fix for this? Love what's happening on your channel!!!!
Maybe this lack of registry backup is why Windows startup repair never succeeds?
That's a good point. I don't think I've ever seen window starter repair actually work. Also SFC. It never seems to work either.
@@CyberCPU Here's a proceudr from Chris Titus that works 95% of the time.
th-cam.com/video/sOihh4ZNOf4/w-d-xo.html
Does the F8 Safemode tip also work on Windows 11 ???
Many times when I redo a system I have found when there is an NVMe drive or a SATA SSD that frequently system restore isn't on. Sometiems it is on but I haven't figured out why sometimes it is or isn't on.
Ran into this year's ago, and tried to tell others, but got the cold shoulder in the idea, in which caused me major problems years ago
Thank u. The regback up tweak worked like a charm. But I noticed that you did not mention that there needs to be space between the forward slashes when typing out the schtask command line. I am scared of trying out the f8 tweak though. Has anyone tried it out and it worked?
still annoyed they abandoned file history.
File history still works.
@@CyberCPU Kinda, when it goes wrong its hard to fix and very opaque, eventually I just switched to freefilesync.
@@churblefurbles I still use file history for backup on customer systems. It's free, built in, and easy to configure.
If you could make a batch file to install all that, that would be handy
@7:11,DWord 32 and all other options are greyed out..??..Windows 11
So true i used to fully clean format and fresh install every 6 months. I keep my usb drive with windows 11 installer ready in case.
I don't miss those days.
@@CyberCPU for that me neither 😄
Thanks, i just have not actually needed any of these in years but if i do at some point this would be a nasty suprise
Just came accross this looking for why the registry wasnt backed up - did one of these restores around windows 7 era and came accross one a week ago, and ended up doing a clean install after adding drive to other system to backup the users folder .. just re-enabled this on my pc :)
about 11:35 You left no code(s) in the description or any pinned comment(s).
They are there now. Sorry, I forgot.
@@CyberCPU no problem, we all are humans and we do this time to time.
Isn't it much easier to run backup/restore software like Acronis True Image - and what happens to your reg changes after a big Windows future update by Microsoft ?
Thanks for your tips. Unfortunately, the last tip about bcdedit /Set {Current} BootMenuPolicy Legacy didn't work for me. I'm using Windows 11 Pro on a desktop. Any suggestions? Thank you.
Unfortunately I haven't tested it on Windows 11. I've had a few people comment that it didn't work. It might not be available for Windows 11. I would have to play with it.
@CyberCPU Tech F8 did nothing for me either (Win11 PRO)