What happens if you set every Windows 10 registry key to zero? Let's find out...
The Windows Registry is obviously a critical component of the Windows operating system, serving as a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the OS and applications. It contains configurations for system hardware, installed software, user preferences, and the OS itself.
You can add new functionality to Windows and change how existing features work by creating new registry keys or altering existing ones, typically changing their binary values from 0 to 1 or vice versa. But have you ever wondered what would happen to Windows if -- in a moment of madness -- you set every registry key to 0? Basically setting them to ‘disabled’ or ‘off'?
Windows 10 is not creating registry backups -- and is lying about it
Towards the latter end of last year, it was noticed that Windows 10 was no longer creating backups of the registry. It was assumed to be a bug as the scheduled task that was used to create the backup still existed, and it was also indicated that the task had been a success.
This was a lie. No registry backup was created, meaning potentially millions of users were left without a reliable way of rolling back the registry to an earlier time. Now Microsoft has explained what's going on, and says that the lack of registry backups is intentional.