Sometimes, due to the installation of a program, driver, or virus infection, Windows may begin to run slowly or stop working altogether. System Restore allows you to return your computer's system files and programs to the state they were in when they were working correctly, and avoid lengthy troubleshooting. It will not affect your documents, images and other data.
There are times when it is necessary to perform a system rollback - restoring the main system files from a “snapshot” of an earlier state - a restore point or OS image. With its help, you can return Windows to working condition, but at the same time, all programs recently installed on drive C (or any other, depending on which drive the backup will be carried out), programs, etc. will be deleted. It is quite possible that adjustments were made during this period.
Rollback to the last point
If, after installing a new application or update, only part of the system stopped working for you (for example, some driver crashed or a problem occurred in the program), then you can restore to the last point when everything functioned without failures. Don't worry, your personal files will not be affected.
Attention!
The recovery process will not be able to be interrupted once it is started. It can only be canceled after the process is completed.
Once the process is complete, your computer will reboot and everything will be as before again.
If, after making any changes, you cannot log into the system, then in this case you need to rollback through backup mode. Usually, in such cases, the computer itself switches to the required mode. If this does not happen, then when starting the computer, press F8(or Shift+F8).
After this, the recovery process will begin and you can continue working on your computer.
Windows 8 and 8.1 allow you to create a bootable recovery disk using standard tools. It is a regular USB flash drive that boots into the Windows recovery environment (that is, limited diagnostic mode), which allows you to repair startup, the file system, or fix other problems due to which the OS will not boot or runs with noticeable problems.
The backup may take quite a long time, so be patient.
Thus, the operating systems of the Microsoft Windows family allow using standard (regular) tools to perform a complete backup and restore of operating systems from previously saved images. In this case, all user information will remain intact.
This article discusses steps that can be used to restore Windows 8.1 without deleting user data.
If computer malfunctions cannot be resolved using conventional methods, there is only one radical solution left - reinstalling the operating system. Many users are frightened by the prospect of reinstalling the system.
In Windows 8.1, the problem of reinstalling the operating system is almost solved. Of course, the operating system will not do everything for you, but many users who previously called specialists or experienced friends to reinstall the operating system will now be able to do it themselves. The fact is that in Windows 8, Windows 8.1 a new reset function has appeared that allows you to quickly, in just a few clicks, restore the operating system or return it to its original state.
If serious system failures occur that cannot be resolved using conventional methods, you can restore the operating system to functionality while preserving your personal files, accounts, and contacts. To do this, you need to reset the operating system. We will need a Windows 8.1 installation disk or a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8.1
Press the key combination + I in the panel that opens Options click Change computer settings
A window will open Computer settings, select Update and recovery
In the window Update and recovery press Recovery
We wait a bit
If your computer does not have an active Windows 8.1 recovery partition, the system will display a warning. You will need a Windows 8.1 installation disc or a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8.1
Insert the Windows 8.1 installation disc or bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8.1. An update wizard window will open, which lists the consequences of the update, namely:
● Your files and personalization settings will not change.
● Your computer settings will be restored to their default values.
● Windows Store apps will be retained.
● Applications you installed from drives or websites will be removed.
● A list of deleted applications will be saved on your desktop.
If you accept the terms listed above, click the button Further
The computer will restart, after which the system recovery process will begin.
System recovery may take some time. The recovery time can range from several minutes to several tens of minutes (depending on the speed of the computer).
The recovery is completely automatic. Your presence at the computer is not required. Once the recovery process is complete and rebooted, your computer is ready to use. All you have to do is install programs that were removed as a result of system recovery. All your accounts and passwords will remain intact, so use your old password to log in.
The registry is a large database that stores all the parameters necessary for the normal operation of the operating system. You can view it through the registry editor, which is available in Windows. Any user can log in if their account has administrator rights.
And if you made any changes, or the computer turned off by itself, for various reasons, or you accidentally pressed the wrong key and deleted a parameter or an entire registry branch, then this may not have the best effect on the operation of the computer.
And yet, if this happens, let's figure out what ways there are to restore the Windows 7 and Windows 8 registry so that the computer can operate normally.
As you probably guessed, this method is not suitable for everyone. If you previously created backup copies of the registry through “File” - “Export” - read on, if not - move on to the next method.
So, you have a backup copy. Press the combination Win + R, the “Run” window will open. In the “Open” field we write regedit and click “OK”.
The Registry Editor window should appear. In it, go to the “File” tab and select “Import” from the menu.
Explorer will open, find the previously created backup in it and click “Open”.
Wait while the files are copied.
System recovery can be done using restore checkpoints. You could create them earlier, when the system was stable and you were satisfied with everything. Or they could be created automatically by the system: when making changes to the computer configuration, before installing drivers, etc.
Let's first consider how to restore the registry if the operating system boots. In Windows 7, go to Start - "Control Panel".
Here we are interested in the point "Recovery".
In the next window, click "Run System Restore".
Now you need to select a restore point. If there are several points, and you are in doubt, look at the date the point was created - did your computer work normally on these dates?! - choose her. Clicking "Search for affected programs", you can see which programs will be removed as a result of recovery. Click "Next".
We confirm the system rollback to the selected state by clicking “Finish”.
All data, including the registry, will correspond to the state that was at the time the selected recovery point was created.
If you have Windows 8 installed on your computer, read the article: Windows 8 restore point and system rollback. There you will be interested in the second part. The steps you will need to perform are the same as those described above.
Restore the registry if the computer does not turn on It's also possible. In the Windows 7 operating system, when booting the computer, press the F8 button at intervals of 1 second. A window will appear "More download options". In it, use the arrows to select the item "Troubleshooting your computer".
In the next window, select your language and click Next.
Select your account, it is better if it has administrator rights, then enter the password if you have one set when logging in, and click OK.
The following window should appear, select the item in it "System Restore".
A recovery window will open, click “Next” in it and repeat the steps described in the paragraph above.
If you have Windows 8 installed on your computer, you can press F8 or Shift+F8 when loading, but you are unlikely to see a window for additional download options. It is best to use a system repair disk or bootable USB flash drive. You can create them on any other computer with Windows 8 installed.
Follow the link and read the article on how to restore Windows 8. Everything is described there in detail. You should see the following window. Then follow the path: “Diagnostics” – "System Restore", and select the desired restore point.
In Windows, the files that are responsible for the operation of the registry are stored in the following path: C: (your system drive letter)/Windows/System32/config. The RegBack folder is also located there; backup copies of all registry branches are stored in it. They are updated automatically by the system, depending on the settings, every 5-10 days.
We need to do the following: delete the files DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE, which are located in the config folder, and replace them with similar files from the RegBack folder.
We will not be able to do this in the operating system, since we will need to replace the files responsible for its operation. Therefore, you need to use additional boot options and open the command line.
In Windows 7, press F8 when the system boots. Then you need to do everything as described in the paragraph above. In the window "System Recovery Options", select item "Command line". As a result, the command line will launch as administrator.
In Windows 8, you can open the command line using the combination. This is described in detail in the article: Windows 8 Safe Mode. Read the point: enter safe mode using the Shift+reboot combination. When the following window appears, select "Command line".
If the computer does not turn on at all due to changes in the registry, then read the paragraph: enter safe mode using a system repair disk (you can create it on any computer with Windows 8 installed).
So, we launched the command line. Now enter the following commands line by line. At the end of each line, press Enter. First, let's create a badreg folder on the system drive and copy all the files of our non-working registry into it. Then we safely delete the files DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE from the config folder, because we have copies of them. And lastly, copy the backups from the regback folder to the config folder.
MD c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\badreg
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\badreg
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\default c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\sam c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\system c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\security c:\windows\system32\config\
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\software c:\windows\system32\config\
exit
After you enter the exit command, the command prompt window will close and the computer will restart.
I hope one of the methods will help you restore the registry in the Windows 7 or 8 operating system.
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Discussion: 16 comments
I enter the commands in the line as shown, for some reason it says: “the system was unable to find this path,” what should I do?
Answer
Most likely, your DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE folders are located in a different path, but not c:\windows\system32\config.
Answer
So what should I do?
Answer
You need to find out the path to the specified files. Do you have the 32-bit or 64-bit version installed?
Hello dear admin, thank you for a really very useful, exclusive project, of which there are not many in RuNet. I spent 5 days studying the materials on your site, learned a lot of interesting things, but unfortunately, after this period of time, I was unable to fix my recently encountered problem on my laptop, so I would like to turn to you for help in the hope of figuring out my problem and finally then solve it. I apologize in advance that there will be a lot of “letters”).
I bought an Acer Aspire v5-122p laptop 2 years ago with Windows 8 64-bit OS pre-installed (I don’t remember the edition). Then after some time it was automatically updated to 8.1. Over the past 2 months, there have been frequent freezes in the system, and I kept putting off restoring the Windows system. A week ago, the system once again froze severely and I had to urgently turn off the laptop by holding down the power button. After this, the following problem arose and is not resolved. After turning on the laptop, the acer logo appears and the loading icon spins for about 40 seconds and the message “There is a problem with your computer, you need to restart it” is displayed on a blue background. After this message, the computer reboots itself and “Preparing automatic recovery” starts, the loading icon spins for 30 seconds and then everything disappears, there is nothing, just a black background without any messages, but the laptop seems to continue to work, but does not respond to any What actions, other than an emergency shutdown of the laptop. And so all the time.
I didn’t bother to make a boot disk or flash drive from under the system in advance, when the system was still working normally. After studying the materials on your site, I tried the following. I downloaded images with Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 in English through mediacreationtool, in it I also made bootable flash drives separately with Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 in English, I also tried to make bootable flash drives through the WinSetupFromUSB_1-4_x64 and rufus programs with these images. I did it based on your materials, initially I tried using these programs to make a bootable USB flash drive for BIOS UEFI using these programs, formatted in FAT32 with a GPT scheme, but I didn’t change anything in the BIOS, I turned on UEFI with secure boot, set the boot priority to the first USB HDD, also specifically by pressing I could select a bootable USB flash drive connected to the laptop on the f12 button, as a result, after these manipulations, the acer logo and the boot icon still appeared for a short time, and after that the black background glowed again without anything. I also tried disabling D2D RECOVERY, even then in the BIOS I wrote the path in the select an uefi file as trusted for executing item in usb1 to the path to the BOOTX64.efi file, which is on the flash drive, but the result is the same.
Next, I decided to go differently. According to the article “How to disable Secure Boot on an Acer Aspire laptop,” I disabled secure boot to disabled by setting a password, then in boot mode I switched UEFI to Legacy. I set boot priorities from usb hdd in the BIOS, then using the WinSetupFromUSB_1-4_x64 and rufus programs I formatted it to NTFS with MBR and made bootable flash drives. When I connected this flash drive to the laptop in usb 2.0 and pressed f12 to select my bootable flash drive, the laptop rebooted, after a while the Windows 8 logo appeared with a blue background with a boot icon, but it didn’t get to the points to install Windows and restore the system, again black the background covered the loading.
This black background that appears is the whole problem; for some reason I can’t fully launch bootable flash drives with Windows.
But two other facts are noteworthy: when I write all sorts of programs like eset.nod32, Victoria and some other Live CD programs onto a bootable flash drive, everything loads normally from the flash drive and there is no black background, not even any freezes.
These days it got to the point that I even had to initially disassemble my laptop because of this problem, I removed the RAM, the hard drive. I disconnected the wires, the disk drive, cleaned the video card from dust, carefully applied new thermal paste, but unfortunately this did not have any effect on solving this problem. And I wondered if it was a hardware problem or a software one.
In the end, I decided to start a laptop without a hard drive with a bootable USB flash drive not from UEFI, I got an interesting fact, the Windows 8 logo with a blue background, the boot icon, and finally the options to install Windows and restore the system appeared, i.e. there were no black screens, at that moment I decided to put the hard drive back in, there was no black screen, but when I tried to restore or install the system there were such errors, the drive is locked, unlock it and reboot, also the blue background "Your PC needs to be repeired" file:boot/BCD.......
As a result, I spent 1 day experimenting with the Victoria program from under DOS, SMART seemed to give a status to the disk “GOOD”, I found 8 defective bad blocks during the test, ADVANCED REMAP seemed to correct them first, then when I went through it again about 6 times I found it at the same addresses, but the SMART status for the disk like “GOOD” remained.
Therefore, now I am puzzled and cannot understand whether the black screen is a trick of the hard drive due to some hardware problem or a software problem, but then what is this paradox with the black screen and how can I get rid of it?
Those. At the moment I can’t achieve anything so that I can fully launch a bootable USB flash drive with Windows without a black background with a connected hard drive, and as I said earlier, many other programs eset.nod.32, Victoria with LIVE CD with a connected hard disk start normally without a black background.
Thank you in advance for your response.
Restoring to its original state is one of the system recovery options in Windows 8.1. It is advisable to use this function:
It differs in that you do not need to re-install the drivers and enter the product serial number. The recovery program will only fix problems in the system kernel and delete personal files.
Boot from the Windows 8.1 installation disc:
In the window Windows installation click Further:
Select an item Diagnostics:
Select Return to original state:
In most cases, there will only be one copy of the operating system on this list. If there are several of them, select the desired (or problematic) system that you want to restore:
At this stage, you have a choice: 1) wipe only the system partition; This option is suitable for you if your OS has become unusable and you want to restore it for further use. For a complete recovery, it is enough to restore only the system partition. 2) clean all computer disks if you have several. This option is suitable if you want to sell your computer and clear all data. Also, this option is desirable if you are restoring the system after a virus infection and have already saved all important documents to a flash drive.
In most cases, the option will do Just delete my files. This will give you a chance to recover some files. If you select the second option, the system will completely erase files to protect against recovery. This option will take much longer and is suitable if you are selling or giving away your old computer.
Click the button Return to original state to start the process of restoring Windows to its original state:
After this, wait until the progress reaches 100% and the system restores its original state:
After resetting the operating system, the computer will behave as if you had just installed the operating system on it (or as if you had just brought home a new computer with WIndows 8.1 pre-installed). Select your region, language, time zone and keyboard layout:
Accept the license terms:
Select a color, name your computer, and click Further:
Sign in to your Microsoft account. To do this, you will need a hotmail.com login and password:
The system will request confirmation via mobile phone or email. Complete the required steps:
Enter the received code:
At this point, you have the choice of either copying all settings and apps from the Microsoft Store,
or set up your computer as new:
