Omitting automatic registry backups is a defensible policy. Telling the user that a backup was completed while a 0 byte file was saved is lying. Seems like a criminal act under the circumstances.
What are you talking about? I don't think this was ever even an announced feature. It's redundant with another type of backup which is the one they've been publicly promoting for a long time. (Restore points.) They finally got around to eliminating the unnecessary one. I don't remember there ever being a UI around this or a publicized best practice about using it.
I don't think it qualifies as "telling the user" if it involves the user poking around undocumented system tasks.
It's a very minor fraud, if a product you purchase says it will do backups, but doesn't do them, then you were defrauded. I think you could sue for actual damages if you had them and be successful if it's in the documentation anywhere, or the system actively informed you that a backup was made. I'm in the UK, fwiw; I'd expect most English law systems to be broadly similar but IANAL.
Fraud usually requires that the entity doing it gains something from it, especially if we are talking about a "criminal act" as the parent did. (IANAL)
The civil side might be different, but that is not what the parent insinuated. (And yes, my question to the parent was obviously meant to show that I disagree.)
>Fraud usually requires that the entity doing it gains something from it //
They got your money; so it's obtaining benefit by deception. If it says in the product specification that it does something that it doesn't do then it's fraud, which is criminal.
It's a de minimis form of selling you a product that they know to not include the features they sold.
But, police wouldn't pursue it (they don't even bother with burglary under O(£1000s) in UK); but you could sue for lost damages and you should in theory be successful.
A quick search for "RegBack" doesn't turn up any MSFT documentation on it. But it does turn up an article titled "How to restore Registry from its secret backup on Windows 10". This makes me think the feature is undocumented.
if i spent all day tweaking peoples registries, only to find that they are not backed up to be restored when you desire a sane configuration uuum, "pissed off" would not even begin to approach describing the emotional carnage evoked.
I get the hunch MS is set on controlling the users configuration at all times.
On the flipside i remember the hell of restore point trojans, and perhaps this is MS best go at mitigating a currently guesstimated threat that is coming?
> if i spent all day tweaking peoples registries, only to find that they are not backed up to be restored when you desire a sane configuration uuum, "pissed off" would not even begin to approach describing the emotional carnage evoked.
Step one to editing the Registry is _stop editing the Registry._
Hell, registry tweaking can be so dangerous that Windows keeps a copy of important keys for the last known good boot. That’s what “safe mode” is: it uses that key instead of the current one.
I don't think it qualifies as "telling the user" if it involves the user poking around undocumented system tasks.