Windows 10: Erased wow6432node on registry,reinstalled W10,can I go back from .old

Hello guys,

I have a Dell laptop provided by my employer with Windows 10

This morning, I really messed up and erased the folder WOW6432NODE instead of an entry in it as I was supposed to do. To be specific --> Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node
The system immediately felt strange and explore.exe and other things did not work.
I restarted the laptop and unfortunately there was a sad face and a blue screen with a message saying that an important process was killed. I do not remember. When I tried to go to advanced settings to recover, the system said there were no administrators signed in, etc. I went to the IT department and the guy tried to enable the administrator profile using command prompt via an USB stick but still it did not work. He proceeded to reinstall Windows 10 and now I only have the Windows.old folder with 80 gb of data (that's just programs, as I store my personal data on their servers directly) which I am currently backing up on my Dropbox, since the IT guy wants to do a full restart of the system tomorrow morning.

However, I do not want to go trough the pain of installing everything, plus settings, etc.

I found this link --> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...windows-instal for Windows 7, and somebody says it should apply to Windows 10.

I also found this link What Happens if You Delete the Entire Windows Registry? where they state that Windows backs up a copy of the registry by default on %WINDIR%\System32\config\RegBack\

I went to that folder on my Windows.old and I actually found some files from a week ago. They are called DEFAULT (1.6 MB), SAM (52 Kb), SYSTEM 14.2 MB), SOFTWARE, (95 MB) SECURITY (40 Kb).


Do you guys really think that this is a potentially useful way to get my computer back in the form I had it?

I really do not want to go through the trouble of installing everything again so I need to feel some assurance that it will work as I have two deadlines very soon.

Thank you very much for your time guys

Sincerely,


Daniel

:)

 

Went back from W10 to W7, can I go back to W10 in the future?

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I understand your concern, I will be glad to answer your query.

If Windows 10 is activated after upgrading from the previous operating system, you will be able to re-install Windows 10 anytime and get it activated as long as you do not make any hardware changes like changing your motherboard. Choose the option to "skip"
the product key window and wait for 48 hours to get it activated. However, if Windows does not get activated, you can contact our product activation team for further assistance. For more information, refer the article below:

Get Help Activating Microsoft Windows

Hope this answers your query.

If you have any Windows related queries in the future, let us know. We will be glad to help.

 

Went back from W10 to W7, can I go back to W10 in the future?

I recently upgraded to Windows 10 but went back to W7 and it's registered in my account. Will I be able to "reupgrade" to windows 10 for free in the future even if the first upgrade isn't free anymore?

 

Hi, if he clean installed the current build of Win 10, you wouldn't have Windows.old (and nor would you have any of your programs installed, or personal data on C: .

If he did an in-place upgrade repair install, starting from being logged in to Windows, that would explain why you have Windows.old. In that case, your programs and data should still be present. Are they? It sounds as if they are not.

So I'm not sure quite what happened. Or do you mean you have a copy of Windows.old on some external storage medium?

If he did a clean install, then your data on C: and programs are gone. However it seems you have a backup, which is great.

How do we continually recommend people can often avoid this sort of situation and the need to reinstall everything? We continually urge people to use disk imaging, and recommend people not keep personal data on C:

If something goes badly wrong- even if your disk fails- you can restore your image (to a new disk in that case) and have your PC back working as it was (assuming no other hardware failure) by restoring an image. Hopefully no technical help is needed.

Images are also a full backup- files can be extracted.

You are correct about the registry backup- had your admin either been able to run System Restore (online or offline) or restored the registry backup (e.g. by booting your PC from a boot disk and copying the registry backup files) at the time, it seems likely your problem would have been resolved. (But given the registry problem System Restore may not have been able to run).

 

I do have the WINDOWS.OLD with 80 gb of data that I am currently putting on my dROPBOX, my IT guy wants to do a full restart of everything because this upgrade does not work well either, we have issues installing Office through ZENworks, etc. What I am asking is, can I use the two solutions to, first fix the registry, second get back to normal from WINDOWS.OLD thanks a lot

 

I would let your IT guy do it as that is his job.

 

If all you have done is delete a reg entry then you could restore the key from the reg in windows old

 

That depends if windows.old was created before or after the mishap.

 

Yes, and the question remains- what does

mean he actually did?

Take the machine back to him and ask him to explain, and explain your options.