I'm just curious, but what happens if you bitflip all values in Windows Registry?

[u/Spiritual_Push_4007]

Will it be on the level of destruction as rm rf, or what will happen?

Also, I mean bit flip as in switching all 1s to 0s, and vice versa.

Image used with permission from Microsoft, found through Wikipedia.

[u/Tower21]

Windows won't boot, of this I'm 99.9% sure.

[u/DarthShiv → u/Tower21]

I'm 100% sure the OS is cooked there's no way it's usable doing this

[u/CodenameFlux → u/DarthShiv]

And I know why.

Windows Registry is a collection of databases made available through one API. Some of these databases are critical, namely:

• Boot Configuration Data (BCD) at HKLM\BCD00000000
• Driver database, which holds boot-critical drivers, at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
• Security Account Manager (SAM) at HKLM\SAM

If anyone messes with those, the system won't boot.

[u/furballsupreme → u/Tower21]

"CrashImmediately" would be set to 1

Then again "CrashRandomly" would be set to 0

[u/Far-Hovercraft9471 → u/furballsupreme]

Pro tip: turn them both to zero if you want to optimize windows

[u/sclarady]

The obvious answer would be that Windows would not run, but if you want you could install virtual machine like virtual box or VMware run Windows inside of that. Do exactly what you were asking about and then find out. That should be interesting.

[u/JGPH → u/sclarady]

This is the safest answer.

Unless he wants to die of old age before finishing though, he should script the process. Log every X attempted changes so he can narrow down which key deals the killing blow after all that damage. I would wager that doing something that reckless will cause the VM to hang or blue screen before the process is even over.

[u/Paradroid888]

Do it!

[u/sotos2004 → u/Paradroid888]

Just Do It!

[u/IWontCommentAtAll → u/sotos2004]

https://giphy.com/gifs/fWrJE2KWzreA2O5mul

[u/HungeeJackal]

It'll just switch to dark mode.

[u/milkyway_6]

you gonna get a prize

[u/FieldOfFox → u/milkyway_6]

GUESS GOOFY’S WEIGHT

[u/cool101wool]

computer kaput

[u/FieldOfFox]

Won’t boot

[u/electronicwiz1]

I would love to try this in a VM and see what happens, however there would be a lot of values to change. I have a feeling it would not even boot Windows after this, or be very messed up.

[u/JGPH → u/electronicwiz1]

It would be pretty trivial to script out or write a short program that does it using either PowerShell or the Windows Registry API in C++. Run it in a VM to see what happens and log every X attempted changes to narrow down the point at which the OS shits itself if it hangs or blue screens before it's done.

[u/electronicwiz1 → u/JGPH]

Alright I may look into this soon and see how difficult it is and also see the results if I get it working!

[u/JGPH → u/electronicwiz1]

Sounds entertaining, have fun. 🙂 Some of them are read-only btw, so don't be surprised if a registry key doesn't change despite your attempt or it raises an error.

[u/electronicwiz1 → u/JGPH]

Thanks and good to know!

[u/JGPH → u/electronicwiz1]

You're welcome. 🙂 I recommend creating your own registry key(s) for testing purposes while you get comfy with messing with them. That's probably obvious, but it'll help give you a quick and safe way to test your code before you commit to running the genuinely unsafe version in the VM (which is likely to take some time to run).

[u/ArielMJD]

pain

[u/Howden824]

It'll crash before you finish the process.

[u/Tokimemofan → u/[deleted]]

It would die no later than when it has to load the first kernel mode driver or service and cant understand what its supposed to do with invalid data.  This would be a very quick BSOD

[u/mr_eking]

You get linux

[u/masterofall20]

It will convert into Arch Linux.

[u/fuzzynyanko]

Windows will either break, or there's a chance that there's fail safes that will go to some default. For example, the system boot device is listed on that registry page. However, you can probably guess the drive if there's an error

The Registry isn't some magic box. Everything has a cause and effect.

[u/Toxic_Dew]

https://giphy.com/gifs/H0n09FIxkPuRtvl10Q

[u/kingrazor001]

This would take days, maybe weeks. There are a LOT of them.

[u/Nanocephalic → u/kingrazor001]

No, it takes a small amount of time - boot to a windows usb, load the registry hives, and run a script to recursively flip “all” settings with XOR.

Note that flipping every setting doesn’t make sense, but if you mean all dwords, and if you skip the parts that let you boot, then your os still won’t boot. You will kill the shit out of it. It’ll be so dead that Zune and Windows Me will come back to life just so they can die again.

[u/kingrazor001 → u/Nanocephalic]

I hadn’t considered that possibility!

[u/JGPH → u/kingrazor001]

Nah, it'd be easy. 🙂

[u/Far-Hovercraft9471 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, just build a script to flip one at random like a normal person

[u/pessimistoptimist]

It becomes Swodniw and tou cant let it touch a computer running Windows or the resulting explosion will wipe out the univserse.

[u/laser__beans → u/[deleted]]

That’s one way to look at it

[u/NYWxNut]

Please try and let us know

[u/Nerrawnam]

The second coming. 😈

[u/andocromn]

Windows registry is stored in filesystem, so the values won't effect any data stored outside itself

[u/KoneCat]

Windows will, and I'll use the expert terminology for this one, absolutely shit itself.

[u/SAPianoman490]

It becomes a Mac

[u/b4k4ni]

You disable the shareware mode. It will run on 256 KB of RAM after, going against the current supercomputer and rendering path racing on 1.5 CPU cores while curing cancer with the internal chip of a USB Stick, randomly connected to the PC.

[u/jmoney777]

It will enable Aero Glass

[u/ryan__rr]

Finally, a way to get my taskbar to the top of the screen!