Dumb question...

[Mark Kaine]

Can you somehow make windows show all things that have been changed from default configuration, including things that "cannot" be changed (such as disabling UpdateOrchestrator, or make your user trusted installer, etc, the usual shenanigans)?

 

I'd be really curious to see... i know most stuff i changed, but surely not everything (its been 8 years i installed this!) and also what stuck and what didn't.  

[OddOod]

Nope
You can't even just do a fresh install and compare because the defaults have certainly changed.

[Mark Kaine]

26 minutes ago, OddOod said:

Nope
You can't even just do a fresh install and compare because the defaults have certainly changed.

yeah, probably not... but then programmers often do "unusefull" stuff like that, kinda like an easter egg...

you can't even see the actual install date (afaik) - except there are workarounds for that (like some windows folders etc) 

[OddOod]

Sure, there are all sorts of utilities people make, but those tend to be remarkably narrow in scope. But Windows settings? Aside from the fact that I'd *never* install something with the permissions it would need, it's also a deeply thorny problem. Settings are stored all over the place in the registry, ini files, json files, yaml files. The list goes on
 

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

you can't even see the actual install date (afaik)

There's a very easy command for that:
systeminfo | find /i "install date" 

[Mumintroll]

I usually keep a text file where I note specific important changes if I need to remember them.

I don't trust Windows to keep all my settings as I want.

 

After those big yearly updates the System restore point function is usually turned off, along with the older restore points getting deleted.

It's a good tool I want to have active.

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Mumintroll said:

I usually keep a text file where I note specific important changes if I need to remember them.

I don't trust Windows to keep all my settings as I want.

 

After those big yearly updates the System restore point function is usually turned off, along with the older restore points getting deleted.

It's a good tool I want to have active.

text file is a good idea... but a bit late in my case... 

 

i mean i don't trust windows full stop. i had "restore points" that actually did not revert the one thing i wanted to be reverted... but usually restore point just does literally nothing (either error or it says it worked but didn't... pretty sure that's by design too)

 

 

likewise for settings that's actually the point of updates to change almost all your settings to default,  because surely you just made a mistake when you turned something off (or on)!