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I was trying to fix my Windows Defender on windows 10 in my bootcamp partition (windows defender wasn't loading as it is supposed to) and in doing so have altered values in the registry, and now my windows partition crashes on startup.

What happened was: I Changed values in WinDf folders from 3 to 2, as i read here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-security-shows-empty-screen/f7c841eb-140b-4e71-86ef-8d45375ba763 that it could solve the issue. In the article it describes WindowsDefender, but that folder didnt show up, and i thought the WinDf was just short for windows defender.

I have tried startup repair and booting in safe mode, even tried to look for ways to change the values back through CMD in startup troubleshoot, but to no avail.

I am okay with resetting the windows partition, maybe losing some recent files, but the majority of the harddrive is my MacOS partition with a lot of valuable stuff.

So unless anyone has an idea how to fix my mistake of changing the values in the registry, does anyone know if I risk losing anything on macOS partition if I choose to 'Reset this PC' in the windows partition.

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  • It should not but I do not know for certain. Better to use the Windows 10 ISO and try a Repair Install. That should leave everything intact.
    – anon
    Commented May 7 at 14:14
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    Reset Windows should only impact the partition Windows is itself installed on, but, the best advice is to always have a backup of your data, and that would give you the safety net you need.
    – music2myear
    Commented May 7 at 14:30
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    This feature only touches the system partition.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 7 at 14:41
  • @John can you tell me about the Repair Install and how i would go about doing that?
    – Timo Jansen
    Commented May 11 at 9:54
  • Go to the Media creation link. Second choice (same version) and it will explain there about a repair install . I have use that numerous times.
    – anon
    Commented May 11 at 13:56

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Careful here...

Your MacOS shoud be safe, but it certainly won't hurt to make sure the backup of your MacOS install is up to date, before you begin.

While it isn't supposed to touch the MacOS system in any way (Windows can't even read the MacOS filesystems), it is still Windows we are talking about and Microsoft has the very annoying tendency to always assume Windows is the only OS on the system and there is nothing else to take into consideration.

Biggest risk (if there is any) is that the reset of the Windows installation may update/change the bootloader files.
If that goes wrong it normally still won't affect MacOS, but it may mess up BootCamp to the point Windows won't load at all anymore. If that happens you may have to re-install Windows completely.

Nevertheless... Whenever messing with partitioning or with OS (re-)installs in a dual-boot environment play it safe: Always make sure you have a good backup of the other OS.

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