Now it may be true that Windows is supposedly getting more and more stable and secure all the time, but it is still reliant on what is, in my opinion, one of the stupidest ideas in the history of computing: the Registry.
Now it may have seemed like a good idea to someone to store all the settings for a user and the machine in one large database spread accross five files, but if one of these gets corrupt and you haven´t got a backup then you´re screwed.
Compare this to a *NIX based system (Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, etc) where the settings for a particular bit of software or sub-system are usually stored in a text file or custom database which is used only for that system. This means that if one of these files gets damaged in any way then they are a lot easierto fix and probably won´t bring down the whole system. It does mean your settings are spread accross the entire system but they can still be backed up.
In case you were wondering why I´m having a rant, it´s because someone handed me a laptop with a corrupted registry and no backup. Oh and they would like it back as soon as possible and exactly how it was before. Great!
I'm a web developer based in the East Midlands, UK and if I keep up the current rate, I might have developed 3 million sites by the time I retire