Regback Copy Not Working -

Windows Registry protection goes beyond standard UAC. Even an Administrator account runs with filtered tokens. The SYSTEM account and TrustedInstaller have higher privileges than your admin account. Without taking ownership or using specific backup privileges, the copy operation will fail with "Access Denied."

If you cannot get the reg save command to work because the Registry is corrupted, you must copy the files from outside the operating system. regback copy not working

Why this works: The OS kernel is not running when you are in WinRE. The files are not locked, so standard copy commands work perfectly. Windows Registry protection goes beyond standard UAC

As mentioned, modern Windows uses VSS. You might see SOFTWARE, SYSTEM, etc., in the folder, but they are 0KB. These are not actual backups; they are sparse file placeholders. Copying them yields a useless backup. Why this works: The OS kernel is not