I love to tweak, but aside from creating Acronis True Image 2017 backups and restoring after each tweak that messes up the OS, I don't know of a more efficient way to test tweaks. I mean you never know what its going to break or when and sometimes nothing is broken until a few days later and during those days no new tweaks were introduced. I can create Registry Backups, but it doesn't seem like registry controls everything and System Restore is often worthless...
+1 A virtual machine is prefered because if an install or tweaks goes bad, you can always restore everything by using snapshots.
With your computer specs, do you really believe a tweak will do any difference? BTW, drive snapshot is great for quick backup and restores.
[FONT="]VirtualBox allows for snapshot. But all I can find to do with VMWare Player is to copy back the entire contents of the VM folder. For that reason, on the one older machine that does not like VirtualBox, I keep a base folder (VMWare Archive) that has all the files for the most basic installation that I copy back into the VMWare folder.[/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]If there’s a way to get VMWare Player to make snapshots, I’d sure like to be corrected on this.[/FONT]
I do use VirtualBox, that's how I know snapshots are possible and as simple a a few clicks. But on the one older machine that does not like VirtualBox, I'm using VMWare Player. Creating a snapshot in VirtualBox is quite literally a snap. What I can't find anywhere is instructions on how to do that with VMWare PLayer ... the free version. If you know how to do that in the free version of VMWare Player, please list the process. Honestly, I'd just as soon stay aware from all VMWare products in favor of VirtualBox. But I'll use the Player on the old machine. I feel this is hijacking the OP so I'll stop responding. It is his topic and not mine in which to seek answers.
VMware Player enables you to quickly and easily create and run virtual machines. However, VMware Player lacks many powerful features, such as Teams, multiple Snapshots and Clones, or Virtual Rights Management features for end-point security found in VMware Workstation and VMware ACE That's why I suggested using VMWare Workstation instead Easy to find keys for it
Since it's the registry you're tweaking, a (full) registry backup should be able to restore it. System Restore also works in almost all cases, despite your low opinion of it. As for absolute safety in tweaking, it doesn't exist. You've already mentioned that "sometimes nothing is broken until a few days later". In fact, a problem may not manifest itself for a much longer period, until you try something new or that you don't do often, or after a Windows Update that finds a different system from what it expected. Will you then be able to associate the problem with a particular tweak you did a long time before? And even if you could, would you like to take your system so far back in time? Like apps installed, tweaks should be kept to a minimum and only from reliable sources.
Try to plan and aggregate your tweaks, but apply them incrementally. Planning also means choosing the right time for tweaking. Apply tweaks when you don't need your computer for critical work so that you have enough time to recover. Try keep change logs on a notebook. Mistakes are easily forgotten You can use a combination of differential & incremental backups to recover more quickly. Deepfreeze or RollBack Rx may also help you. But a virtual machine with snapshots beats all of that, try to use it as much as you can.