I feel for you… This happens to me if I allow Google Chrome to install when Adobe reader updates something. I have done re formats at least 7 times in the last 7 years or so. Not counting windows upgrades. And my last reformat was last week with over 250 windows updates over the course of 24 hours.
I have had to learn way more than I would have thought about the registry than I’d ever wanted.
The image backup is much less painful despite the effort involved even when you really don’t feel like doing it.