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Any tips for setting up a new Win7 laptop and installing lots of software fast?

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dr_andus:
One cool thing I found with Macrium Reflect incremental backup is you can browse the images and if you double click the file dated when you want to return the system to, it will restore it to that state.  This makes backups very fast.  USB 3.0 sticks are coming down in price.  An easy way to store an incremental backup folder.
-MilesAhead (September 24, 2015, 04:18 PM)
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How big are these incremental backups (or the USB 3.0 sticks)?

tomos:
I would not recommend deleting Recovery partitions either. I wouldnt recommend messing with the partitions at all -- because I wouldnt want to hear that it went wrong... In my case I did the partitioning because I had already borked my new laptop (long story) which gave me a liberating feeling of 'it cant get any worse' -- which was actually untrue -- but luckily it worked fine.

It is good to look at it practically though, e.g. one of the advantages of separating OS and Data into two partitions is that you can regularly create a reasonably small image of your OS without the baggage of all the data. OTOH, if you keep a fairly stable set of programmes, if you install them all as planned, then create your OS image backup, then back up you data daily -- if something does go wrong, you can restore your image with installed software (you will probably then have lots of MS updates to do but still) and restore your data.

So, I guess it's just to have a plan of sorts for the possibility of failure.

dr_andus:
I just tried to create a system repair disc, before carrying on with the installation.

But my laptop did not come with a CD/DVD drive. I tried to burn over the Homegroup network using my old PC's DVD drive, but something just wouldn't let me write onto it (although it would let me read)--though I don't know if such a thing is normally possible.

In the end the only way I was able to create that repair disc was by mounting a virtual DVD writer using KernSafe TotalMounter (it was suggested here). There are some very mixed reviews of it out there, but I couldn't find any other solution, and it worked fine.

But it's a bit strange that the system repair disc creation setup would insist on requiring a DVD drive on a system that doesn't have one...

wraith808:
I just tried to create a system repair disc, before carrying on with the installation.

But my laptop did not come with a CD/DVD drive. I tried to burn over the Homegroup network using my old PC's DVD drive, but something just wouldn't let me write onto it (although it would let me read)--though I don't know if such a thing is normally possible.

In the end the only way I was able to create that repair disc was by mounting a virtual DVD writer using KernSafe TotalMounter (it was suggested here). There are some very mixed reviews of it out there, but I couldn't find any other solution, and it worked fine.

But it's a bit strange that the system repair disc creation setup would insist on requiring a DVD drive on a system that doesn't have one...
-dr_andus (September 25, 2015, 06:29 PM)
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Mine allows you to use an external drive or a USB drive for just this reason.

tomos:
^ Windows 7 doesnt allow creation here without a CD drive.

@dr_andus - do you have one from your last machine?
You can create a USB version from that using Rufus (on a machine with a CD drive...). I have notes about it on my desktop machine, can check later if you want. IIRC it was: (1) create ISO (I think I used ImgBurn); (2) use Rufus with default settings to create bootable USB.

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