The Best New Features in Windows 8

[wraith808]

The Best New Features in Windows 8



I know to a lot, this will fall on deaf ears, but I figured some might like the article. (via Lifehacker)

One feature I'd not heard about and it seems as easy to use as System Restore (which is one of the best features of recent years) is "Refresh your PC"

It also has a really cool feature called "refresh your PC", where you can do a clean install with the tap of a button. Whether you're selling your machine or just want a cleaner, faster installation of Windows, you can do it all in one click. You can even set refresh points, similar to restore points, so you can refresh your PC to the way it was at a certain point in time.

[TaoPhoenix]

That sounds like the Too Good To Be True dept, so I am curious for the real world notes to come in. In my opinion MS used to have a bad habit of making an inferior free copy of certain famous external utilities for the OS. The big one that really got to me was that System Restore seemed like an inferior copy of GoBack for Win2000, and a long time ago I tried to use GoBack on WinXP and the machine tanked hard.   

The obvious corollary program is a 7 click (or so) full backup to somewhere else, do the clean install, and then push everything back on.

[wraith808]

I suppose everyone's experiences are different.  System Restore has saved me more times than I can count; I have nothing but positive things to say about it (and have heard nothing but positive things).

[Josh]

I suppose everyone's experiences are different.  System Restore has saved me more times than I can count; I have nothing but positive things to say about it (and have heard nothing but positive things).

Ditto. I love system restore and have already tested the "refresh my pc" option in Win8, just because. It works and it works well.

[40hz]

It would be really nice if Microsoft could just abandon their registry nonsense and require installed apps to put everything they need (possibly with the exception of .NET and related Microsoft items that are supplied by default with every Windows installation) into their own directory tree. The world would be a much better place if that were so. The registry makes some sense in a managed environment where the network admins need to monitor individual PCs and be able to push updates and changes out to hundreds of seats at a time. For a home or solo PC it's a ridiculous amount of complexity and overhead to have to deal with just to save some disk space.

Disk space is cheap. So is RAM. So having duplicate binaries and whatnot isn't that big a deal anymore.

Oh wait...the FUTURE is with TABLETS!!! I forgot...

I guess disk space will go back to being at a premium pretty soon huh? I mean look...all those movies, and ebooks, and music the media giants just know you're gonna go buy and download have to be saved somewhere, right? And they'll likely almost all be DRM-locked to a specific device - so it's not like you can just save them anywhere you've got space.

[40hz]

this will fall on deaf ears

Not so much deaf as skeptical.

[wraith808]

Disk space is cheap. So is RAM. So having duplicate binaries and whatnot isn't that big a deal anymore.

Personally, I hate having stuff duplicated.  No matter how much space you have, it's never enough.  Then updating... I prefer one central location.  That is, until I don't. 

[cyberdiva]

System Restore has saved me more times than I can count; I have nothing but positive things to say about it (and have heard nothing but positive things).

+1 

[40hz]

System Restore has saved me more times than I can count; I have nothing but positive things to say about it (and have heard nothing but positive things).

+1  

+2 The recovery tools found in Windows 7 are stellar. All of them have been material in saving my (or a client's) bacon on different occasions.

Also props to Micorosoft's Easy Transfer tool. IMO it's the only way to safely and reliably migrate an Outlook message store to a different machine. Righteous utility that one is!

[ewemoa]

One feature I'd not heard about and it seems as easy to use as System Restore (which is one of the best features of recent years) is "Refresh your PC"

Was also interested in this and looking into it a bit, found a description of Refresh and Reset at dedoimedo:

Refresh:

Refresh is similar to booting into safe mode and trying to repair your Windows, using the sfc command on Windows XP, inserting your CD and then letting Windows fix corrupted system files by copying from the disc, or by using the recovery console in Windows 7, which then accesses the 100MB hidden partition where core system files are saved for emergency.

Reset:

Reset is a more stringent operation. It is designed to truly reset your system to factory defaults, which, in this case, might be either a preinstalled setup or your own manual installation.

The following point was a disappointment to me for Refresh:

You will lose programs installed manually. All your settings and tweaks will also be restored to default.

Looking for potential alternatives, came across:

  https://www.networkworld.com/community/toolshed/better-windows-8-system-refresh-slimwares-recimg-manager

Anyone tried the product mentioned (RecImg Manager)?