OT-ish: After W7 ReInstall 167 Windows Updates?

Grazie wrote on 3/21/2014, 3:07 PM

Restore, not reinstall. I got it John.

Grazie

john_dennis wrote on 3/21/2014, 4:13 PM

"... you find yourself mumbling, "I wish I could just have everything exactly like it was yesterday."

I've actually restored a boot image when I've come home and found the seat of my chair warm.

GeeBax wrote on 3/21/2014, 4:30 PM

I have two smallish SSDs on my editing system, containing only the system, all data is held on other drived. The system drive is cloned to the other drive once a week automatically using Casper. If the main drive with Windows on it fails, I just have to swap the SATA cables over and I am instantly back in business.

diverG wrote on 3/21/2014, 4:57 PM

Whether you choose to use 'Windows' or Acronis' etc for saving a system image please do a 'recover' to ensure you know the correct root through when a 'recovery' is called for.

Even with a system disc replacement the procedure is pretty quick. Again if you have a spare HDD around a practice run is time well spent.

Geoff

riredale wrote on 3/21/2014, 7:50 PM

I have used Acronis 10 for many years on all our various systems, only recently did I switch over to Macrium Reflect on my main system. It does an incremental backup every 2 days. I Started with W95, did an upgrade to W98 when it came out, did an upgrade to XPpro when it came out, went to sp1, then sp2. So I haven't touched a Microsoft CD/DVD in, what, ten years? And I don't do MS updates.

Using a program like Acronis or Macrium allows you to do a "bare metal" restore. If tomorrow my C drive goes "poof" (it's happened) I boot Acronis or Macrium from the CD drive, use the image kept up-to-date on another drive, and I'm back to exactly where I was in about an hour. It's the only way to go! And I'm the sort that experiments a lot, so I've trashed my system more ways than I can count. Ta da!--one hour later all is well.

And if your system ever gets sluggish, it doesn't mean you need to go back to the original image or original Windows disk. There are some great cleanup programs and utilities out there that can point out what's slowing things down. Like I said, I have XP on a number of systems, nothing has been changed in many years, and they are all running great. I use free ZoneAlarm as a two-way firewall and the free Avast antivirus. I use my main PC constantly for editing and email and surfing and a bunch of other stuff. Life is good.

Here's a website that compares four backup programs. There are numerous comparison websites out there; this is just the first one that popped up in Google. I switched from Acronis to Macrium because Acronis kept getting bigger each year with more "fluff" every release. I don't need continuous backup. I don't need cloud backup. I don't need "Try and Decide." I just want a backup routine that I can schedule. And Macrium does that (others do, too).

johnmeyer wrote on 3/21/2014, 8:11 PM

[I]There are some great cleanup programs and utilities out there that can point out what's slowing things down. [/I]I'm curious as to what you recommend. I don't have problems with slowdowns on my own computers (because I don't upgrade, don't add things, don't use anti-virus software, and don't let any programs run in the background), but I sure do have a lot of people who bring their computers to me for "repair." I often have to spend hours hacking away all the bloatware, bad drivers, clunky anti-virus software, and several hundred thousand "cache" files, all of which can make a simple application like Excel take over two minutes to come up (I've had that happen many, many times).

So I you have some program that would let me get through the worst of this sort of thing automatically, I'd love to try it out.

Kit wrote on 3/21/2014, 8:58 PM

I use CCleaner slim version

NormanPCN wrote on 3/21/2014, 9:05 PM

+1 for CCleaner

PeterDuke wrote on 3/21/2014, 9:17 PM

Watch out that CCleaner doesn't prevent you from doing a system restore, if you use that facility.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/21/2014, 9:25 PM

I also am a longish time user of Acronis. I upgraded once for Win 7 compatibility, but found the restore CD to be a bit clunky. I upgraded again recently, hoping that it would be improved, but now I am unable to see the full name of the backup files, because I can't alter the width of the filename column. I am also dismayed at the amount of bloat because I only do regular image backups of my C: drive, which only has system and installed user software on it. All data is on another partition or disk.

I think I might give Macrium Reflect Free a go for a while. I see you need the paid Standard version if you want to do incremental or differential backups or file/folder backups.

Kit wrote on 3/21/2014, 10:48 PM

How might it do that? Have you had that experience? Are you talking about restore points? I always switch Windows Restore off. If I feel I need to do a restore I prefer using an image of the system. That's the only way to be really sure any problem that might have been created is gone.

Kit wrote on 3/21/2014, 10:55 PM

For file and folder backups I use FreeFileSync. It's opensource and scriptable. Note that AntiMalwarebytes grumbles about the installer because of pups (potentially unwanted programs), but I've never seen any installing offline. Also note that I'm using version 6.2 because I had problems trying to execute batchfiles with 6.3.

johnmeyer wrote on 3/21/2014, 11:13 PM

Thanks for the ccCleaner recommendation. I just looked at the specs and it seems that it simply deletes a lot of unneeded files. This is a good thing and can definitely speed up a computer, but in my experience the really big gains in performance come from removing or "restraining" certain background processes and drivers that have "hooked" themselves to various Windows calls. ccCleaner doesn't seem sophisticated enough to get to this level of repair.

The ideal tool would be able to monitor both disk access and CPU cycles and then trace back through the DLL chain to figure out what program is responsible for using system resources. It should also be able to monitor network activity and report on any process that is sending or receiving data. Another problem I often find on client's computers is that they have dozens of programs all enabled to update themselves anytime they feel the need. Some also constantly report information back to some site. Most of these, while obnoxious in principle, are reasonably well-behaved. However, a few can bring the computer to its knees, especially if the computer is a little short on system resources (like RAM).

Kit wrote on 3/22/2014, 11:23 AM

I haven't really used it much but perhaps Process Explorer might be what you are looking for.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/22/2014, 6:45 PM

"How might it do that? Have you had that experience? Are you talking about restore points?"

Dunno
I think so
Yes

I read somewhere once about a CCleaner (I think) doing something (maybe deleting currently unused files or registry data) which prevented system restore to an earlier point. Since I use CCleaner and I am usually unable to do a system restore I just put two and two together. I haven't tried to verify it because I don't have much faith in system restore anyway.

I was just warning people. If they want to use system restore, first verify that CCleaner doesn't break it.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

EDIT

I just found these:
https://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/using-ccleaner/removing-system-restore-points
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091004152355AAwgNlS
http://ask-leo.com/is_ccleaner_deleting_system_restore_points.html

Kit wrote on 3/22/2014, 9:04 PM

Thanks, I have System restore switched off. I don't have any data on my system and make daily images of it. I agree CCleaner needs using carefully.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/22/2014, 11:51 PM

OK, those who champion Macrium Reflect Free, how do you create a Windows PE restore CD?

I installed the free version and tried to create the disc using the default PE3 and got the error message "An error occurred mounting the Windows Image File". I then tried to create Windows PE 4. After downloading a 300+ MB file, I ended up with the same message.

I searched the internet for that message, and the only useful hit was
http://support.macrium.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4993
That user got the runaround and no real help. I at least am using NTFS on all my disks (Windows XP).

I then noticed another limitation of the free version: no support (which is fair enough) and no forum access (which I though was poor).

If I coughed up $50 for the basic version, would life be rosy?

Kit wrote on 3/23/2014, 1:31 AM

Creating a Windows PE restore CD seems hit and miss. I did manage to do it (I think with PE5) though I seem to remember needing to redownload the exe file, and as you say you need the Windows PE download as well.

Personally, I just use the Linux option. In my experience it is faster to load up than the Windows Restore CD. With the most recent version I saw a "namespace" error while Linux was loading but it didn't interfere with the ability to select and restore an image. I probably restore from an image on average at least once a week. It's never let me down.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/23/2014, 3:51 AM

I then tried creating a rescue disc from my Win 7 64 bit machine. This required downloading Macrium Reflect again using it because it only downloads 32/64 bit as per the download machine.

I first created a Win PE3 disc. The problem was that it needed to install a driver for my NEC Electronics USB 3.0 controller, so that I could backup to a USB drive. I did a scan (took ages) and it found one in Windows folder on my C: drive, but that is little help if the C:drive has become corrupted. I then created discs using PE4 and PE5 but they only gave me a black screen. I then tried Linux normal and compatibility modes, but but they gave error messages and stopped.

I think it is a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know!

I will stick with Acronis TrueImage 2010 (but not 2014) for the time being. I may look at Paragon Backup and Recovery, and EaseUS Todo Backup as well as some others in due course.

Thanks Kit and others, and sorry for hijacking this thread.

Grazie wrote on 3/23/2014, 4:00 AM

. . and sorry for hijacking this thread.No apologies needed. I've been reading ALL of this and your input and learning muchly. I'm learning that there isn't a Route1.

Cheers

Grazie

WillemT wrote on 3/23/2014, 6:10 AM

@PeterDuke

Under the "Other Tasks" menu option select "Create Rescue Media".

Next select the Linux option and burn a disk which will boot a basic Linux OS to allow you to restore from any of your previously backup images. No further download required - just ignore the Windows PE option - Linux disk works fine (with certain limitations).

Hope that helps
Willem.

NB. I am still running Reflect version 5.2 (free). I see there is an update which I will download and try.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/23/2014, 6:37 PM

@WillemT

Yes, I tried that. I first burnt a standard Linux disc but it gave I think two lines of error messages and then hung. I then burnt another Linux CD in so-called compatibility mode and this time there were several lines of error messages, before hanging. This was the 64bit version of Reflect for use with my Win 7 machine.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/23/2014, 6:48 PM

One nuisance I found was that I normally use a KVM which shares the keyboard and mouse via USB. Reflect (Win PE only?) needed a USB driver to be installed, so it didn't see the keyboard when the CD first booted. (I couldn't press any key to start Reflect rather than go on and start Windows.) I got around that by plugging in an old PS/2 connector keyboard.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/24/2014, 3:23 AM

After Grazie's encouragement, I will post my experience with Paragon Backup & Recovery free 2014.

The free version doesn't backup files or folders, only partitions or disks, which is the sub-topic of this thread. You need to register in order to download the media build software to create a bootable CD version. This creates a Linux based version, for a USB drive or an ISO image for a CD, which I did. I used Nero to burn it but you could use Imgburn. I think under certain circumstances you can get a Windows PE version, instead of Linux, but maybe not for the free version of Backup & Recovery.

I fired up the boot disc and soon got the first menu, but after making the first selection, there was a 3 minute wait while it showed an image of a hard disk with lines moving across it. I presume that this is Paragon's version of the hour-glass beloved by Microsoft. Then came up the next menu. The disk drive letters were sometimes wrong, but the volume labels appeared to be correct. The file path for the backup file was given in Linux format: /mnt/disk/sdal1/...

The software comes in 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I tried the 32 bit version with my Win XP machine. Backup of a 50GB partition to a USB hard drive took about 26 minutes. I then did a similar backup using Acronis TrueImage 2010 boot disc, which also uses Linux. It took virtually the same time. I then restored the Paragon backup, and it took about 40 minutes. I then restored the Acronis backup, and it took about 19 minutes.

Both Linux interfaces were clunky, but I prefer the Acronis version, perhaps because I am more familiar with it. Also, it was much faster to start (no 3 minute wait) and much faster to restore (just under half the time).

I won't be switching to Paragon, but those who want free software will find that it does the job.

The 64 bit version may behave better, but I haven't tried it.