Windows 8.1 File Backup Before Factory Reset - windows

It would appear some major changes have occurred in Windows 8.1, specifically how files can be backed up for a factory reset. Normally I would make a backup of all personal files with "Windows Easy Transfer" then format the OS to a base Windows install. At which point I could run "Windows Easy Transfer" and restore all my files to my freshly formatted PC without issue.
Now in Windows 8.1 it would appear you can no longer make a backup of your current PC and Microsoft has stated that they are no longer supporting easy transfer. So what is the best way to make a backup of your personal files before doing a reset in Windows 8.1. The current OS has some nasty viruses and a refresh doesn't seem appropriate do to the current state of the OS. So I would like to perform a reset (factory reset) and restore the files onto my fresh install.
I have been looking at "File History" which appears to be Microsoft's new way of backing up files but I can't find any information about how or if you can recover all your files from "File History" on a new OS. All the information I see points to recovering a file on the current OS if the file is deleted or damaged.
I like many others really liked the safety and catch all of using easy transfer. I have made backups of files only to find I missed a folder here or there and can never get said files back. That issue was eliminated with "Windows Easy Transfer" and now with that being gone my goal is to find the safest/best solutions.

As of Windows 8.1 "Windows Easy Transfer" only transfers one way and can no longer be used to backup your data to move to a new system or restoring your data after a factory reset.
As of Windows 7 and up you can setup "File History" to an external drive or network drive. This can be used to backup your files and restore them to your new system. After making a backup of your files, which could take a while, you can verify the content of your backup folder
(Drive Letter):\(User)\(PC Name)\Data\C\Users
After you have verified the contents you can safely format your system. After your system is back up simply go to your "File History" settings and select the drive you stored your backup on. The system will see that a previous backup was made and ask you if you want to restore the files before making a backup.

Related

Where to store a temporary copy of a network file in Windows - INetCache?

I would like to create a temporary copy of a network file while actively working on it in our application which is a Windows desktop application. I am concerned about folder-redirection and potentially Citrix as some of our users employ these.
After some analysis of Microsoft Word, I have discovered that it writes its local cache of a network file into %AppData%\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.MSO (in Windows 10).
I have read this former post Internet Explorer Cache Location that says to check the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Cache
to be sure of where temporary internet files are stored on the local machine.
I would anticipate creating a subfolder of the "temporary internet files" folder named essentially Content.MyApplicationName, as Microsoft appears to do.
So my question is whether this is indeed the best place to store a local cache of a network file while working on it, allowing for the possibility that folder-redirection could have been employed on the machine.

Migrate FreeNAS Data to Windows (over SMB)

My FreeNAS server is slowly dying and before that happens i need to migrate all data in the NAS to a windows server.
The FreeNAS has ZFS Snapshots and i need to restore data from a few days ago to the Windows server.
I have done some research and i can't think of the best way to do this. (i am not linux/Zfs savvy)
So the things i need to do is,
Restore ZFS Snaptshot from a few days ago to a windows Server
I mounted a windows share to the Freenas using mount_smbfs //username:password#server.name/share_name share_name/
I can copy and create files on that share just fine. So I was wondering if it was possible to restore an entire data set from an snapshot to the windows share.
Any help, tips is much appreciated.
Note. I could easily copy all data on a freenas volume to the windows share, but what makes it complicated for me, is restoring data from a snapshot without overwriting the current data on the volume and moving that data to the windows share.
You have two sensible possibilities:
Access the ZFS dataset (shared over SMB) from your Windows Server, then right-click on it in Explorer and choose "Previous Versions". You will get (after a short time depending on the number of snapshots) a list of all snapshots with their dates. You can then either explore them and copy some files over, or you can choose to copy all to another location (e. g. your new share).
Mount the Windows share on FreeNAS like you did, then go to <pool>/<filesystem>/.zfs/snapshot/ (path completion on the shell might be turned off for the .zfs directory, so type it in manually). There you'll find all your snapshots (like you would have on Windows' Previous Versions) and you can copy some or all files over to the new directory.
I would suggest the first way, because you have the GUI and cannot do any harm to the FreeNAS system this way.
On the other hand, have you thought about the possibility of rescuing the system? You did not specify why it's dying, but things like hard drives or mainboards can be swapped quite easily without requiring setting up everything anew. Maybe this would help you more than moving the data off to another, unconfigured system?

What happens after OS X Internet Recovery without erasing disk

I want to reinstall OS X Yosemite in my MacBook Pro 2015 without erasing the disk. What will I need to reinstall after the process is done? What files are not removed from my hard drive? What files ARE removed from disk?
Thanks!
Run a backup to save all of your data via Time Machine.
Reinstall OSX.
Restore your data from Time Machine if its not available after reinstall.
Run Disk Utility and have the application search and fix any permissions issues that will almost certainly occur when doing a reinstall with applications pulled from a previous install.
DON'T attempt to do a reinstall without making a backup via Time Machine to an external drive.
From #bmike:
"Almost nothing is actually removed. What happens is the installer downloads a fresh and complete set of system files - basically the things that came with the Mac out of the factory minus some iLife apps like Garageband for instance.
The installer doesn't delete any user settings, user files and doesn't even delete apps you installed.
The process is designed to make the system work whether or not you have large or small changes to the system."
Link

p4v getting files as writable

Perforce is downloading files to the external hard-drive connected to my MacBookPro as writable ("777"). It's as if the "allwrite" option is set in my workspace, but it's not.
I thought Perforce was supposed to mark the files read-only until I check them out. Is there a setting somewhere I missed?
Rev. P4V/MACOSX104U/2009.2/236331
MacBookPro OSX 10.5.8
Is your external hard-drive formated as hfs+? If it's FAT32, it will be 777 anyway.
Have you checked if Windows thinks the files are read only after syncing with the Mac client?
Perforce does not like it when you access the same disk location from two different workspaces, nor the same workspace from two different hosts. This is because the server tracks the state of the files on the client; you're begging for your local store to lose synchronization with the depot.
What are you really trying to accomplish here?
I would recommend that you forget about FAT32; put your Windows workspace on an NTFS volume and your Mac workspace on an HFS+ volume. Submit & sync to share the data. Storage is cheap.

Windows Home Server backup solution

I admit this is not strictly a programming question, although I do use my WHS as a source repository server for home projects, and I'm guessing many other coders here do as well.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good backup solution for the non-fileshare portion of Windows Home Server? All the WHS backups I've seen handle the fileshares, but none of the system files or other administrative stuff on the box.
Thanks,
Andy
Windows Home Server is designed to not need a backup of the OS. If your system drive fails, install a new drive, and then boot the WHS OS setup disc and install the OS. It will find the data on the other drives and recreate all the shared folders. You do need to do some configuring once it is back up but that is pretty small compared to not having to back it up.
One good solution for backing up the home server itself is to attach an external drive, say via USB 2.0 or eSATA. For this to work, though, you need the supporting software like Norton Ghost or something similar installed on your WHS server.
Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 (aka WHS PP1) added a feature to perform backups of the WHS shared folders to an external drive -- as you mention, this feature is only intended to do the data side and not the OS.
If you have an HP MediaSmart server, you could try the method mentioned in Quick & Easy Windows Home Server Backup and Restore. The author said it worked for him, but of course, caveat emptor. This technique has you creating a disk-image for your backup, and using that to restore from in the Recovery Disk / Restore disk process.
If you want a faster way to recover your OS and you do not have a Media Smart server, you can also check out these instructions on how to use a USB flash drive for installing WHS, and merge in the instructions found above for restoring a disk image vis-à-vis the OS Recovery disk process.
WHS OS backup solved by running two copies of WHS each on its own computer in a virtual machine with each WHS backing up the other (running in a VM makes the WHS a file thus able to be backed up and restored by WHS).
iDrive is Great and free under 2 gigs

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