How to refresh or reset Windows 8

[Dos_Box]

Following on from the post I made earleir about the two reset functions to be found in the new Windows 8 control panel under the general options I think it is worthwhile to show these as a seperate guide rather than a single post. Please note that this was done on the Windows 8 Preview version and the methods used here may change in other releases.

Windows 8 offers two options to reset your machine:

 

1. To refresh all of the orginal Windows files in the event of fille corruption or if Windows starts to behave erraticly or unreliably. This will preserve all of the users files and folders, as well as any apps aquired via the W8 app store in Metro. All other apps and programs will be lost as far as I can tell.
   
2. To preform a 'factory reset which will remove all users, their settings and software.
   

To refresh your W8 installation

 

1. Unapprove (de-register) any software that registers itself online for installation first such as Adobe's Premier Elements suite as it will be removed as part of the refesh process.
   
2. Go to the Metro Interface and click on Control Panel - General - 'Refresh your PC without affecting your files' - Get started.
   

Select the first option here.

 

Windows will tell you what it it about to do. After this shot was taken it asked for the orgional install disk to be inserted, so please have it to hand.

 

The progress screen.

 

Once finished W8 will take you to the classic desktop where there will be a shortcut to a HTML file listing everything that has been removed from your computer so you can reinstall them later.

 

 

Resetting Windows 8 to Factory Settings

 

 

1. Unapprove (de-register) any software that registers itself online for installation first such as Adobe's Premier Elements suite as it will be removed as part of the refesh process.
   
2. Go to the Metro Interface and click on Control Panel - General - 'Reset your PC and start over' - Get started.
   

Choose the 'Get started' option under 'Reset your PC and start over'.

 

The information screen letting you know what is to happen to your PC.

 

Your last chance to cancel the process.

 

The reset progress screen.

 

Enter your product key. I clicked 'Skip' as it is the preview release and no key is needed. I really don't see why you should have to do this step on a preinstalled machine TBH. Surely Windows knows it was prevoiusly registed correctly.

 

And the final screen.

 

Once past there you are asked to setup a user account etc. It's all pretty painless, but I can't see the point in having to enter a serial number again, especially on an already registered machine. Surely Microsoft can back up the registration settings before the reset to be read at this stage?

That aside, I think these are two great features that will save a lot of pain for those of us in the techy role.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Dos_Box

[LosOjos]

That should certainly save quite a bit of time! It's a shame it removes all your installed programs (can't get my head around calling them apps yet, it just doesn't feel right!), it would have been nice if it just re-installed Windows files, but I suppose the intricacies of that coupled with the myriad of different approaches to installation would make that a hell of a thing to implement without insisting on software houses using a standardised installation routine.

 

Still, two nice new features for us!

[Dos_Box]

I had also though about that, but if it was an application causing the issue then I suppose it ensures any refresh actually gets your machine working again. I wish it could do it without the need for a disc as well!

[featured_spectre]

Perhaps they could look at partitioning the drive specifically for that purpose?

[sted]

wonder if on full release you will be able to "snapshot" the pc after you have say just installed office and other base apps then "restore" to that point?

[Arthur]

wonder if on full release you will be able to "snapshot" the pc after you have say just installed office and other base apps then "restore" to that point?

Microsoft mentioned that this will be possible during their first BUILD keynote (01:38:50 to be exact ).

 

...there's a super simple command line tool. You get everything set up, you run the command line tool, and that baseline becomes your refresh image. So, it's super easy,” Sinofsky said. (Source)

[Dos_Box]

The Register are a bit behind with this as they are just now announcing this feature!

 

Microsoft de-cloaks Windows 8 push-button lifesaver ? The Register

 

It's been there since the Developers Preview was released guys!

Still it's a killer feature and will hopefully make a complete format/reinstall a thing of the past.

[featured_spectre]

perhaps they stumbled across it on here! lol

[Arthur]

The Register are a bit behind with this as they are just now announcing this feature!

To be fair to The Register, the new article on Microsoft's Windows 8 blog does contain quite a bit of new information regarding how the Refresh & Reset feature works. For example, RecImg.exe is the program you use create your own refresh image. This wasn't mentioned during the BUILD keynote.

 

mkdir C:\RefreshImage
recimg -CreateImage C:\RefreshImage

 

It also mentions which settings are preserved during a refresh and which ones are lost.

 

Misconfigured settings are sometimes the cause of problems that lead to customers needing to refresh their PCs. To ensure that Refresh is both effective in fixing problems and in making sure customers don’t lose settings that they might have trouble reconfiguring, we’ve thought a great deal about which settings to preserve. In Windows 8 Beta, some of the settings we’ll preserve include:

 

 

• Wireless network connections
  
• Mobile broadband connections
  
• BitLocker and BitLocker To Go settings
  
• Drive letter assignments
  
• Personalization settings such as lock screen background and desktop wallpaper
  

 

On the other hand, we deliberately chose not to preserve the following settings, as they can occasionally cause problems if misconfigured:

 

 

• File type associations
  
• Display settings
  
• Windows Firewall settings
  

 

We will continue to enhance and tune both lists over time based on how we see the feature being used in the Developer Preview and Beta.

[sted]

wouldnt a wizzarfd saying what settings you want to keep be more appropriate as i wouldnt nesescarily want it retaining wifi setiings

[SYNACK]

Slashdot only just picked this up too, good to know EG is still well ahead in some areas