Backups, System Images and Recovery in Windows 8

Just like the dual Metro and desktop interface and the dual Metro IE and desktop IE, you also have dual backups in Windows 8. Everything in Windows 8 is like a split personality: you have the new shiny Windows 8 style and features and then all the left over stuff from previous versions of Windows.
It’s the same with backups. In this article, I’m going to talk about the backup features in Windows 8 and how it’s a blend of new Windows 8 features and old Windows 7 backup options. In a way, it’s a good thing that you still have all the options you had before, but it’s also more confusing just like it’s confusing to have two different versions of IE 10! That really makes no sense to me, but that’s beside the point.

Windows 7 Backup Options in Windows 8

In Windows 7, you can still do everything you were able to do in Windows 7 in terms of backups and recovery. If you go to the Control Panel, you’ll see an option called Windows 7 File Recovery.

The dialog that pops up is pretty much the same one you see in Windows 7. You can Create a system image, Create a system repair disc, Set up backup or restore a backup if there is one available.

If you click on Create a system image, you’ll have a  choice of where you want to save the image. Only on Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise can you save the system image to a network location.

Note that you cannot save the system image to any drive that is included in the system image. Creating a system image this way is a manual process. If you want to have it done automatically, you need to choose the Set up backup option.
This is the same as Backup and Restore in Windows 7. Basically, you choose where you want to save the backup to and then pick a schedule. The only thing you have to note is that you cannot create a system image if you backup to DVD. You have to backup to a hard disk or network location in order to have that option otherwise it’s greyed out.

By default, the system images are saved in the following format, where X is the drive you choose.

X:\WindowsImageBackup\PC_Name\Backup YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS

For example, if I chose to save the system image to an external hard drive (E:), then I the location of the backup would be:

E:\WindowsImageBackup\AseemPC\Backup 2012-10-04 083421

Backup Restore Options in Windows 8

There are two ways to recover data from your backups in Windows 8. If you created a system image, then you have to boot to System Recovery Options in Windows 8 to restore the image. If you backed up using the schedule feature and picked files and folders, you can restore the files/folders from within the Windows 7 File Recovery dialog.

Click on the Restore my files button and then you can go ahead and selectively choose which files you want to restore from the backup.
For restoring the system image, it’s a different procedure. Note that restoring a system image is a full restore, meaning that you can’t pick and choose what you want to restore, everything will be wiped out and replaced with the image. Restoring from a normal Windows backup allows you to restore individual files and folders.
To restore a system image, you need to boot to System Recovery Options in Windows 8. Once there, you need to click on Troubleshoot.

Then click on Advanced Options.

Then go ahead and click on System Image Recovery.

Next, you’ll have to choose an account and type in the password for that user account. You’ll then have the option to restore from the latest system image or choose a specific image, which you would do if you had the system image saved to an external USB hard drive, a network location or a DVD, for example.

Once you have selected the image, you’ll have several options on how to restore the image to your computer. Note that you can only restore to a disk that is the same size or larger than the disks included in the backup image.

Refresh PC and System Images

In addition to the options above, you can also use a new feature in Windows 8 called Refresh PC. This is basically like performing a repair install in Windows XP or Windows 7. All system files are replaced and you essentially lose all your programs and settings, but you data stays intact.
This is exactly what Refresh PC does, but it’s a lot easier and really just takes a couple of clicks. The one caveat is that you can replace the default system image created when Windows 8 was first installed with a custom image. For example, you could install Windows 8, install any Metro apps, install any desktop programs, customize settings, etc, etc and then replace the Refresh PC image with your new custom image.
Now if you were to perform a Refresh PC, it would reload your custom image with all your apps and programs too! Much easier than going through the first method of creating a system image in Windows 7 File Recovery and then restoring it through System Recovery Options.
You can read my previous post on how to create a Windows 8 backup image that will replace the default image for Refresh PC.

File History

In addition to all the Windows 7 backup and restore options, the Refresh PC option, you also have another new feature in Windows 8 called File History.

File History is turned off by default. Also note that if you are using a Windows 7 file backup with a schedule, File History cannot be enabled! You’ll see this message:
You have to turn off the schedule in order to use File History. This is kind of annoying since that means you’ll have to manually create system images if you like to have system images for your backups. Once you disable scheduled Windows 7 backups, you’ll see you now can turn File History on.

It’s suggested that you use an external drive for saving the file history instead of a local hard drive or partition. You can also use a network location if you like. Actually, you can’t even choose a location on the same physical disk for File History. This is one advantage File History has over Shadow Copies, which was a similar technology in older version of Windows. If the drive dies, you can reinstall Windows 8, give it the same name as the dead system and then choose the same location for File History as the dead machine.
Once you have chosen a location, the Turn on button will be enabled so you can click on it. That’s about it, FIle History is now on! So what does that mean and what does it do?
Well, it basically saves versions of the files stored in your libraries, favorites, contacts, and a few other locations like Music, Videos, Pictures and Desktop. If you go back to File History after it’s made some copies, you can click on the Restore personal files option.

You can now browse through to a specific file or folder and navigate back and forth in time using the green blue keys at the bottom of the screen. Here’s an example of a text document I created and edited with some text.

If I click the left arrow key, I’ll see version 2 of 3, which has a little bit less text than version 3 of 3.

Pressing the green circular arrow button will allow you to restore that version of the file:

You can replace the file, skip it or see some comparison info on the files. Unfortunately, it won’t actually compare the content of the files, just the date and other info like the size, etc. File History sounds pretty good, but it has some serious issues in my opinion and with a lot of other people too, apparently.
1. If you rename a file, the history for that file is lost. It basically starts from scratch again. So renaming a file is pretty much the same thing as deleting a file and starting over. The old history still exists, just with the old name.
2. Following from point one, if you create another file with the name of the original file, the histories will be joined! So if you delete a file that had a history and then you create a new file with that same name, you’ll get the history of the previously deleted file too.
3. Copies are made of the entire file each time a backup is done. So if you have a 500 MB file that gets changed three times in a minor way, you’ll have three 500MB copies of that file.
4. You can’t backup anything other than files and folders. You’ll still have to rely on Windows 7 FIle Recovery for actually backing up your Windows 8 system.
5. You can’t include additional folders other than the ones pre-defined by Microsoft. This means if you want to use File History, you’ll have to move the data to one of the designated folders.
Overall, it’s all complicated system of backup options in Windows 8 that will most likely confuse new users. Hopefully this article sheds some light on the different options, their advantages and disadvantages and how you can use them in combination to create a robust backup plan for your Windows 8 PC.

Thumbnail Previews Not Showing in Windows 8 Explorer

I installed Windows 8 RTM on my home desktop a few weeks back and so far haven’t really had any problems. However, one odd thing that I noticed was that whenever I would view a directory that contained pictures or videos, I would just see the default icon for that file type rather than a thumbnail preview of the files.
So if I navigated to my Pictures library in Windows 8, I would get the photo icon for each image:

And if I viewed a directory full of videos in Windows 8, I would get the same thing, just with the default video icon:

This was getting really annoying and I realized it was doing this since the time I installed Windows 8 on the PC. I’m not sure why it’s defaulted to this view instead of thumbnail previews like it is in Windows 7, but if you want the thumbnails back in Windows Explorer, here’s how to do it.
First, open Windows Explorer and then click on Options and Change folder and search options.

Next, click on the View tab and uncheck the box that says Always show icons, never thumbnails.

Once you get rid of that checked option, you should now get thumbnails for all your pictures, videos and even documents.

There is one other place that you can adjust the setting for showing icons or thumbnails in Windows Explorer. First right-click on Computer on the desktop and choose Properties. Then click on Advanced System Settings on the left side.

This will open up the System Properties dialog. Here you need to click on the Advanced tab and then click on Settings.

Finally, make sure Show thumbnails instead of icons is checked.

With these two settings, you should now be seeing thumbnail previews for pictures, videos, documents, and other file types in Explorer on Windows 8. If you’re still seeing just icons, post a comment here and I’ll try to help

Windows 8 Task Manager Tips

As I mentioned previously in an article comparing Windows 7 to Windows 8, the Task Manager has been completely redesigned. It’s now a lot simpler to use by default, but if you really want to get all the details like before, you can still get those! There are a couple of other little shortcuts and options that I found while playing around with Task Manage in Windows 8.
In this post, I’m going to go through just a few of the simple tricks/tips I learned and hopefully you’ll enjoy using the new Task Manager when you get a Windows 8 PC in a few weeks. If you have any tips of your own, feel free to post a comment.

Opening Task Manager in Windows 8

There are a couple of ways to get into the Task Manager in Windows 8 that are worth mentioning here.
1. You can press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC if you love keyboard shortcuts.
2. You can go to the Start Screen, then All apps and click on Task Manager.

3. You can right-click on the Taskbar and click on Task Manager.

4. Press the Windows key to go to the Start Screen and then just start typing “Task…”

5. Press the Windows key + R and then type in taskmgr.exe.

6. Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE and then choose Task Manager.

That’s a lot of ways to access the Task Manager! Depending on how you use your computer, I’m sure one of those six will work for you.

Add Extra Columns

Every once in a while, I need to see extra information about a Windows process, such as the PID (process identifier). In Windows 8, you can just right-click on any header and add more columns by checking them.

See Logical Processors

Nowadays a lot of consumer computers have more than one processor. If you have certain applications that can run on different processors and you want to check to make sure that the process load is actually being distributed, you can go to the Performance tab, click on CPU and then right-click and choose Change graph to and then choose Logical processors.

By default, the Task Manager will only show the overall CPU utilization. Now you can see the utilization for each logical processor on the system! Sweet.

Startup Impact

Task Manager in Windows 8 has a cool feature that lets you see the “impact” that a startup process has on the system. This is very helpful to quickly figure out which startup programs are slowing down the boot up process.

Update Speed

By default, the data you see in the performance tab only shows you the past 60 seconds. If you want to change that, you can click on View, Update Speed and choose from High, Normal or Low.

High will monitor over a 30-second time span and Low will monitor over a 4 minute time span. Low will also put less load on the machine when monitoring. The 4 minute time span is useful if you need to see the performance for any time frame longer than 60 seconds.

Network Stats

If you go to Network under Performance, you can right-click on the graph and choose View network details.

Here you can see detailed information about your network connection including link speed, network utilization, bytes sent, bytes received and lots more.

System UpTime

Thankfully, you don’t have to download a program to see the system uptime anymore in Windows. Just go to the Performance tab, click on CPU and you’ll see Up time down at the bottom:

Summary View

Another nice feature in the Task Manager is the summary view. Just right-click on any performance metric on the Performance tab and choose Summary view.

Now you get a nice little compact dialog box that you can move anywhere on your desktop or to another screen if you have dual monitors and monitor the performance while you run other apps and programs.

That’s about it! Windows 8 is definitely a nice upgrade from previous versions of Task Manager and hopefully this will give you a little more insight into how you can use it more efficiently

Is Your PC Ready for Windows 8

Windows 8 was officially released yesterday and it’s now time to decide whether you want to upgrade or not. If you have decided to upgrade a Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine to Windows 8, you probably want to make sure your system can support Windows 8 before you buy the upgrade.
To check if your PC is compatible with Windows 8, you can download and run the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant. The upgrade assistant will go ahead and scan your hardware, programs, and even any connected devices to make sure they will work with Windows 8. Windows 8 requires certain CPU features like PAE, NX, SSE2, etc, so it’s a good idea to use this tool if your computer is a bit on the old side.
The tool will also give you a compatibly report for your programs and let you know whether you need to uninstall the program or update the program before upgrading. Once you download it, install it and run it, the program will automatically start scanning your computer for apps and devices.

It will then tell you which apps are compatible and which apps you need to review.

There are some new features in Windows 8 like secure boot, snap, and fast startup. Upgrade assistant will notify you if any of those items are not supported by your system:

If you didn’t already know, Windows 8 does not include built-in software to play DVDs. If you want that feature, you’ll have to buy the Pro pack and get Windows Media Center. Note that if you already have Windows 8 Pro, you can get Windows Media Center Pack for free until January 31st, 2013, so get it fast!
Also, Microsoft Security Essentials is being replaced by Windows Defender in Windows 8. It’s basically the same thing, but for whatever reason they are including Windows Defender built into Windows 8. So if you have Security Essentials installed on Windows 7, you’ll have to remove it before upgrading.
You also get a list of compatible software and hardware that will work with Windows 8:

When you click Next, you’ll be asked what you would like to keep. This will determine which version of Windows 8 will work best for you.

Note that depending on what version of Windows you have, you can only upgrade to certain editions of Windows 8. For example, if you have Windows 7 Ultimate, you can only upgrade to Windows 8 Pro. If you have Windows 7 Pro, you can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro or Enterprise. If you have Windows 7 Enterprise, you can only upgrade to Windows 8 Enterprise. Check out the Wikipedia article for more details.
In my case, since I have Windows 7 Ultimate, any option I selected gave me the same result: Windows 8 Pro for $39.99.

That’s about all there is to the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant. It’s mostly useful for figuring out which hardware and software will not work on Windows 8. It’s also useful if you have an older PC and you’re not sure if your CPU is going to be supported by Windows 8

7 Ways to Child Proof a Computer

I have a 2 year old daughter and I have realized the importance of child-proofing my computer! The second I turn around, she runs to my desk, jumps on the chair and starts banging away at the keys. If the computer is already on, she has figured out how to move the mouse and click on anything she can. It’s great fun for her, but a major headache for me.

I didn’t really think she could do anything, but apparently randomly pressing a bunch of keys on the keyboard can accomplish a lot more than you think! My daughter sent emails, deleted folders, opened programs, and even moved files with her keyboard slamming. In this article, I’ll talk about a few ways you can child-proof your computer and hopefully save yourself some grief. If your kids are older, I’ll also give you some tips for them too!

Method 1 – Lock Your Computer

This simple option solved most of my problems with my daughter. If the computer was off and she slammed the keys, it would turn on, but remain on the locked screen. Thankfully, she’s too small to enter a password just yet!

Before my computer goes to sleep, the screen saver usually comes on. I also enabled the password on the screen saver in case she gets to it before the computer sleeps. I have my computer sleep after about an hour, so there are a lot of times when the screen saver is on.

Method 2 – Use a Limited Account or UAC

The first method only works for really young toddlers, not with kids that are older than 3. By that age, they will probably scream and yell until you let them on the computer. At this point, you need to give them access to the computer so they can play games or do whatever, but also make sure they can’t do anything else.

One way to do this is to use a locked down user account. You can use the Guest account in Windows, which has limited user rights across the system. The Standard user account still has a lot of permissions and can do quite a bit. The guest account is disabled by default, but you can enable it and it prevents the user from installing software, changing settings, etc.
Another feature in Windows is UAC (User Account Control). You can set this to the highest setting and any standard user account will have to enter a password in order to complete the task. UAC pops up quite a bit if you  have it set to the highest setting, so those users will not be able to change most of the settings on the computer.

Method 3 – Parental Controls

Windows 7 and Windows 8 have built-in parental controls that let you restrict the programs that can be run on the computer, the time the computer can be used and even filter web sites the user can visit.

You can Google on how to enable Parental Controls and this may suit your needs. It’s not total protection, but it can help you control what can be done on the computer. If you are worried about data being deleted or getting a virus, this method won’t work very well.
There is also a feature in Windows 7 (not the Home version) called AppLocker that prevents programs from being run. You can basically choose which programs you want to allow to be run and the user will only be able to open those programs. You can learn about AppLocker here.

Method 4 – Group Policy

Parental Controls is nice, but if you want access to a ton more rules and restrictions, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with group policy. You can restrict access to drives, restrict access to the Control Panel, remove tabs from IE options dialog, restrict access to the registry, command prompt or task manager, prevent users from deleting browsing history, and all kinds of other stuff. Group policy can control every aspect of Windows, so you can really lock down a computer hardcore by using it. To get to the local group policy for a PC, just type gpedit.msc when you click on the Start button.

If you are running Windows 7 Home or Starter, you won’t be able to use local group policy settings. Unfortunately, it only works on Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate and Enterprise. If you have any of these versions, it’s super useful for locking down a PC. There are a ton of articles online that explain how to use local group policy, so have fun!

Method 5 – Encryption

If you’re looking for a way to keep your data safe, you may want to look into creating a secure encrypted container on your system. You can do this using a program called TrueCrypt. It’s a free program that has been around for a long time and does an amazing job.

If you have important files you don’t want anyone to access or accidentally delete, you can create a encrypted container that you can mount to the system only when you need to use it. Otherwise, it doesn’t even show up on the system. The HowToGeek has a great guide on getting started with TrueCrypt that explains how to do this.

Method 6 – Deep Freeze It

There is this amazing program for IT people called Deep Freeze, which is about $35, but is something that a lot of parents would love. Maybe you don’t care about setting up parental controls or learning group policy or encrypting your hard drives, etc, etc. What if you could let your kids do anything to the computer: delete files, change settings, install crapware, download viruses, etc and then magically get everything the way it was with a restart?

Deep Freeze does exactly that. It’s absolutely awesome. A lot of companies and schools use this software because you can setup your system the way you want, let users wreak havoc, and then simply restart the computer to get it back to the original state. They can literally delete system files and it won’t matter. If you want need something like that, then buy this software. I’ve used it myself and it works amazing well. Read more about it on their site.

Method 7 – Install Another OS

One method I use to make sure guests coming over to my house don’t access my personal files or mess up my system is to install another copy of Windows on the same PC. You probably have some old computer running XP or something, so just install a dual boot system with your main OS and a secondary OS that you can boot up to for other users.
I have a Windows 7 machine that also has Windows XP installed along with Deep Freeze. Firstly, there are no perosnal files or programs on XP other than the basic stuff. Even if someone does something or installs a program, etc, I just restart it and I’m back to my clean install of Windows XP. Of course, you need to get another copy of Windows, but if you don’t have a copy, then just use Linux!
I also have Ubuntu installed and that’s totally free. You can even download a specific flavor of Ubuntu that matches the style of Windows, so users won’t be disoriented if they have never seen Linux before.
Those are seven quick tips that I’ve used in the past to secure my computers from children, nosy people and everyone else. How do you child-proof your computer