#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL HOW TO#
#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL FULL#
#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL SOFTWARE#
#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL PC#

He has been running video game servers from home for more than 10 years using Windows, Ubuntu, or Raspberry Pi OS. Nick's love of tinkering with computers extends beyond work. In college, Nick made extensive use of Fortran while pursuing a physics degree.

Before How-To Geek, he used Python and C++ as a freelance programmer. He has been using computers for 20 years - tinkering with everything from the UI to the Windows registry to device firmware.

#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL FULL#

How often do you do a full backup of your system? Tell us in the comments below.Nick Lewis is a staff writer for How-To Geek.

#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL PC#

And then the company wants you to use the “Refresh your PC without affecting your files” or “Remove everything and reinstall Windows” feature to restore your system or to help you safely get rid of your computer.

#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL SOFTWARE#

The software maker now prefers you use the new File History to backup your personal files. It hasn’t been updated, and it might go away in the future because it is mainly to restore files from a Windows 7 System Image or to go back after an upgrade. If you do a search from the Start screen using the keywords: “backup” or “system image”, you won’t see this feature as an option. Here is the thing, it seems that Microsoft doesn’t want to use this feature anymore, why? Just look at the name of it. But best of all, if you hard drive were to go bad (unusable) you can recovery your full system in matter of minutes by just restoring the backup image. The benefits of creating a system image are: consolidation of your whole PC in a single backup, applications are preserved and you don’t have to reinstall them, personal document and settings are maintained as well. Taking it offsite to a friend’s house that you trust or a family member is not a bad idea. The repair disc will enable you to boot the PC into the recovery environment and make use of the backup you just created to restore everything.Ĭlick Create disc. After Windows 8 has finished backing everything up, don’t forget to store your system image in a safe place. You want to do this in case your PC hits a serious system failure and the PC does not boot. Windows will start saving the backup and once the process is done you’ll be prompted to create a “system image repair disc”, click Yes to continue. The time that Windows 8 will take to create the system image will depend on the amount of data and the location where you are storing the backup. Note: Files already in the storage media will not be erased by this operation.Ĭonfirm your settings and click Start backup. Open Start, do a search for and select Control Panel to launch the utility.

#WINDOWS 8.1 SYSTEM IMAGE TOOL HOW TO#

How to create a Windows System Image backup In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to create a system image backup on Windows 8, as having a full backup of your hard drive can be considered on of the best disaster recovery strategy. You should always consider creating backup at least once a week.

Basically the system image backup contains everything you need to restore your computer to a working condition in case of system failure, viruses, and other error that may occur.Ĭreating an image of your system in Windows 8 hasn’t changed one bit from how it was done in Windows 7, Microsoft only changed the name from “Windows Backup and Restore” to “Windows 7 File Recovery” - Why the “Windows 7” in the name? This is for backward compatibility with previous version of the operating system. A system image is simply a full backup of your computer, which includes the Windows 8 installation files, apps, personal documents, and device driver.

Windows 8.1 system image tool