Windows 8 Refresh - Warning!!!

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by puff-m-d, Nov 11, 2012.

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  1. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello,

    I was having some issues with the new Windows Defender as noted in this thread and was looking for a way to get it working again properly. The only suggestion that I received was to try a Refresh. I was worried that I would lose all my installed software but the consensus was that it would only refresh the Windows Apps, not my other software.

    I did the refresh and it basically did a reinstall, everything went back to original like just after I installed Windows 8. I even had some software installed on an external drive (and yes, I forgot to unplug it) and they were also lost.

    So this is a warning to those that may decide they need to do a Refresh. With me it did not do as expected and I lost a lot of both software installations and time (including about 25 GB of downloads). The only backup to before the issues that I was having with Windows Defender was to before these 25 GB of downloads, so I decided to just do a totally fresh install of Windows 8 and start new.

    If you are considering a Refresh of Windows *, I advise that you do some research and be sure it is the right thing for you to do. In my case it ended up in a disaster and I do not want this to happen to others. Just do your research and decide what you need to do based on the best facts you can find. My research led me to do the Refresh and you see what happened to me. Good luck if you decide ever to use this feature and if you do, please report back here to both inform and teach me maybe what went wrong in my case.
     
  2. Cudni

    Cudni Global Moderator

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  3. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    This is great news, finally an alternative for newly purchased laptops that isn't formatting.
     
  4. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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  5. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello,

    It does but I did not read it thoroughly enough and missed the "Reinstalling Windows 8 without losing files and programs" notation and the need to use some command lines while you do it. A fatal mistake.

    The other bit of confusion applied to the word "Apps" as did this refer to only the new preinstalled Windows Apps or to all installed software that had been install since the beginning. I ended up thinking it referred to only the preinstalled Windows Apps and missed the connection to all installed software. The second fatal mistake...

    So if you use Refresh, be sure you do your research if you want to keep all of your software and realize you just cannot do the refresh alone, there are command line involved to keep your software.
     
  6. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello,

    I guess what I am saying is that even though I had researched using Refresh, I had not researched it enough. I only partially understood what I was getting ready to do. What I had overlooked caused me major issues.

    In summary, if you use refresh only, you basically end up with a fresh install of Windows. You can however use Refresh along with some command line work and keep all of your installed software. No one else may make this mistake, but I just want to let everyone know that there are two distinctively different ways to use Refresh along with two totally different results.
     
  7. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    Last edited: Nov 11, 2012
  8. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    It does clearly state what it does. However most of the people discussing it online did not read or do not understand what it does. I have seen a lot of misinformation spread about it. I have found from first hand experience that the recovery options of Windows 8 truly suck. I tried to update the Intel RAID driver and it trashed my Windows 8 install. After realizing that I had forgotten to run a backup, I reviewed the Windows 8 options. All of them result in a complete loss of any installed 3rd party software. I could see the files if I started the machine with a Windows 7 disk but could not fix it with that obviously. The Windows 8 disk did not give the option for the F6 drivers. :mad: In the end I ended up reformatting, reinstalling, and making an immediate disk image. I think this topic is a valid fair warning to anyone that was misinformed about what the refresh does. Trust no option for recovery but a full disk image.
     
  9. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Exactly!!! On this topic you must be very careful with all of the misinformation on this subject that is out there or you very well may end up with an issue that may have been prevented.
     
  10. Espresso

    Espresso Registered Member

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    You can make a custom refresh image with RecIMg Manager and set the recovery console to use that image with the recimg /setcurrent <directory> command. Making a regular image will allow you to refresh and keep all of your apps up until your most recent image update.
     
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