Windows 7 "hidden" restore-from-desktop feature!

i was fiddling around this afternoon, thinking "it would be nice if you could restore from the desktop in Windows 7.
it could save me the 5 minutes i wait for the Windows 7 DVD to boot..."

there is already such a feature "hidden" in Windows 7.
i found it while looking more closely at the "Backup and Restore" options.

goto:
- ControlPanel/Backup and Restore
- click on "Recover system settings on your computer"
- click on "Advanced recovery methods"
- click on "Use a system image you created earlier to recover your computer"


your system will reboot and go to the Imaging boot sub-console
no need for either a Repair or Windows 7 disk!

 

moontan,

That is a great find!

Edit... I just noticed this enables you to do an IFW or a DS restore without using a boot disk.

 

how so brian?
i can't figure it out.
maybe i'm slow or something.

 

I have done exactly that with Drive Snapshot. I've worked out how all the Win7 recovery works and manipulated it. On bootup I press the F1 key and it launches DS that auto restores an image. I also made it load the recovery, so I have time to stop the restore and use the repair/ recovery. I keep the recovery files on g. I written a easy tutorial and script so I will post it. I also done it so it launches from USB.

There is room for more advanced configuration with the script. later on.

I made a unattended installation of Windows 7 that partitions the system doing away with the SRP. having done that I started on the recovery idea and realised having big SRP is not such a bad thing because it can be used to store quick recovery system images.
o

 

I'd expect this will only work with a 32-bit Win7 OS because IFW and DS are 32-bit apps. Maybe someone can test it with 64-bit Win7.

Follow moontan's instructions.

Click Skip, Restart.

Next, Cancel, Next, Advanced, Install a Driver.

Plug in a USB flash drive containing (imagew.exe and imagew.ini) or (snapshot.exe).

Click OK. Navigate to your exe file and select it but don't click Open. Right click on the exe and click Run as administrator. Close the "Open" window. Click Cancel on the "Add Drivers" window. Close the "Re-image..." window. Don't close the "System Recovery Options" window. Move it to one side and ignore it. It will disappear when you select the IFW or DS gui.

Use IFW or DS.

 

thnx a lot Brian!
i'll give it a try.

kinda funny, i have been using W7 since the RC and i never heard of this feature before!

 

Guys, you can even customise your recovery enviroment with your favorite recovery program. Some OEMs (e.g. Toshiba) do it to their customs installations.
Read the instructions from Customizing the Windows RE Experience. (the "RecoveryTools" will add another recovery program in the menu and the "SupportTool" can be used to automatically restore an image if windows cannot start)

GImageX will help you modify your WinRe.wim

Panagiotis

 

It's not at all fair to call this a hidden option. It is a fully advertised and built-in feature of Windows 7

However, a recent survey showed that even novice users have been reading online and decided to delete the recovery partition that Windows 7 creates at OS install. They do this despite saving/recovering the mere 100 MB that it takes from the drive.

Therefore, recovery/boot disks are commonly still needed for these people.

 

i said "hidden" because i never heard about it until i "discovered" it today.

nevertheless, i am very happy about this feature.
with the few tweaks and tricks i've learned and applied in the last 2 months it now takes me 3 minutes and 5 seconds to restore an image.
something that would have taken me about 15 minutes a couple of months ago.

 

TraumaDoc,

They shouldn't need disks if they remove the SRP correctly. All recovery functions work in computers where I've removed the SRP.

 

Three methods of restore described here:

http://www.shivaranjan.com/2009/05/...-or-hard-disk-partitions-from-a-system-image/

Acadia

 

all this time i been using Windows 7 i never knew the Recovery Environment could be accessed without a Repair or Windows 7 disk.

that's kind of embarrassing really...

anyway, tnx to all for offering their tips, help and advices.
i learned quite a bit.

 

recovery including snapshot.exe is running from inside G:\Recovery\{boot record ID}\winre.wim

 

Actually the difference is the time it takes to load the CD repair disc, which in my case is less than 2 min.

 

of course, your 2 minutes is more like 5 on this 3 years old computer

but i found other tricks along the way to speed up my restoring:

using a secondary external drive for imaging instead of of a USB 2.0 external one. ( 25 to 33% time reduction)
disconnecting the USB drive so Windows is not scanning it when restoring an image. (saves me 2-3 minutes right there.)
it adds up.
and of course, not using a disk ( saves about 5 minutes in my case).

this stuff might seem obvious to some of you but anyway...

 

Mark,

do you know why DS can run only in DOS from the recovery enviroment?

Panagiotis

 

This method is likely the same as add a boot item to BCD to boot the winre.wim

 

I think Mark is using parameters for backup or restore

DS can run GUI is Windows environment.

 

hello,
snapshot restore ran with command params runs same way as real dos.

btw it is possible to restore c from windows using cmd line with snapshot --schedule backup.sna c: not see mentioned in snapshot or help.

 

Made a 30gig hidden partition. A good size for keeping and auto restoring 2 small images or 1 big one and differentials.

Wherever you prepare or like the recovery to be,as soon as you enable recovery with reagentc, the winre.wim will get moved to \recovery\[bootid] no matter what. thats where it run from finally.
if get error running reagentc you likely running wrong version, theres a 64 version.
reagent.xml stores its settings. dont delete xml file or reagentc wont run.