With Windows 8, Microsoft aims to eliminate long, tedious OS reinstallations with new Reset and Refresh features that can apparently repair a system in minutes.
The building Windows 8 blog is an invaluable resource for those seeking information on Microsoft’s upcoming OS. Not only has Microsoft outlined a number of the operating system’s new features on the blog, but they’ve done so in great detail. Never in the company’s history has it been so forthright with information about an unreleased product. Whether or not you agree with the decisions Microsoft has made regarding Windows 8 is one thing, but the free-flowing information is quite another and a welcome development in my opinion.
The latest bits of information to be disseminated on the blog pertain to a pair of features that are likely to please both end-uses and IT professionals alike. The features are called Reset and Refresh, and as their names suggest, they give users the ability to easily repair a Windows 8 installation. The concepts are nothing new, but the implementations are.
In a post titled, “Refresh and reset your PC” Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky goes into great detail explaining how Windows 8’s Recovery Environment works and the how the Reset and Refresh features function. In the post, Sinofsky says, “Sometimes things can go wrong and you just want to get back to a good state quickly, while other times you might want to remove your data before giving a PC to another family member, employee, or co-worker. With Windows 8, we’ve streamlined these processes and made them more accessible to customers with the new refresh and reset features.” No doubt, these are all situations many long-time Windows users have dealt with at one time or another.
Refreshing a Windows 8 PC. Image Source: Microsoft, Building Windows 8 Blog
Although similar, Reset and Refresh repair a Windows 8 installation in different ways. The Reset option removes all personal data, applications, and settings from the PC, and re-images Windows. The Reset option essentially wipes a PC and installs a clean copy of Windows, but preserves drivers and system configuration information. The Refresh option, however, leaves all personal data intact, Metro style apps installed, and preserves important settings from the PC (like user accounts), but reinstalls Windows. The refresh option is akin to a repair installation with Windows 7. Repair and Refresh can be performed in minutes, though. In fact, the blog post reports times under 7 minutes in most circumstances.
In regard to why Refresh only restores Metro-Style apps, the post had this to say, “We preserve only Metro style apps when customers refresh their PCs, and require desktop apps that do not come with the PC to be reinstalled manually. We do this for two reasons. First, in many cases there is a single desktop app that is causing the problems that lead to a need to perform this sort of maintenance, but identifying this root cause is not usually possible. And second, we do not want to inadvertently reinstall “bad” apps that were installed unintentionally or that hitched a ride on something good but left no trace of how they were installed.” I can see why Microsoft chose this route, as it would eliminate malware or spyware from a refreshed Windows installation. I should note, however, that any full-blown desktop applications that get removed during a Refresh will be listed in a text document on the user’s desktop, which should come in handy should the user want to reinstall some (or all) of them.
The post also explains that users who want to refresh an entire OS installation, desktop applications and all, aren’t left out in the cold. Windows 8 also features a command line tool that will create an image of an entire installation. And said image can be restored via the same Recovery Environment.
Although not yet complete and too early to draw any conclusions, it’s clear that Microsoft is trying to make Windows 8 the most user-friendly version of the OS to date. I know for someone like me, who maintains a full performance lab with a variety of systems, being able to quickly Reset or Refresh an OS installation without having to fumble with bootable external disks or third-party tools would be a huge time saver.
