Bought my first Win 10 laptop.
Installed Open Shell, Firefox, and Anti-virus.
I want to set a restore point before making other changes.
Open Shell offers me backup 7. I’m trying to configure it but it says no drives are recognized. It wants me to use an External drive or Network drive.
I have a 1TB drive on this laptop. That’s where I need to backup and make a restore point.
Please Help this old Win 7 user.
I vaguely recall there’s a way to reference the local HD as a network resource?
“\\local”
Or something like that. I created a Winbackup folder that I planned to use.
I don’t understand why backup isn’t listing my HD as a resource? That’s weird
Well, looks like this limitation is a feature. Back up your Windows PC - Microsoft Support
Stupid crap won’t allow a local backup? I may have to buy 3rd party backup software.
What are you doing for backups?
By local backup, do you mean a backup to the same SSD or HDD that the operating system is on? If so, why?
The easiest way is to buy an inexpensive external hard drive. A huge one (not physically huge, but with a 1TB or greater capacity) will cost you quit a bit less than a hundred bucks. You can get them anywhere, Staples, Best Buy, Amazon.
There’s a good chance it will come with free backup software (actually a piece of paper with a URL from which you can download that software).
The first backup will be a total backup of everything on your computer, including the OS. Subsequent backups (you can set the interval) will be incremental backups – i.e., only files that have been changed or added since the last backup.
That’s not exactly the same as the Windows restore point, but it’s a really sensible thing to do anyway.
I just need a restore Point in case a software install goes bad. Restore the system files to a known good point.
I’m not trying to backup the whole drive yet. It’s new laptop. There’s no personal data on it.
Restore points were always saved locally in the Win Systems folder.
Since the most likely failure is the hard drive refusing to play
Windows 10 is doing you a favour by making you back up important data to a separate drive.
A spare drive inboard, or external will be far cheaper than paying someone to extract your vital files from a crashed drive.
I’m pretty sure restore points are on a different page but I am not at the computer right now.
D’oh. Your right Dewey.
I forgot restore points are separate from win backup.
My Full backups will go to a external drive.
You’ve come to the right place. I’m in the process of setting up Windows 10. I procrastinated a long time because Windows 10 is just about what I expected of it. Maybe worse. I’ve heard people say it’s very stable. We’ll see. My initial thoughts are that it’s designed solely to funnel everyone to using Microsoft products and to control every aspect of your computing. There are countless apps that want you to open an account & log in to Microsoft. They may as well just send someone round to your home to strap a tracking bracelet around your ankle.
I’ve already gotten rid of much of the crap. Or at least got it out of sight, out of mind. Some crap you cannot uninstall. Others must be done through a command prompt (now called Power Shell).
Reallocating file associations is a spectacular pain in the ass. Microsoft points you to their own crap every step of the way and then comes within a hair of admonishing you when you dare go against their chosen software to select something that is by far superior.
Windows 7 was the best.
Thank you for your indulgence.
Find System Restore. Thought I’d forgotten about that didn’t you?
Click the start menu and type System Restore. Or depending which Start menu you’re using, type it into the search box.
The closest you’re likely to come up with is ‘Create A Restore Point’. This will lead you to System Restore.
Alternatively; Open Control Panel > System and Security > System. On the right side you will see a link to Advanced System Settings. Click that to reach System Properties. Click the System Protection Tab.
They don’t make it easy - because they’re assholes.
You can accomplish this quicker with a right click on the This Computer icon on your desktop. Select Properties and Advanced System Settings.
Keith did you install Open Shell? It used to be called Classic Shell. It puts back the Win7 start menu. The start menu search bar found Create a restore point for me.
I’ve created a restore point.
My Next step is…
If you’re going to go about tweaking the look of Windows 10, I recommend installing WinAero Tweaker. It includes a lot of options to reenable legacy stuff.
That said, do note that there is a new UI refresh coming soon, expected in version 21H2, which comes out in Fall 2021. The refreshed Start Menu seems like it may look and act more like the Windows 7 one.
That said, there’s the whole Windows 11 thing that Microsoft has been hinting at which may throw a wrench into everything near the end of June.
Thanks BigT.
IIRC updates are pushed onto us now? We will get Win11. No way of opting out?
I installed it yesterday. Then I lost the icons (favicons) that were on my URL shortcuts. One to Yahoo mail, another to my business web mail. Took an hour to figure out. So I uninstalled Shell, although I doubt it’s related. I may reinstall but that’s not a priority. I need to get my work software set up. That takes a long time because there’s so much fine tuning to suit over a string of applications. But I seem to get tied up with all this other stupid Windows shit that I want to sort out/get rid of.
As BigT brought up; loads of tweakers out there. I’ve yet to find one that will make everything how I like it in 30 seconds or less.
I have a couple friends who told me how much they hate Windows 10. However they’re computer illiterate so I paid little attention. They’ve actually bought into all these Microsoft apps that are there to pull people into their clutches. I expect lots of people have been sucked in simply because they don’t feel comfortable digging around the bowels of a computer.
And yes, the thought of further changes and Windows 11 forced upon us is frightening as hell. I don’t believe there’s a way to deselect Windows Update. Or even pass on certain updates. But I haven’t had a chance to really look into that yet.
Sure puts a person in a foul mood!
My understanding is that there’s not going to be a Windows 11 but instead that additional updates will be made to Windows 10 over time.
And I haven’t had the problem you described, that it’s “designed solely to funnel everyone to using Microsoft products and to control every aspect of your computing.” I use Chrome almost exclusively along with Media Player Classic. I do have Microsoft Office 2013 installed but don’t use it often.
I use a product called Macrium Reflect.