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Thanks Paul,

I made a system image with Macrium. And here’s the PNG file you requested. .

I also made recovery media with Macrium. One on a DVD-RW and one on USB key. Since I don’t have a recovery partition, I chose the option shown in the attached Capture2 file.

So any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

 

 

I also once got caught mistakenly thinking I could use an older Macrium Reflect Rescue USB to boot a new Windows 11 PC to create a system image before beginning initial setup. The goal had been to have a system image as it came from the manufacturer. The older Macrium Reflect Rescue USB appeared to be missing one or more drivers for the newer hardware.

That got me thinking that perhaps there may be an exposure should a Rescue USB unexpectedly become unusable for whatever reason and a spare might be useful. I began wondering whether having a duplicate of each Rescue USB would be desirable to deal with Murphy’s Law.

In my case – setting up a new PC – I proceeded without the initial system image and installed Macrium Reflect first thing after completing setup and made the Rescue USB and then system image.

Is making duplicate Rescue USBs overly paranoid?

Tex,

It’s a little difficult to take screen shots when Windows isn’t installed yet!
Now if I had a video capture device installed I could get them, unfortunately I don’t.

You can, at your own risk, eliminate the system images from the instructions easily enough.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

Cijan wrote:

Q: if you are relying on the Windows 7 Backup/Restore and have File History for data and Windows System Images, does it require having KB5050411?

No, the backup app creates a recovery environment and bootable USB for you.

 

L95 wrote:

Why would I be better off using a third-party image backup rather than relying on  KB5050411?

The Windows recovery is not and backup, it’s a simplified interface you use when troubleshooting.

I use Macrium Reflect (rather technical) and Aomei Backupper (simple) to create image files on an external USB disk. Both have free versions.
I think you will master Aomei in about 15 minutes, but MR can take hours because it has so many options. And we are always here to help.  🙂

cheers, Paul

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L95, Cijan

I’ve avoided the KB5050411 so far.  (Using MS Catalog rather than Windows Update automatic download, plus the pause settings)

Q: if you are relying on the Windows 7 Backup/Restore and have File History for data and Windows System Images, does it require having KB5050411? (Ya, I know 3rd party backups are better – no need for a reminder ;0!)

I was just going to do the usual manual download and install for only the .NET CU and Windows CUs for this month.

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L95

rick41 wrote:

thought connecting a system image as a virtual drive

If by this you mean simply mounting (double click) your image file on a external drive, that would by my choice. It will then just show as another drive in “This PC”.

Anything you want to copy will be easy to find. Since you have a lot of files, I’d suggest using the free “FreeFileSync” app. I use for everything even high counts over 150,000 files.

Yes, it will take some time but it’s simple process. Just turn it loose and do something else.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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rick41

johnf wrote:

Why not just zip the documents into one file, and copy that to the new PC? You’d have a much smaller file that would be quicker and faster to copy. Documents (unless they are PDFs or graphic intensive) usually shrink down to an amazingly small file. You should always check your zip though afterwards (just check zip documentation for how to confirm a good zip).

I considered zip.  But I do have a lot of pdfs and media files (pics and video), and the system image is already available.  And, in line with what Paul T mentioned, I sometimes find I have a need for app data that is not stored in the Documents folders.

[rick41]

I was Googling like crazy, and all the results lead me to people who want to try using a system image to restore their system to a new pc.

That’s not what I am proposing.  Instead, I want to copy my files — primarily documents and media (which I keep on the C partition) — to a new pc, and thought connecting a system image as a virtual drive, and then copying from that to the user file areas on my new pc, might be an efficient way to do the documents migration.

For one thing, with this method I would have to copy only one large file (the system image) from the usb drive to the new pc’s SSD.  That alone, I’m thinking, would be quicker than copying many thousands of smaller files from the USB drive to the new pc.

Any thoughts on whether this approach makes any sense?

I use R-Drive Image, which has similar capabilities to Macrium Reflect.  Also, as an FYI, regardless of my transfer method I’ll use Beyond Compare for copying because it has an option to preserve creation dates for files (not folders, but that’s of less importance to me).

• This topic was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by rick41.

This pair of sentences in Max’s article caught my eye:

You can make one — and only one — backup copy of the software. That’s good news for those of us who know that we should regularly back up our system but don’t (because if you kept more than one backup, you’d be in violation of the license agreement).

After reading this, I got curious as to how it compares to the Windows license. In Section 2, “Installation and Use Rights,” here’s what it says:

e. Backup copy. You may make a single copy of the software for backup purposes, and may also use that backup copy to transfer the software if it was acquired as stand-alone software, as described in Section 4 below.

So it would seem that anybody who maintains a backup strategy involving more than one system image of Windows is clearly in violation of the license terms. I wonder how many here at Woody’s thus qualify as habitual transgressors.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

Microfix wrote:

The importance of having recent system images take effect….

..and using InControl / TRV

BEWARE OUT THERE..
Windows 11 24H2 is Now in ‘Broad Deployment’ as of 21st January 2025!
That’s for eligible devices running either Windows 10 or 11..

Ref:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/status-windows-11-24h2

The importance of having recent system images take effect….

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

Cybertooth wrote:

I never noticed that the 25.46GB partition was in RAW state,
[…]
Just finished going through all the system images I have for this PC, dating back to 2023, and they all have it. I’m not sure what to make of that partition.

My guess is it’s a HP OEM partition, perhaps for a factory recovery image.

Many OEMs — notably, HP and Dell — intentionally munge the MBR partition table “type” indicator so Windows won’t know what it is and won’t give the partition a drive letter. That’s deliberately done to help prevent hapless users, Windows utilities, and even malware from tinkering with the partition and breaking it. When you invoke the magic keys to launch the factory recovery routine, the MBR partition table is temporarily rewritten so the partition becomes accessible, the recovery program can give it a drive letter, and the recovery image can be read.

Accordingly, the “RAW” designation is a red herring and merely means Windows doesn’t know what to make of it, so Windows assumes it doesn’t have anything on it even though it really does.

Be that as it may, recovery partitions can be quite finicky and don’t always work when they’re moved/copied/restored, so even though Macrium faithfully copies it, it may not actually work. You might want to test-launch the factory restore routine after moving the partitions, just to confirm whether or not it looks like it might still work.

OTOH, even if it does still work, what are the chances you’d ever revert all the way back to a decade-old factory image, given that you have a better, more recent, Macrium image instead? If that seems unlikely, you may choose to just dump the 3rd partition and re-purpose the disk space.

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Cybertooth, PL1, satrow, EricB

Many thanks to @PL1, @Drcard:)), @EricB, and @dg1261 for the informative replies and all the suggestions!

I can’t believe that I never noticed that the 25.46GB partition was in RAW state, as @EricB pointed out. Maybe I figured it was some kind of system-related thing and didn’t give it any more thought. Just finished going through all the system images I have for this PC, dating back to 2023, and they all have it. I’m not sure what to make of that partition. I mounted each of these images via Macrium Reflect in order to explore them, and they report that the partition has some 6GB in use out of the 25, although in no case does it have a drive letter associated with it and giving it a letter would format it and lose whatever might be in there.

Unless we can think of a plausible reason for that partition’s presence, I’ll either nuke it and enlarge the C: drive, or use Partition Wizard as @dg1261 suggests to shift the D: recovery drive to the right and then decide what do with with the mystery partition. I do have some experience with Partition Wizard, mainly from creating Windows/Linux dual-boot systems, so that process should go OK.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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PL1

MoonView wrote:

I recently (1/7/25) used AOMEI Backupper Pro to create a system backup

You could restore this system image.

MoonView wrote:

I’m hoping I do not need to reinstall Windows as I suspect this will also require reinstalling all of my programs.

You can avoid this with an over the top Windows 10 repair install from an ISO keeping your files and installed software. 

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/6000015-repair-install-of-windows-10-22h2/

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

My main PC is of the Desktop variety with a fair amount of internal real estate.  I have an M.2 drive for Windows (C) and installed software.  I have an internal SSD SATA drive (E) that holds all my current data.  The data drive (D) is backed up to two spinning platter drives (F & J).  The SSD drive (E) gets culled from time to time to save space.  The two spinning platter drives (F & J) contain every electronic file I have ever created.  Lastly, I have a pair of USB external drives.

Before leaving my computer, I run a robocopy script that copies any new or changed files on the E drive to both the F & J drives.  This takes about a minute. About once a week, I run a script that copies those new or altered (F) items to a USB external drive.   After a Windows update proves reliable, or upon adding a significant piece of software, I make a full Macrium image and store it on the G drive (a second partition on the first spinning platter drive (F & G).  A new system image is backed up to the external USB drive using the same script as for the F drive.  About once a month, I take the external drive to my safe deposit box and swap it with the one that’s there.

My house could burn down, and worst case, I’d be without a month’s worth of data.  Works for me, but then again, I have room in my case for all those drives.

Casey H.