Windows 8 Windows 8 needs an additional recovery option!!!

MikeHawthorne

Essential Member
Microsoft Community Contributor
Joined
May 25, 2009
Location
Ada Michigan
Hi

I've been thinking about the Windows 8 recovery option, mostly because I can't start the Windows Firewall.

And Windows Recovery won't do what I want it to do.

I want to do essentially what you could do in Windows 7, replace the operating system while retaining your installed software and files.

You can't do that in Windows 8, it you use Refresh it deletes all you installed software!
Who wants to do that?

I see the argument that the software may be the cause of the problem, but I've never found that to be true.

It's usually some component of Windows that's the problem.

What's to lose by doing this, if it doesn't solve the problem, like my firewall, you still have your computer intact, and it is doesn't work you still have the other options to try right up to a total re-install.

I'd be really mad if I ran refresh, lost all my installed software, (took over a week to set up) and then found that the damn firewall still didn't work.

At least give us the option to try and repair Windows while keeping our installed software intact.

Now I have almost all of my software installed on drives other then the C:\ drive, so I assume that they will still be there and many will probably still work but I don't know which ones or how much of a hassle is would be to do a refresh and I don't want to find out, so I just have to live with the firewall not working.

Which precludes me from installing any of the software that Windows won't delete when I refresh, since it won't install any apps without the Windows firewall working.

Mike
 
Hey Mike.
Not much help in your particular situation (after the fact) but Windows 8 does provide a means and method of customizing the image (.wim) that is used during the refresh process, which you may find helpful in the future as I suspect that sooner or later you are going to have to bite the bullet and fix your issue with the only option left, a custom clean install.
How To Geek has done a reasonably good article regarding this process which you can find here How to Create a Custom Refresh Image in Windows 8 - How-To Geek
I use Acronis True Image Home 2013 to do something similar. I keep a worse case scenario image of a fully updated clean install with what i call my essential apps installed (Office Suite, Malwarebytes, assorted utilities, etc.,) as my fall back position. It helps avoid starting over completely from scratch. And since all my data, programs and profile points are on my D:\ drive rather than my C:\ drive, it's about a 6 minute process to get the image from my USB 3.0 external onto my internal SSD booting from the Aronis boot media, since it's basically just the OS with the proper registry entries showing where everything is actually located.
Regards
Randy
 
Hi Randy

Yeah, I have a complete backup of my C:\ drive but it was made after the Firewall quite working so there's no point in restoring to it.
I'm not sure when the firewall quit working but it was while I was installing all my software.

Eventually I'll have to fix it I guess, but my point that they need a way to restore the OS without removing all your software still stands.

I'm sure that many people are going to have Windows errors over the years and not want to have to install all their software to fix it.

I think this is another way of Microsoft trying to force people to use the Metro interface, those applications don't get wiped when you do a Refresh and the desktop ones don't need to either.

Right now I'd like to just refresh the firewall setting but there's no way to do that.
I see that other people have similar issues so maybe it will be address eventually.

Mike
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Depending on your current level of desperation, have you considered resorting to something like this |MG| Tweaking.com - Windows Repair 1.9.4 Download

Says it works on Windows 8 and has an advanced mode to address specific issues like your firewall problem.
I'm not endorsing the program as I haven't tried it myself but the review looks good, it's free, and with a current restore point and image of your C:\ drive, it might be worth a look.
Regards
Randy
 
Hi

I'll look at it at least.
The firewall thing is not that big a problem as long as I don't need to use anything that is Metro based.
And I'm not, but it's just frustrating because it seems to be one of those it would work if Windows would let me start it things.
but I don't have any idea why it says "Access Denied" every time I try and start it.

Mike
 
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