Windows 8 To Include Built-in Reset, Refresh

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Windows 8 To Include Built-in Reset, Refresh

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 5, 2012 @05:36AM from the control-z dept.

MrSeb writes "Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, will provide push-button Reset and Refresh in Windows 8. Reset will restore a Windows 8 PC to its stock, fresh-from-the-factory state; Refresh will reinstall Windows 8, but keep your documents and installed Metro apps in tact. For the power users, Windows 8 will include a new tool called recimg.exe, which allows you to create a hard drive image that Refresh will use (you can install all of your Desktop apps, tweak all your settings, run recimg.exe... and then, when you Refresh, you'll be handed a clean, ready-to-go computer). Reset and Refresh are obviously tablety features that Windows 8 will need to compete against iOS and Android — but considering Windows' malware magnetism and the number of times I've had to schlep over to my mother's house with a Windows CD... these features should be very welcome on the desktop, too."

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Next step... by Kenja · 2012-01-05 05:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Next step is to have Windows 8.5 just auto-refresh every few months since Microsoft seems to assume you'll be doing it any how.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
1. Re:Next step... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-05 06:05 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The companies that pre-load all that garbage will make sure that it all gets on the recovery image too. You'll still have to uninstall all that crap once.
2. Re:Next step... by gstoddart · 2012-01-05 06:06 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Next step is to have Windows 8.5 just auto-refresh every few months since Microsoft seems to assume you'll be doing it any how.
  Good, because MS has been making it increasingly difficult to be able to do a reinstall even if you have a licensed copy.
  Between "upgrade" disks which only work if you have a working install, and the trend to get rid of recovery disks ... it's about time Microsoft realized that the only way to maintain a system over a period of time is to rebuild the OS periodically.
  Microsoft recently sued a computer reseller for piracy because they made recovery disks available to users.
  In my experience, the recovery software installed by OEMs is complete shit .. the process for creating it on my wife's HP laptop failed, and then said you were only allowed to do it once, leaving us without one. So, Microsoft hopes when your system crashes you'll go buy a new copy ... but if you've already paid for a copy, you might as well pirate it.
  I know the last few PCs I've bought I've insisted I receive a full boxed install media ... not the OEM, but the retail one, and I pay for it. Because if you don't have this, when your Windows system needs to be rebuilt, you're probably hosed.
  The trend to not give people install media (in order to prevent piracy) has largely left people with systems they can't repair, and an incentive to pirate what they've already bought.
  If a crashed/hosed computer means you lose your data and you'll have to spend as much money as a new computer costs ... something has gone seriously wrong.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
3. Re:Next step... by rsborg · 2012-01-05 06:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I think your problem might be a case of simple PEBKAC.
  It's attitudes like yours that explain why Android and iOS are the future for many computer users. Blaming the user for an easily exploitable system will drive them fully into the arms of walled gardens and locked bootloaders. Perhaps that's where they want to be - and maybe that's good for the sanity of geeks like you and me. However, I think in the long run, defaulting users to locked systems is a bad thing for software freedom and the availability of general purpose computing devices.
  
  --
  Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
4. Re:Next step... by Ossifer · 2012-01-05 06:18 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  First thing I do when I get a new Windows PC is to wipe the drive. Never had any of these problems after that...
5. Re:Next step... by Haedrian · 2012-01-05 06:53 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I have a Vista install since 2007 still running as fast as when I installed it
  Could hardly get any slower can it..
6. Re:Next step... by sexconker · 2012-01-05 06:53 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The original Windows 7 upgrade iso/disc was horrible. License wise, you were 100% allowed to upgrade from XP. However, since there wasn't a software upgrade path, you needed to wipe the drive first. Windows 7 would then fail to active on your upgrade only license because "you didn't upgrade." The only way to fix it was to boot into recovery mode or from an alternate medium, and edit a registry entry from "this was a fresh install" to "this was an upgrade". And that even on Microsoft KB as the approved method of fixing the issue!
  Luckily, they realized how terrible this was and started trusting the user that they own a previous version of Windows that they are upgrading.
  It was very annoying jumping through those hoops. I'm glad my wife's PC is the only MS box in the house.
  This is false.
  The first retail Windows 7 Upgrade disc had an installer that checked for a valid license (XP, Vista, 7) and let you proceed.
  With XP, the only option was to completely wipe the disk and do a cleam ("custom") installation.
  If you wiped the disc yourself prior, the Windows 7 installer obviously wouldn't let you continue.
  If you had a blacklisted XP key, the Windows 7 installer obviously wouldn't let you continue. Such keys include fake keys, pirated keys, as well as keys that are single-installation only, such as keys released through the MSDN-AA program (cheap/free XP through your university).
  If you let Windows 7 wipe the drive and install, it worked fine. If you fucked up in the middle and restarted (e.g. you didn't have your RAID drivers on hand, you had to go back into BIOS to set AHCI, you're retarded), you had to jump through hoops. The most common hoop, of course, was to install without the key and then either:
  1) Reinstall on top of that with the key.
  2) Do some registry / command line voodoo to reset the activation and input your key.
7. Re:Next step... by Missing.Matter · 2012-01-05 06:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You did it wrong; you're not supposed to wipe your drive before the installation. You're supposed to start the installation in Windows, then follow along the install and choose a custom install. Never had a problem activating this way.
8. Re:Next step... by SpryGuy · 2012-01-05 06:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  OEMs can set up the 'reset' to include their crapware. And most likely will.
  However, users like yourself can uninstall all that crapware once, then take a new snaphot just the way you like it, with just the tweaks and apps you like, and THAT will become the new 'fresh' install image. So at least it's just pain once, and not every single time.
  And after SPs and tons of updates, you can re-snapshot so you don't have to re-apply all those as well.
  
  --
  
  - Spryguy
  There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
9. Re:Next step... by gstoddart · 2012-01-05 07:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You can reinstall on the same hardware as many times as you like. You can change everything but the motherboard freely.
  If they don't give you the disc, and the recovery feature in the OEM crap doesn't work ... none of what you say is true. And I've seen far too many computers which came with absolutely no media for the OS.
  Besides, the amount of shit that is usually in an OEM install often makes it almost unusable. On my mother-in-law's Toshiba laptop I had to strip out all of their crap to make the machine usable. It was full of wizards, and other tools designed to hand hold you so much that the computer had no CPU and memory left to actually do anything ... the retail copy has none of that shit.
  
  In short, the retail versions are for suckers with too much money to burn, they're priced so that no rational person would buy them.
  *shrug* That's your opinion and experience. I bought a single machine, which I intended to run Vista on. If the machine became corrupted, I intended to install Vista back onto it. I did the same with my previous XP box, and I'll do the same with my next box for whatever version of Windows is de-rigeur by then.
  For me, paying the retail price for the OS means I don't have to go through some of the bullshit I have had to go through by not having the install media, which has left me stranded without being able to reinstall unless I was going to get a pirated copy.
  As I said, my wife's shitty HP laptop came with no install media for Win 7, and the process of creating the restore disk failed and couldn't be retried. So, if anything goes wrong, it's cheaper to buy a new laptop than to try to fix it. Or, just say fuck it and pirate Windows.
  From what I've experienced, only the full retail copy lets me do a reinstall from scratch -- anything else leaves you with a half assed solution that takes far more of my time than I'm willing to invest.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
10. Re:Next step... by microbee · 2012-01-05 08:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So your point is...
  Yes I want freedom and install whatever I want. No I don't want those malware! No I don't really understand what it is when I click 'install now'. But yes I really want to install whatever I want, freedom remember? No, I don't want to get a virus or something like that. When I say install, I mean install! No, I don't want to be locked in a walled garden. No I am not an idiot, you idiot!
11. Re:Next step... by KingMotley · 2012-01-05 08:54 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Please, you aren't required to read the article, but please, read the summary before posting.
12. Re:Next step... by shiftless · 2012-01-05 10:20 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, that's basically it.
  And the person who learns to satisfy this user will make billions.
  Good luck!
13. Re:Next step... by EdIII · 2012-01-05 16:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This refresh supposedly preserves not just documents, but installed metro apps.
  The purpose of re-installing the OS (after wiping the drive) is usually to get rid of malware, not as a solution to performance problems.
  Crapware is the least of my worries. How is Microsoft going to convince me that the refresh itself cannot be compromised? More specifically, how long will it take before somebody demonstrates an exploit that preserves the malware (rootkit) regardless of how many times the user clicks the "button"?
  The only way to ever be sure is to "nuke it from orbit". Rootkits that can survive in equipment firmware are pretty damn rare, so I am fairly confident that wiping the drive completely is a sure way to get a clean install.
  Data is just data. The most worrisome to me is of course PDF, but generally, data and documents can be cleaned pretty well. Programs always have to be re-installed.
  I question the entire methodology of this "refresh" idea and whether or not it can even accomplish its purpose.
14. Re:Next step... by JigJag · 2012-01-06 01:47 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The technique I use when I work on clients' machines is to wipe the hard drive and set up about a 10 GB partition where I will put linux on it later on. I then reinstall Windows from the disk they have (or that I have) using the license sticker on the computer to register. I remove all the crap I can find, install decent browsers, firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, also the software they need for their work and I make sure all the drivers are up-to-date and that the machine is screaming fast. When done, I install an almost bare-bones Linux on the small partition. I set up the bootloader to boot into Windows by default after only 1 second. Then I make a copy of the MBR and I dump an image of the Windows partition using the NTFS-3G's ntfsclone utility. I then create a shell script that would restore that image and the MBR and make sure it's easy for the client to run.
  Next time they call me to say their machine is completely toast (not frequent, but it happens), I remind them of that option to do a full restore to a working and clean system. They have been trained to put their important data on external drives so the only thing they will lose is the crap they added after I was done.
  There, in less than 10 minutes, without having to drive there, they have a fully working system, and fast too.
  JigJag
  
  --
  "The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Interesting, but.... by KazW · 2012-01-05 05:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

How long until viruses inject themselves into this recovery image and get "refreshed" onto the new install?

--
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
1. Re:Interesting, but.... by ByOhTek · 2012-01-05 06:03 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Finally, a valid complaint on this topic, instead of an "It is made by MS, so I'm gonna bitch!"
  My first thought reading the article was "If I were writing malware, my first goal would to be infect those files!"
  Actually, I've had the same issue with install partitions that many vendors use on their computers - what will keep malware vendors from mucking those up, and screwing up future installs?
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Until the malware get smart by NiteMair · 2012-01-05 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

Once malware developers get their hands on this, they'll be sure to find a way to infect the process such that their stuff gets "reset" and "refreshed" along with everything else.
I doubt it will be that useful to evade the really nasty malware, but at least it will provide an easy way for someone to "go back to step 1" with their computer after they ruined it all by themselves... or even someone who wishes to give it to a friend/family member/goodwill for recycling.
I suspect one of the main reason people throw away computers after they buy a new one, rather than recycle it, is because they're afraid someone else will see all their porn and/or "sensitive documents" that might still be hidden on the machine.
this kinda says something.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-05 05:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

...about the innate instability of an OS, that they need buttons to reset everything back to bare metal
1. Re:this kinda says something.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-05 05:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ...about the innate instability of an OS, that they need buttons to reset everything back to bare metal
  Or perhaps it says something about incompetence of its users, being unable to fix problems they have caused? Many I've seen posts by users about "reinstalled (Linux distro) n-times and it's still not working!". Kind of reminds me of users that "reinstall windows applications" despite windows not having a problem with DLL hell for over a decade (SxS versioning) or even inability to write crap all over the OS directories for about half a decade.
  PS. Wasn't it apple that came up with their "timemachine" OS snapshots first? You may also want to read the last line of the summary.
Re:Just an excuse by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-05 05:42 · Score: 5, Funny

I have an idea. It's a little complicated, so stay with me now: if you use GRUB, don't hit the fucking button.
I've already got that... by Livius · 2012-01-05 05:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

...with one line of bash script. On my XP machine, there are three partitions: for Windows, software, and documents (Think /bin, /usr, /home) The Linux side has a zip archive of the windows partition. When I want to restore WIndows, I boot into Linux and run unzip and just overwrite the whole partition.
1. Re:I've already got that... by The+MAZZTer · 2012-01-05 06:15 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  That will not work with Vista/7 due to the usage of NTFS junctions and such. So beware if you want to do this with a newer Windows. Fortunately those OSs introduced the .WIM file format which is mid-way between an archive format like ZIP and a disk image format like VHD or VMDK etc. AFAIK .WIM is a special archive format that allows for keeping track of all NTFS metadata but it's not in a rigid layout like a disk image. You can get tools to make a WIM image easy enough, "imagex" is downloadable from MS. And I believe what you can do with the image is burn a Windows Install DVD that will work like a normal Windows installer but will restore the image you made (which is essentially what the stock installer does anyway starting with Vista).
Re:Good luck! by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2012-01-05 05:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, you can say that about any backup. With all due respect, your post is a bit of a karma whore...

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
"keep your installed Metro apps in tact" by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2012-01-05 05:51 · Score: 5, Funny

Sounds useful, as I currently keep them in old mayonnaise jars.
Re:Just an excuse by 0123456 · 2012-01-05 06:07 · Score: 4, Informative

Everything that would be in "Home/" for a normal *nix install is in "Documents and Settings" or "Users" folder, depending on Windows version.
Except all the crap in the registry and in 'Program Files' and in... well, every other weird place Windows apps stuff their data.
Oh good by Palshife · 2012-01-05 06:20 · Score: 4, Funny

'Cause I hate it when my Metro apps get out of tact.

--
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!