Cumulative updates June 2021

It took me a year/so too to make my first system image backup. Some do say Windows Backup & Restore is unreliable. But it always makes images of my 40 GB/so used space in about 15 minutes, & that one time I needed to restore one was just as quick. Also, it fills the Previous Versions tab of a file/folders' Properties so that the image not even need be mounted to recover a stray file. But I'm sure your 3rd-party app can also retrieve individual files & is quicker & makes more compact images. Wow, I don't understand it took hours for you (& then a crash) unless you had it also image your separate data drive & that one is enormous. It does sound as if you are better off with AOMEI. I must admit, at every new Windows version (not OS Build) I also make a second image using Seagate's free DiscWizard. I've heard good things about Apple's Time Machine before. Very nice.

Hi PCR,

I've been using Windows Image Backup for years and it still works fine, I use it every week after an update with a new insider build and I can restore a working system very easily if there is any issue.

My system  in every machine is on SSD which is used only for the Windows system and the installed programs, all my data is on a separate internal HDD, which I can also use to save Windows Image Backup if I don't want to connect an external drive.

MS screwed up the recent default layout of the disks for Legacy Bios when they decided to assign only 50MB to the System Reserved Partition on a clean windows install, that prevents the backup from working because it needs 50MB of free space to do the shadow image.

That problem can be easily eliminated by preformatting the partitions correctly to avoid that specific bug.

With the UEFI layout everything still works correctly with the default partitions created by a clean install.

I also use Macrium if I want to clone the system disk, but usually I'm quite happy with the MS Image Backup.

I just hope they don't drop it or deprecate it as they often keep saying.

It took me a year/so too to make my first system image backup. Some do say Windows Backup & Restore is unreliable. But it always makes images of my 40 GB/so used space in about 15 minutes, & that one time I needed to restore one was just as quick. Also, it fills the Previous Versions tab of a file/folders' Properties so that the image not even need be mounted to recover a stray file. But I'm sure your 3rd-party app can also retrieve individual files & is quicker & makes more compact images. Wow, I don't understand it took hours for you (& then a crash) unless you had it also image your separate data drive & that one is enormous. It does sound as if you are better off with AOMEI. I must admit, at every new Windows version (not OS Build) I also make a second image using Seagate's free DiscWizard. I've heard good things about Apple's Time Machine before. Very nice.

Hi PCR Just PCR

I had been worried about not having a back-up since I got this new machine just over two years ago. I can't afford a Mac now and anyway I don't like the way the new stuff from Apple is built, so Windows it was.  Last year I tried to use the windows backup but it failed, a tech friend told me not to even try but to use Paragon, which is what I did. I saved it to an old portable HD and made a boot disk, put them in a box labelled "Do not lose" and put it on a shelf upstairs, where it sat 'till all this happened.

So this time I tried again to use the Windows utility, saving to internal data drive . It took hours to run and then failed, telling me the NTFS formatted drive was incorrectly formatted, so I looked for Paragon again - the new install having deleted it of course. Paragon now seems to be called AOMEI so I've used that saving to a new portable hard drive and it seems to have worked. That said, the thing has just installed loads more updates for some reason.

So anyway now I have a new backup and my old one on two different portable drives, in the box and safely stored. I'm forced to conclude that Doug, my tech mate, is right about the widows back-up, it's ****.

I keep data on a separate drive from the system disc, actually two mirrored drives and archive data is also on a networked cloud drive thing with mirrored drives. So my data was safe through all the mayhem.

I would add that I still have my old 2008 Mac pro, a lovely old machine that is sadly getting a bit long in the tooth now that I still use for video capture of VHS tapes. But last year the system drive failed. I replaced it on the off chance I could resurrect it and POW!- it just did it from the Time machine back-up I'd been running for the past 12 years without paying any attention to. Just a suggestion to Micro$oft, why not come up with something useful like Time machine, rather than stupid weather things on the taskbar?

Just to add I'm not an IT tech, but I did work in a college as a Media tech, looking after edit suits, TV studio, radio studio and music studio so I'm not totally ignorant. I know a hell of a lot of people with Windows machines who just use them with no idea of what goes on inside. They should never be put through this sort of thing without being given an easy way out.

You've been through an ordeal. You did well to have made that image last November. I hope you will renew it now. Was it "START, Settings, Update & Security, Backup, Go to backup & Restore (Win 7), Create a system image" that you used? I make one after each new OS Build comes in & works well, & I keep the last three...

I rename the computername folder (which is inside the WindowsImageBackup folder) by appending the OS Build to it right after making the image. Then I delete the oldest one. That way they are separate & distinct, & all three will be offered when it is time to do a restore.

Yours at least gave you several tries to install that update. But that was really bad that when the update automatically uninstalled, it took out your sound & webcam. Normally when one is uninstalled its damage is undone. I can't blame you for discontent & anger.

Do you know you can mount that November image & retrieve individual files off it?

Well, after spending a total of three hours Tuesday evening 8 hours yesterday (Wed 23rd June) "chatting" to micrsoft's support agents my machine is now up and running, fully updated. It took a total of six attempts, eight support agents and two rebuilds from my old image tp get here. It eventually came down to giving up trying to make it work and doing re-install of windows. Of course that meant wiping all my apps, but that's no big deal, I had them all to re-install, it just took a but of time...

There was something in my old OS the update just didn't like, but it's gone now and everything seems to be OK - except PDF's seem to lock up when viewed in Chrome and Brave, but its only happened twice today with the same document so time will tell.

The weather thing seems to work though, which is nice but pointless.

But seriously, what a mess. I bet there's loads of machines out there now which are totally useless and some pretty pissed off people with them. The support service sort of works if you're determined enough (and full credit to the last guy who really gave his all to sorting it out). Type help in the search bar and click "get help" and enter the chat room. You do have to get past the robot first though, the key to that is just answer "no" to its questions.

So to everyone suffering this infernal update, just re-install the windows and reload all your software. What could be simpler?

<sigh>

Thanks Micro$oft. Linux is looking very tempting.

One suggestion though - it might be an idea to put something very clearly on these forums to make it clear this isn't a microsoft site with actual microsoft employees to shout at.