I'd like some help with my new laptop please

[bobmac]

I have a new shiney laptop arriving tomorrow and I've seen on Youtube (so it must be true) that it's a good idea to take a 'snapshot' of it while it's brand new so in the future I can reset it back to its new state.
Is this true?
Thanks

 

[GreiginFife]

Like many things it depends. What is the make/model?

Most factory built laptops come with a factory restore partition hidden in the hard drive that lets you restore to "new" should the need arise.

Unfortunately that means restoring all the nonsense bloatware that comes with it.

Personally, first thing I do with a laptop is chuck a clean, faster, usually larger drive in and install a clean copy of windows. All documents are stored to a cloud and periodically backed up to an external SSD as an additional measure. If anything goes wrong, I just reinstall a clean copy of windows and start again.

 

[SammmeBee]

Like many things it depends. What is the make/model?

Most factory built laptops come with a factory restore partition hidden in the hard drive that lets you restore to "new" should the need arise.

Unfortunately that means restoring all the nonsense bloatware that comes with it.

Personally, first thing I do with a laptop is chuck a clean, faster, usually larger drive in and install a clean copy of windows. All documents are stored to a cloud and periodically backed up to an external SSD as an additional measure. If anything goes wrong, I just reinstall a clean copy of windows and start again.

How do you do that?

 

[GreiginFife]

How do you do that?

Which part? System restore or swap out the hard drive or back up to cloud and SSD?

 

[SammmeBee]

All of it? What’s clean Windows? It already comes with that.....

 

[GreiginFife]

All of it? What’s clean Windows? It already comes with that.....

No, it doesn't. 99.9% of laptops come with a "manufacturer" installed windows that comes preinstalled with the drivers they decide are best plus a load of other crap (bloatware) that slows the machine down. These installed objects all affect the registry so it's often no good just even uninstalling them as they leave a "Shadow" in the registry.

A clean install of windows is done to a clean drive and is windows components only. It comes with no device drivers (other than the defaults), no "add-ons" or bloatware and has a clean, unadulterated registry. All the user then needs to do is choose the drivers that they want to install. No bloatware, no tracking software, and usually about 2Gb of space freed up.

Swapping the drive is as simple as removing the back cover, taking the old drive out (whether it's SSD or M.2/NVMe) and popping a new drive in it's place and replacing the cover.

 

[bobmac]

Thanks guys, I've just got an email saying it's arriving this morning.
AO and DPD have never let me down

 

[hairball_89]

Yup. I'd agree with every word of @GreiginFife 's posts above.

Clean install of windows, and then off you go.

 

[GreiginFife]

@bobmac if you don't already have one, set up a One Drive or Dropbox. Use that for your files (you can also access them from your mobile too if needed).
That way, in the event of unexpected failure, you don't lose them.

 

[rulefan]

All of it? What’s clean Windows? It already comes with that.....

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh

 

[spongebob59]

@bobmac if you don't already have one, set up a One Drive or Dropbox. Use that for your files (you can also access them from your mobile too if needed).
That way, in the event of unexpected failure, you don't lose them.

Is Dropbox any good ?
We have one drive associated with an email account, but we d like to move away from that.
We did try the free BT cloud storage but uploading was awful. ?

 

[GreiginFife]

Is Dropbox any good ?
We have one drive associated with an email account, but we d like to move away from that.
We did try the free BT cloud storage but uploading was awful. ?

I have a One Drive for personal use linked to my Office 365 account and it's been fine. Does what it's supposed to with minimal sync errors.

I also have a Dropbox that I use for my business, it also does it's job and probably has the same propensity for sync errors. I wouldn't say one is any better than the other, except that the One Drive auto syncs with my O365 docs as it's attached to that account where as I need to specify save location for Dropbox.

 

[jim8flog]

There is little point in having online back for the system if you cannot get online due to a system crash so at least you need a hardware back up of the system in the first place.

Get your self these



A small SSD hard drive(only needs to be the same size as the used space on the existing drive so even 60GB may be enough) (you can buy a case if you want it) a USB to HD cable. Download macrium ( or other software) and carry out a disk copy.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Remember to create a restore point at regular intervals

 

[GreiginFife]

There is little point in having online back for the system if you cannot get online due to a system crash so at least you need a hardware back up of the system in the first place.

Get your self these

View attachment 35207

A small SSD hard drive(only needs to be the same size as the used space on the existing drive so even 60GB may be enough) (you can buy a case if you want it) a USB to HD cable. Download macrium ( or other software) and carry out a disk copy.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Remember to create a restore point at regular intervals

Whole point of an online back up is that it's always there. If you get a system crash then you resolve the crash and access the files once you are back on line. There is lower probability of cloud documents becoming corrupted or lost, even a physical back up has a higher probability of failure.

You don't need a system back up of any kind. You may prefer to have one. An image of the OS is handy but by no means essential with the speed that Windows can now be recovered. Document preservation is key in most use cases. System tools, installed programs etc not so much as these are usually not saved in live and are usually point in time installs which can be recovered quite easily (especially if you back-up your downloads to the cloud too).

 

[bobmac]

Thanks for all the advice.
All irrelevant now as it looks like it's going back.
It has two outputs, USB C (display port) and HDMI, brilliant.
Plug the USB C into my monitor and the HDMI into my tele hoping the laptop sees 3 displays.
Nope.
All it does is display an identical image to each of the 3 screens.
So it's back to the old VGA laptop that will display 2 different images on the monitor and tele.
Bummer

 

[GreiginFife]

Thanks for all the advice.
All irrelevant now as it looks like it's going back.
It has two outputs, USB C (display port) and HDMI, brilliant.
Plug the USB C into my monitor and the HDMI into my tele hoping the laptop sees 3 displays.
Nope.
All it does is display an identical image to each of the 3 screens.
So it's back to the old VGA laptop that will display 2 different images on the monitor and tele.
Bummer

Bob, just checking that you already did, but if you go in to Display Settings, is it set to "Duplicate" rather than "Extend"? And in Display Settings, does it recognise the 3 devices even though it's duplicating?

 

[bobmac]

Bob, just checking that you already did, but if you go in to Display Settings, is it set to "Duplicate" rather than "Extend"? And in Display Settings, does it recognise the 3 devices even though it's duplicating?

I have checked the settings, it's the first thing I did.......brb









What idiot had the settings on duplicate

I don't care what anyone else says about you, I think you're a genius.
Don't know why I missed it.
Ta very much

 

[GreiginFife]

I have checked the settings, it's the first thing I did.......brb









What idiot had the settings on duplicate

I don't care what anyone else says about you, I think you're a genius.
Don't know why I missed it.
Ta very much

No worries. One of the bafflers of Windows 10 is that it defaults multi display to duplicate (negating the purpose of multi displays).

Good you got it sorted don't have to go the RMA route.

 

[jim8flog]

If you get a system crash then you resolve the crash

You don't need a system back up of any kind. You may prefer to have one. An image of the OS is handy but by no means essential with the speed that Windows can now be recovered.

This was the primary point of my post you have a system back with all drivers loaded. Pretty much like your #2 post.

Not all people would be confident of opening up a laptop* to change the hard drive and I was showing there are ways of doing the back up SSD with out the need to open the case up.

*Which could void warranty with some manufacturers.

 

[GreiginFife]

This was the primary point of my post you have a system back with all drivers loaded. Pretty much like your #2 post.

Not all people would be confident of opening up a laptop* to change the hard drive and I was showing there are ways of doing the back up SSD with out the need to open the case up.

*Which could void warranty with some manufacturers.

Totally understand but seeing as it could be some time down the road that the system decides to crash, I'd rather not have an image with outdated drivers and the ball ache that that can lead to. Personally (and most in my profession tend to agree) a clean install when required with up-to-date drivers is the best way. It's up to the individual user though, mine is just professional opinion.

Yeah, it could void warranty which would be problematic if half the warranties were worth the paper they were written on in the first place. In some warranties, technically installing a 3rd party piece of software can count as "modifying the device".

If you read first post, I do advocate sporadic back up to external SSD, but that is at a file level as, as above, I personally wouldn't worry about OS images for all the extra time it takes to clean install and get drivers.

All just opinion though.