News - Microsoft's Windows 8 brings the ability to 'Refresh' or 'Reset'

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Single-button re-installation of the OS, with or without data loss.

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Read more.

Windows has needed this function for a long time.

Yeah, all kinds of weird things seem to happen to Windows over time... my current install has a problem where the Desktop Window Manager that provides Aero, etc, crashes regularly, either causing all my monitors to flicker, or throwing me into the basic non-Aero desktop. Haven't found the cause yet, and expect only a full reinstall will fix it, which is a massive ballache.

To the Non Technical this is going to be a massive help, though wouldnt be surprised if forums are filled with 'Refresh lost my data' or 'Reset didnt work properly'

I suspect this is just a rebranded 'System Restore/System Repair' with an easier interface.

It seems that if you can't figure out what setting is causing the problem, then you're in trouble. Chucking all of your settings away and going back to square one seems a bit extreme.

That said, from a business perspective, it's good for IT support to ensure that troubleshooting can be done from a guaranteed state.

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Many power users believe that over time Windows performance degrades or that the kernel can corrupt

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Whilst I believe that performance does degrade over time, I disagree that it is due to kernel corruption. Is this even possible on modern Windows? What I infer from this was that a badly written or malicious driver could cause problems (if one has switched off the safeguards of driver signing, etc) however this is still not a kernel corruption in my mind.

Performance only degrades over time when people are constantly installing ( and rarely uninstalling) endless crap IMO

That IS the normal usage pattern of a PC though.

I admin plenty of XP PCs that just get reimaged from last backup when the drive fails - and no slowdowns - they don't ever have any new software installed though.

From personal experience I believe performance degradation to be unpredictable. Even if I remove the swap file from the equation and install minimal programs, perhaps performing an installation/un-installation once a month tops, I can find Windows grinding to a halt in less than a year despite little fragmentation and a clean registry. Other times Windows can be running for years and years with no issue.

One thing I can say is corruption of core files does still occur, perhaps not the kernel itself as such but core windows libraries not part of a 3rd party driver etc. I've also observed uncorrectable filesystem errors from time to time or services that misbehave.

For me this is a good thing as irrespective of the cause or usage scenario, a < 10min refresh will be quicker than tracking down and correcting most issues.

IMO, Windows will continue to have the slow-down issue until they take the OS X approach of app management/installation.

They really need to fix the underlying issue, not create a nasty ham-fisted band-aid button.

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Originally Posted by themw

Whilst I believe that performance does degrade over time, I disagree that it is due to kernel corruption. Is this even possible on modern Windows? What I infer from this was that a badly written or malicious driver could cause problems (if one has switched off the safeguards of driver signing, etc) however this is still not a kernel corruption in my mind.

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Indeed. Windows won't boot with a corrupt Kernel. I'd agree on the driver front with you there.

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Originally Posted by mikerr

Performance only degrades over time when people are constantly installing ( and rarely uninstalling) endless crap IMO

That IS the normal usage pattern of a PC though.

I admin plenty of XP PCs that just get reimaged from last backup when the drive fails - and no slowdowns - they don't ever have any new software installed though.

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Oh yes. But it works both ways in my experience, the applications can be as bad as the users.

The number of applications that feel the need to litter the startup process is shocking. I'm tired of seeing endless apps feel the need to check when a system boots if there is a new version available.

The same goes for services. There are still too many applications that run services all the time when they are simply not needed. I got to the point of making a few .bat files to start the service before the application because I got that sick of it.

And don't even get me started on the apps that still don't properly uninstall.

You know how I used to 'uninstall' an app on RISCOS in the 90's? I'd delete the directory. Gone.
If it needed to run at startup? It goes in '!Boot'.

I know how much more complex modern operating systems are, but there really needs to be better management of how apps are managed and interface with the system.

On windows 7 you still need to dig fairly deep to get proper boot up information.
There should be a 'speed centre', much like Windows Update that shows what's starting, when, how long it's taking, what application might misbehave if stopped, check for drive fragmentation and so on....

How many people do you guys know that have brought a new pc because their old one 'has started to get slow'?

Handy features

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Originally Posted by shaithis

IMO, Windows will continue to have the slow-down issue until they take the OS X approach of app management/installation.

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OS X seems just as bad to me. Certainly, my 3 year old iMac is sometimes painfully slow, particularly at bootup and shortly after.

I'm also amused at how ridiculously bad and bloated some applications are these days. I can think of more than 1 application where I can type significantly faster than the characters appear on screen. That certainly never happened on my ZX spectrum back in the 80s...

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Originally Posted by Agent

I'm tired of seeing endless apps feel the need to check when a system boots if there is a new version available.

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+1, but I do love msconfig for killing them off.

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Originally Posted by Agent

How many people do you guys know that have brought a new pc because their old one 'has started to get slow'?

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And there is the reason (perhaps) that MS has dragged their heels - it keeps a steady stream of custom, and what ships with new PCs but a new version of Windows. Ca-ching.

Most people's Windows performance degrades over time, and in many cases becoming unusable and needing to be nuked from orbit. Too much installation, too many files, careless usage patterns, riddled with malware and toolbars etc etc

However mine doesn't degrade noticeably, hasn't done for years, it ticks along nicely and has no niggly issues that I live with to avoid a reinstall etc. Any "power user" worth their salt ought to be able to do the same, all it takes is some maintenance here and there and sensible usage patterns.

I take good care of my installation, update my drivers (with driver only where possible, no vendor software tools I don't need) defrag on spinning drives, clean up old files, put big data on different partitions etc. But it took a while to learn and most people will never learn, what MS need to do is enforce more of this type of OS/Data separation, prompt people to remove unused applications, prevent them from doing the things that cause degradation.

I don't trust a "reset" to remove everything, I've never trusted vendor restore partitions either, automatic processes all too often miss things or cock it up in some way. I'd still wipe the drive and go back to installation media, especially as it's now trivial to do from a fast USB drive.

+1 wipe it every time. About to do that on my machine. I just need a clear w/e... that'll be March then.

Be nice if it did this over a wireless connection and had some sort of 2 partition approach, partition for OS/Apps and one for data.