Just was reading about a product called Reimage. PC Magazines thinks highly of it, supposedly replaces bad and missing files. Any opinions?
Dont have any experience of Reimage, however yesterday I got a popup telling me to call "this number immediately" else the malware I now had on my PC would stay there - one of those things that list hundreds of problems on your PC I closed out the sandbox in which I habitually use to browse or read emails and 'poof' went the hundreds of problems. If it hadn't went away I would have used one of my daily backups (two automated per day to different external drives) to get back to normal in twenty minutes. My take on these programs are that some are slightly useful and some are good old snake oil. I have had damaged Windows - some recent and self inflicted by my carelessness - but a restore from a daily backup always handles it.
I find system restore too hit or miss. I use a program from a Chinese company (AOMEI) called 'BackUpper'. You can do a full backup and optionally let it schedule incremental backups. The restore process is initiated by booting with a recovery disk or flash drive which the program optionally creates for you. Not related to the process, but you might have noticed that any time you boot into a recovery environment that your disk drives may end up with different letters, eg drive M is now drive P. I started incorporating the drive letter into the 'name' of the disk, thus: A drive has the original drive letter in the name, even if they show up with new letters assigned when in the recovery or booting into safe mode.
System restore is not really a backup. It's handy to use before installing a program or making changes that don't work out, so you can step back to a point before it was installed and it and all changes made are gone.. I'm sure attar was referring to an image backup program like Acronis or Aomei, etc. I use a .bat file that I wrote to turn off my internet and backup my computers boot drive, Libraries and Data files to a hidden partition on one of my drives. That way if I get infected with a Ransomware that locks my Data or OS I can re-install them and defeat the ransomware.. I have recommended Reimage to a few of my customers that don't know beans about a computer and PC world says it like I would: Quote: While I count Reimage's price tag of $70 per year as a minus, there's a caveat. For the average home user who doesn't know how to reinstall Windows or completely remove nasty malware, $69.95 per year is a very good deal. A single trip to the computer repair shop would cost you more than that, and Reimage can definitely prevent those visits. There is one major downside to Reimage: a working Internet connection is required. In my many years as a technician, one of the most common problems I fixed for people was (you guessed it) a broken Internet connection. I also expect that DNS-hijacking malware will prevent Reimage from contacting its servers in order to block removal or repair attempts. 2oG you got there before I did, attar... lol
LOL, @attar, drive letters change when you use different programs to access them. I personally try to remember the name I have applied to a partition and don't even consider the drive letter........... What ever works for you.... is the way to go! Have a Merry Christmas..... 2oG
There are free imaging software. I do use Aconis free for WD and a different one for Seagate. Images are far superior to system restore and as 2 old points out isn't a backup. The image is a backup and is not stored on your computer. You need some kind of imaging software in your bag of tricks. 2 old makes a huge point about the internet. If your computer is screwed so will you. Merry Christmas to all
