![]() In my case, it has the potential of letting me run the old operating system, apps, and files in a virtual PC. Universal Restore might be the solution if you have to replace a system motherboard with a different model and you run into driver issues. It’s designed to work through the problem of dissimilar hardware drivers. Once downloaded, the utility lets you restore an image to another system with different hardware. While doing this step, I ran across a True Image addon: Universal Restore ( more info). The utility saves the backup as a single file, but I can also dig into the backup for specific files. In case I missed something important, I used True Image to make a final and full backup of the old system. It supports macros, third-party extensions, and custom keyboard shortcuts. This donationware utility is excellent for both simple text documents and the more complex code editing I do for the newsletter. As part of that process, I installed many of the apps listed below, including a new member of the top utilities list: Notepad ++. I spent about a day and a half getting the new system fully up and usable for daily work. Recover Keys let me export a detailed report of keys for installed apps to Excel. It produced a long list of application keys on the system, which I could conveniently export to an Excel spreadsheet (see Figure 1).įigure 1. The solution was to purchase the Recover Keys app ($29.95 and up site). I’ve used two free utilities - Magic Jelly Beans ( page) and Nirsoft ProduKey ( page) - in the past to recover Windows and Office keys, but they’re too limited for this task. Unfortunately, some of the apps - such as Paint Shop Pro - had been on my old PC for years I had no record of the keys. Using a product such as Laplink’s PCmover ( more info) might have helped, but with a fresh installation of Win7, I decided it was best to do a clean install of my critical applications and utilities. That’s great, but there was still the task of reinstalling applications and data. (I did have to spend some time adding missing Windows updates and recently installed software.) Because I keep the files used to publish Windows Secrets on Dropbox, that part of the restoration process went quickly and easily.Įventually, it was decided that changing the PC’s domain was going to be too difficult, and I was sent a new ThinkPad. It easily found the stored Windows-created image files and restored the machine to working order. In my case, True Image lived up to its reputation. It’s an application we’ve recommended several times in the newsletter. Desperate to get my production machine working again, I purchased a copy of Acronis True Image ( site). Sadly, the Windows rescue disc I’d created could not find either the NAS device or a directly-attached USB drive with the same backup files. I did, of course, have backups for the machine, stored on a Western Digital My Cloud network-attached device ( more info). Unfortunately, the conversion process went badly south, and I was left with a severely broken Windows. That’s a bit above my pay grade, so I asked for online technical help. ![]() The purchase of Windows Secrets by Penton required changing the domain that my work PC connected to. ![]() But a recent incident forced me to look for alternatives. If you have a relatively stable and simple setup, they’re reliable and fairly easy to use. ![]() On several occasions we’ve discussed Windows’ built-in backup and restore tools. With complex setups, it’s often best to pay for a more sophisticated backup/restore application. One of the most important utilities for all PC users is their backup-and-restore tools. TOP STORY, BEST UTILITIES UPDATE: Windows Secrets' ultimate utilities listĪbout twice a year, I update our list of top utilities - those essential tools for making computing smoother and easier.
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