Don't forget about Saved Games folder. You can backup the whole hive using RegEdit, then load it in new OS to use a source for copying keys. Some apps store settings there, so it'll be much easier to restore their settings.
If you export whole hives, you don't need to worry about navigating backuped data or missing something. It takes a lot of time to configure them perfectly, so make sure you backuped them completely. Plugins can be placed within folders with binaries, so it's easy to miss them. If copying is problematic, at least save the complete list of plugins somewhere. Fat games Steam etc. Downloading takes lots of time. You can avoid it by copying data. Not all games support copying, but lots do. Some apps store settings even in Program Files, but it's super rare.
Exported settings Visual Studio etc. Some apps support importing and exporting settings explicitly. It's usually a better idea to rely on that feature rather than experiment with copying registry keys. List of installed software. Not really necessary, but can be useful if you forget some app's name. Everything else. Most likely, you created folders for videos, music, distribs, apps installed by unzipping etc.
Well, if you have to backup anything just because you're uninstalling the OS, your backup strategy is insufficient. A hard drive, virus, natural disaster or simply user error can happen at any time, and you should have proper automatic cloud backup scheduled for everything that is important to you at any given time.
Any other backup strategy, on its own, is not good enough especially manual ones. Having said that, I recently reinstalled my OS, and there are some things that I found convenient to back up, so that the reinstalling process is more streamlined:. Sign up to join this community.
The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. For hardware, check with your device manufacturer for driver updates. In many cases, running Windows Update will update your drivers as new ones become available. Next, check that all your apps are still installed and ensure they work properly. Make sure you do this within the first 10 days of installing Windows 11 in case you choose to switch back.
More on that shortly. From here, you can toggle Search, Widgets, and Task View on and off. Browse through the Settings, especially your privacy settings, to verify everything transferred over from Windows While it should be the same, Microsoft is known for changing settings to what the company thinks is best for you.
If you already removed Xbox from Windows 10 , it should stay gone. You just installed Windows 11, so why check for updates? No problem. You can revert back to Windows 10 at any time. However, you only have 10 days to revert back without losing any of your files and apps. This is similar to uninstalling a Windows update. Also read: How to Downgrade from Windows 11 to Windows There is a trick to extend your downgrade window to 60 days.
This gives you two months to try out Windows 11 and still revert back to Windows 10 without having to do a clean installation. But, just in case Microsoft tries to get pushy, you have the following option. As safe as it has always been. Microsoft will provide extended support for Windows 10 through October Also, reinstalling Windows is a good time to clean up unwanted files from your computer. If you have a lot of accumulated files on your computer, then start a few days prior to the reinstallation date and spend one hour daily in deleting useless files.
Take backup of the bookmarks on your web browsers by using the export bookmark feature of your browsers. You can easily export bookmarks and then import them to your favorite browsers after reinstalling Windows.
If you are using special settings and add-ons on your web browser, then make a list of these details as well. If you are reinstalling Windows after a long time, then most probably you would not know how many programs are installed on your computer.
Therefore, make a list of all the programs, which are currently installed on your computer, so that you can reinstall them afterwards. New versions of a program are usually better in compatibility with the higher versions of the Windows OS. We all visit multiple websites and use several applications that require unique username and password for access or registration.
Make a list of all such usernames, passwords, serial numbers, license codes, etc. If you used the OneDrive method option 1 above to back them up, simply enabling OneDrive sync again will make the backed up files show up in the proper folder, so you can just choose to save them offline to access them at any time.
Choose the latest backup and your files should be restored to their respective folders. And that's it! If you followed all the steps in both of our guides, you should now have a fully functioning computer again, and everything should be in its rightful place.
Have you tried to recover a Windows PC before? Did you find this guide useful? Let us know how it went in the comments below! Backing up your data The first thing you'll want to do is back up your data so you don't lose any of your files in the process of restoring your system. Option 2 - Backup to an external drive If you'd rather do it locally, there's another option, which is File History. Using recovery media to install Windows Once you've created recovery media for your PC using any of the methods in our guide, all that's left to do is use it to start the recovery process.
Option 1 - Using a clean installation of Windows After booting into the installation media, you may see a warning about whether you want to upgrade or do a clean install. Option 2 - Using a Windows recovery drive If you created a recovery drive using option 3 from our previous guide , the process is a bit more straightforward.
Recovering your data and drivers Once you've set up Windows 10, you may want to get your drivers back, specifically if you used a plain Windows 10 installation drive. Repeat this for any drivers that may be missing, and you should be ready to go.
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