Windows Refresh

TBH backup everything!

I backup my windows with reflect and also have 2 HDD with data/documents/games saves backed up, learnt my lesson back in the pre XP days, have multiple copies/backups.

Anyway with regards to your question, not sure but i heard/read you have to reinstall most programs.

 

i haven't done a refresh,what i did when i had a few bugs,i was signed in with account,i created a local account(admin) then deleted the MSA (keeping files),rebooted and then recreated my MS account,then rebooted with that,it will say setting up a few things for you etc.then i deleted the other account,it's like a refresh,i had to move pictures and files back to new folders before i deleted the extra account,but my programs were there.

 

Refresh keeps everything in the Download folder, documents, image folder and personal settings. It does however delete (or refresh) PC settings, legacy apps (read not modern from the Windows store apps) If your app data is not from a modern app it will be deleted. If your games are not modern games they will be deleted.

Refresh and reset are basically the same, except refresh sees your files, windows store apps and settings and "saves" them before reinstalling Windows, once done it places them right back where they were.

 

There is no Refresh. There are two Resets: with and without formatting the drive(s). From the launch information I had to read, Reset is now like doing a more-or-less clean install with all the latest updates already in place. The Microsoft launch documentation suggested most programs and OEM customizations would be lost doing either Reset. APPDATA is part of a user profile path, so I would assume it's retained.

The reset with retaining user files is still going to reinstall the OS. You will need to reinstall pretty much all your programs. It shouldn't delete your pictures. Assuming you haven't stored your pictures is funny locations.

 

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I just refreshed my 8.1 system and, yes, absolutely the Downloads and everything else under each ID's "home" folder/directory is kept.

Unfortunately, other things, maybe more important things, are NOT kept though the refreshed system tells you what it got rid of in an html file on your desktop. In my case, for example, Avast and Malwarebytes, Firefox, Thunderbird, Chrome and probably a gajillion other programs need to be reinstalled. Rather than reinstall from my Downloads copies of old install files, I simply went to the respective websites with Internet Explorer and grabbed new install files. Thunderbird was a little unusual to restore the complete mail situation but it turned out fine; I expect the rest of the programs (such as, say, painting programs from third parties or iTunes, etc) will reinstall just fine when I get around to reinstalling them - a little time consuming but relatively painless - and certainly resulting in up-to-date programs.

But...the refresh broke totally otherwise. The operating system - you know, what was supposed to be fixed by this refresh - has pretty much turned into an error logging monster. The App Store is totally broken - click on an app - like the Store app (...) and you get a brief flash of a screen then an icon in the tray. Try to fix that by opeing up a (right side) Charm Bar settings and the "PC Settings" app gets loaded, flashes, and turns into an icon. Try a "WSreset" in a CMD window and you get an error message about "Purge-caches" not being found. Try to find a way to "sync APP licenses" and it is nowhere to be found. This morning the "dam" server failed to start on reboot. I got that one going manually with no visible effect. Here's a typical brand-new-to-this-refresh error event:

Code:

Crawl could not be completed on content source <winrt://{S-1-5-21-1015241391-3391309368-2477208223-1001}/>.

Context:  Application, SystemIndex Catalog

Details:
    The parameter is incorrect.  (HRESULT : 0x80070057) (0x80070057)

I considered refreshing a-GAIN but that isn't quite as easy as before - saving my CURRENT state isn't quite the same as saving my original then-current state so I have to think about it before doing it.

So what caused this? I actually have no real idea, however I may have made a mistake by saying "ok" to two different things - one, I said "Okay, go ahead" to installing 129 updates via Windows Update (yes, 129 updates for an image of a system created via the Media Creation Center on August 3rd...) and I also said "Okay, go ahead" to allowing Windows Update to automatically install updates henceforward. If I do refresh I'll for SURE not allow ANY updating until I have a solidly working 8.1 system.

I'm am thoroughly frustrated by these errors - they should not have happened at all (and actually are MUCH worse than I've described). I've spent WAY too much time putzing around with what WAS a working 8.1 system with a failed 10 install (unsupported driver/graphics card) to an image restore of a July 30th copy (it takes an hour each time I image-restore a hard drive), to an attempt to fix errors (that were obscurely documented as being FALSE and "unimportant" on a Microsoft page somewhere (the errors come from "sfc /scannow" reporting 4 errors that aren't real errors - strings like "telemetry" and "utc" are in those error messages for those with similar "error" reporting happening)), to deciding to refresh so having to create an image copy to restore to if the refresh went bad, to the bad refresh itself. I may just bite the bullet and go back to the July 30th copy and start all over again with a fresh refresh and NO Windows Updates installed, then spend the obscene amount of time it'll take to read every Knowledge Base article on each of those 100+ updates...poop.

 

also note all those deleted files will move to windows.old folder