A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.

Mooly · 31 Jul 2016

Long story cut short... and this may be a far to simplistic approach but here goes......

I'm a great fan of Windows own Disk Imaging utility that is included with W10 BUT I have encountered one minor and one major issue. It seems that a restored image is missing some vital Windows files (this is a bug and has been proved on x86 and x64 systems running public release and latest insider builds). The minor issue is that Windows Update history (just the history list of installed updates) is not restored and secondly, user created photo albums are also not being restored. That is a major issue. All you get is blank grey tiles with no content

Please see post #148 here for images of the issue.
System Image - Create in Windows 10 - Page 15 - Windows 10 Forums

What I Need Help With

The registry includes a 'FilesNotToBackup' key. All the keys associated with this are in the images below. Would anyone have any idea where the above data for the missing albums might reside within Windows, and would you be able to identify that location as being one of the keys here.

A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.-reg-1.jpg

A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.-reg-2.jpg

Mooly · 31 Jul 2016

After a lot of experimentation it looks like it is back to the drawing board. I've even deleted the whole key/s and still the restored image is still 'broken' with any user created photo albums rendered useless.

Very annoying problem.

dalchina · 31 Jul 2016

Mooly said:

After a lot of experimentation it looks like it is back to the drawing board. I've even deleted the whole key/s and still the restored image is still 'broken' with any user created photo albums rendered useless.

Very annoying problem.

Hi, experts here prefer using 3rd party imaging solutions, having found Windows system imaging to be somewhat less reliable.

These are much more flexible, and offer better features. Macrium Reflect (free) is often recommended- Aomei Backupper has been found to have some deficiences.

Mooly · 31 Jul 2016

Thanks dalchina. Funny you mention AOMEI as am just trying that this very minute. Just tried an incremental chain and it all seems OK......

At least with an SSD these things are quick to try and I must admit that I like the AOMEI interface. I suppose I should look at Macrium again as I have tried it briefly in the past but thought it a bit fussy in its user interface.

Do you know what issues there have been with AOMEI and W10 ?

(I know in the past it did not backup Windows Update History just as Windows own is not doing now)

dalchina · 31 Jul 2016

Hi, I used Aomei for a long time until Win 10, but some here reported issues with respect to SSDs, and found Macrium worked in the same scenario.

I found that using it in conjunction with a Laplink product used when moving to Win 10 failed (permissions issues in the image). Macrium and O&O Disk Image images work.

I tried its system image with Win 10 but was unable to find a way to restore it.
Prior to Win 10 I was in the habit of imaging only C: and D: together (D: is where I choose to install programs - part of a historic decision to separate Windows on C: from programs, data, desktop related to backup, data security and defragmentation) and restoring these. Win 10 (UEFI) has 2 more partitions- I don't think Aomei copes with that. Or didn't when I tried it.

Mooly · 31 Jul 2016

Interesting thanks. I've a feeling this is going to come as a surprise......

AOMEI worked very well. It was super fast for both imaging and restoring taking around 3 minutes for each task. Main thing though is that it worked.

Macrium. Unbelievably, this seems to have the same issue that I'm trying to fix. An image (with freshly made albums as a test) restored incorrectly with the same blank tiles and no content. It was quick to make the image (similar to Windows and AOMEI) but relatively slow to restore at 10 minutes. Had it worked then that would have been acceptable, but it didn't.

A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.-aomei.jpg

A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.-macrium.jpg

dalchina · 31 Jul 2016

Curious - I've not experienced that. Granted, for straightforward partition backup and restore Aomei has always been fine in my experience, although it gives weird numbered and unhelpful error messages should the base image not be found when doing a differential or incremental backup, and the way it fails when this happens is not well implemented.

Mooly · 31 Jul 2016

I must be honest, I was surprised as well.

Not sure what to do now. I'll probably be clean installing Ten next week anyway as the new edition is released, but I still need a totally trustworthy imaging program that runs from within Windows. Using bootable media to make the image would certainly work but its inconvenient...... I'll have to give it some thought.

dalchina · 31 Jul 2016

Both Aomei and Macrium provide boot media. Then there's O&O DiskImage (commercial, some giveaways), and here's a review of commercial programs:

The Best Disk Imaging Software of 2016 | Top Ten Reviews

And one few use but was strongly recommended (free version of commercial product) is
Veeam Endpoint (free). Like Macrium free, it only provides incremental backup.

Needhelpwithwin · 31 Jul 2016

I was about to follow this How to Create a System Image in Windows 10 and saw your post so thanks man :)

So let me see if I understood: Your tests shows that AOMEI is the best solution till now? Sorry I never did a system image before that's why I was about to use the built in Windows 10 one cause it would be simpler or whatever but since it is a little messed up I have no problem in trying AOMEI.

I know it's not a help thread but just a quick question:

All I need is download this:

AOMEI Backupper Standard 3.5 FREE

and follow this simple steps and if something goes wrong I can just restore a image using the AOMEI restore option right?

In case something worst happens and I can't even boot Win10 I can Create Windows PE Bootable Disc to save together with my system image for example and restore that previous image using the bootable disc right?