CU - Start Menu bugs out and won't launch searched apps

dalchina · 24 May 2017

Disk images are a precise copy of one state. Thus if you create an image, and restore it, you get exactly your partition as of the date you imaged it.

Imagine your disk fails. You have to clean install. What a pain!

If you have a disk image, you can install a new disk, and restore your disk image. Job done. Time saved.

That's just one example - all regular contributors here use disk imaging, as far as I know.

And did I mention - an image is also a full backup from which you can extract files and folders?

Mansen · 24 May 2017

I'm aware. But considering how fast I can re-build my OS from a clean slate, I don't really want to bother with keeping images around anyway. :)

Just a question of redirecting user folders to my secondary drive, setting up the start menu and moving in app icons. Sure there's a bit of manual copy/pasting of Appdata but that's about it. 0 to 100 in an hour or less.

Could an image speed this process up? Sure. But I'd spend a lot more time keeping images up to date, not to mention have to store them somewhere. Like I said it's not exactly my first rodeo. Worked in PC repair and service for over a decade at this point. But that doesn't mean I have to use every tool out there.

PS: Just finished doing just that. Back to an operation user profile.

dalchina · 24 May 2017

Ok, if you've just a few settings and two or three programs, and no data on your OS partition I can understand that.
For me, it's a much bigger job (and I don't keep personal data on my OS partition).

Something I've sometimes wondered about regarding changing to a new user account - which I've never had to do from '98 thru to '10- is the case of programs installed solely for 1 user. These would need reinstalling for the new user (reg entries, start menu, %appdata% folders etc, but presumably they should be uninstalled under the old user account (if possible) first. Simply deleting a user account wouldn't necessarily clean up all items related to such programs... And if it weren't possible to log in to the corrupt user account, it wouldn't be possible to uninstall such programs. Any thoughts?