Prepping for backup is so tedius...Is there a better way?
This computer is from 2011, and like my dad said, when he was using it, during that time, "xxx, you have so much crap on this computer." I'm only now realizing what he said was true, because, a) I want to build a new computer, and b) buy a new SSD to transfer to that computer. Needless to say, I'm a wee bit ahead of myself.
But first things first; the backing up of Drive C where the OS is, and M - my External Hard Drive, which has been behaving oddly of late. But then again, C,D,(c and d - two partitions on the internal.) and M are 5 years old...
So, I've been going through the drive, take your choice, C or M, file by file, and deciding, a) if I want it, b) does it go in the folder marked for migration to the SSD, or the External HDD.
I've been at this for what seems like a small forever, and I've only freed up 13GB. By my calculations, I still have another 292GB to go. That 292 doesn't include the 295MB that is my .tib. C and D have 372GB that have to be removed from that drive.
I thought this would be the way to "pare down" the drive, rid the drive of unwanted programs or files, so that when I go to clone the drive, it will clone only the most used files, and put those on the SSD.
Does anyone have any ideas? (There has to be a better way.) Should I use the .tib and restore back to 10/16/16, so that I can use a different file structure?
Thx in advance,
xxx
Thanks for the reply.
So then are you saying get the computer first, then load the OS, then transfer the needed files? Is the transferring of specific files, something that ATI can do, or what would you suggest?
I should point out that, the only version of the OS that I have, is the one that came preloaded on the machine, (Win 7 x64 Ultimate.) The extra programs that came with the OS are easy enough to take off. That's not the problem. The problem is, reinsalling over 600 Windows updates, and program updates, (combined total,) that have occured since I bought the computer, back in 2011. As I understand it, And the re-installation of those updates, can take much longer, due to unexpected mishaps, thus you have to start the download over again. Apparently, (from the post I read somewhere on the 'net,) he had to restart his downloads many times. Although, he had some 300 updates, if I remember correctly.
Could you please advise me what to do regarding both issues?
Thx in Advance,
xxx
Please take a look at webpage: The Last Windows 7 ISO You’ll Ever Need: How to Slipstream the Convenience Rollup
It's really your call. Cleanup aside (paring down as you called it), if you take a full system backup (disk backup) you should be able to restore that image to a new hard drive in the same machine, or to a hard drive on a new machine (assuming the bios is configured correctly and compatible on a new machine), with everything just the way it was on the old drive when the restore is complete. You would still need to go through the process of cleaning things up as you see fit, but there's nothign wrong with that - just some manual work on your end to clean things up to the point you're satisifed. Of course, doing it this way would save you from having to install a bunch of apps and/or Windows settings/updates, etc for sure, but just won't address the cleanup you said you were working on.
No, Acronis does not allow you to transfer just a user profile or just certain apps. It deals just with data. You could restore a folder (or files) in program files, but it wouldn't include the necessary registry keys, background services or associated files that might be located elsewhere.
No matter what, backup any and/or all machines you plan to resetore to so that you have a fallback option in case you need to revert back or try again for some reason.
Acronis is good for 1) full disk backup/restore, 2) parition backup/restore and/or 3) file/folder restore... it's not a profile or application transferring tool. Really, there are no good tools out there that do this well. Microsoft has a User State Migration Tool for Windows 7, but dropped it in Windows 8 and newer. There are other 3rd party apps that say they can move user profiles and/or apps too, but honestly, most (even Microsoft's tool) don't do a very good job (my guess as to why they stopped providing it after Windows 7) and you're likely to end up with bad results You're better off doing a full disk restore in Acronis and taking everything "as is" when you go that route, or biting the bullet and starting from scratch with a new OS install and then running all of those updates, software installs and then bringing in just the files you want.
If you're worried about updates/downloads/installs from Microsoft, a cool tool you can try out is WSUS offline update. It is a tool someone developed that downloads all the current updatess to a local directory on your machine. You can have it download just 32-bit updates, just 64-bit updates or both. You can tell it to grab Office updates (32 or 64 bit, or both), or none at all too. And each time you run the tool to update itself, it removes outdated/superceded ones. It's kind of nice, becasuse you only have to download the updates one time and then you can take the tool adn manually run it on your system (or attach it to others and run it locally), which can be much faster than downloadding the same udpates on each machine you have (if you have more than one). And, if you start over, you also have the updates ready to go. You don't have to use this by any means, but decide if it might be useful for you.