Windows 8.1

Ken1943 wrote:
On Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:06 -0400, Paul wrote:

Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 4/27/2015 9:30 PM, wg_2002 wrote:
On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:59:03 -0400, Paul wrote:

wg_2002 wrote:
On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:19:45 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:

Has anything changed about the creation of system backups for Windows
8.1?

My laptop came with Windows 8. When 8.1 came out I upgraded the
laptop.

At that time I did not create the installation disk.

When I upgraded to Windows 8.1 I was told the installation disk would
be the original OS Window 8, and if I had to reinstall I would have to
go through the Windows 8.1 update again.

Is that still true, or has Microsoft fixed it so you make Windows 8.1
installation disks
It should be possible to make a system image of your 8.1 install using
the built in tools that come with Win8.1.

Try this. Press the winkey+c on your keyboardclick on searchtype
"file history"click on the file history folder. It should be the
first one in the list.click on "system image backup" in the lower left
hand corner.

From there it should give you the option to save to an HDD or burn to
disk or even save your image to a network location.
DVDs are supposed to be free for the download.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...-refresh-media

Click the Create Media button, to get mediacreationtool.exe (1,483,336
bytes)

When you run it, this is one of the dialogs.

http://thewindowsclub.thewindowsclub...om/wp-content/
uploads/2014/11/InstallationMedia01-400x315.png
That should give you a 3.5GB ISO for the x64 case.

Note that, the Microsoft tools tend to have dependencies on which
machine you run that from. If you run that from your Win8 x64 machine,
chances are you'll get the x64 DVD. If you needed the x32 DVD, maybe
you'd have to switch machines (give it the key from the actual install
machine), and then give it a go. I've never used this tool, as I got my
DVD set from a "previous adventure" at the Microsoft Store.

*******

If the built-in Windows backup tool doesn't seem to be present, try this
from an administrator command prompt.
Or, if your user account is a member of the "backup group",
that should give sufficient rights to make a backup.

wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:F: -allCritical -quiet

That will back up C: and System Reserved partitions if they are present,
and place a new folder on the F: drive. The new folder will contain a
.vhd file per partition. If you repeat the operation a second time, it
will overright the first backup set. If you "move" the folder out of the
way,
to avoid overwrite, a second attempt can then give you a second set of
files.

And that's for cases where the GUI is missing, but the underlying
wbadmin is still available.
Paul
Yes that link does work for retail versions but I'm not sure when it
comes
to OEM. I also thought that the OP was wanting to make an image after he
installed all his programs and set the OS up the way he wanted it. If
that's the case the first link you provided would only be good for a
fresh
install.
Anyway it doesn't matter. It's doubtful the OP will be back or even try
any of the suggestions we provided.

OP: The OP was asking if there was a way to create Windows 8.1
installation Disk from an OEM Windows 8 installation on a Toshiba laptop
that had been upgraded to Windows 8.1.

From what I am hearing I can create a disk image of the 8.1 disk, but
no there is no way to create an 8.1 installation disk from an up graded
OEM 8.1.

I realize that I can restore the computer to 8 and then upgrade to 8.1.
I have did this many times with Windows XP to get to SP3.
I keep stuff in sets here.

Say I do the following:

1) Have a Windows 8.0 laptop. Want to start over.
2) Follow the "Factory Restore" procedure, to put back OEM Windows 8.0.
3) Take my freshly downliaded 8.1 DVD, run "setup.exe" off the DVD.
Do an Upgrade Install of Windows 8.1. This brings the OS up to 8.1.
The OEM cruft would be preserved (Zynga games).
4) I keep a couple of "rollup" folders. These are major updates
(around 500MB of files). I visited the Microsoft site, entered the
KB numbers, and collected a set of installation files. I keep these
for patching without using Windows Update.

Windows8.1-KB2990532-x64__Update2.msu 1,744 KB Aug.13/2014
Windows8.1-KB2975719-x64__Update2.msu 173,350 KB


Windows8.1-KB3014442-x64.msu 12,050 KB Nov.21/2014
Windows8.1-KB3003057-x64.msu 52,700 KB
Windows8.1-KB3000850-x64.msu 728,186 KB

I also have a cryptic note in my log file, but I don't see the
files, which implies I must have done this via Windows Update
or something. Or, the files are only on the Win8 disk (not
connected at the moment).

8.1.1 update
# These KB's must be installed in the following order:
KB2919442, KB2919355, KB2932046,
KB2937592, KB2938439, and KB2934018.

# KB2919442 is a prerequisite for Windows 8.1 Update
and should be installed before attempting to install
KB2919355

5) After all that sort of stuff is run, then I go to Windows
Update for another hundred or so (small ones). Could be
another 500MB in total, who knows.

I can find some references here to rollup packages.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...r-2012-r2.aspx

Try to keep copies of the big stuff, to avoid
downloading them over and over again.

Another option would be to run WSUSoffline software,
and "collect" everything necessary. I've used my
WSUSoffline collection for WinXP, to bring a WinXP
test install up to date. As an example. The most
recent version of WSUSoffline has WinXP references
removed, so it's only for more modern OSes now.

http://wsusoffline.net/

That uses Microsoft manifest files, and all the
downloads are done from Microsoft servers. You could
probably run a tool like that from a WinXP machine
and collect updates for Windows 8 using the handy
tick boxes in the tool. I'm sure the collection
for Windows 8 would be *huge*, but I expect you knew
that :-)

HTH,
Paul

Interesting since I have read about it, but never looked any further.
Does the latest version have all the other updates or do you have the
download starting with a reference point. The last update from MS ?


KenW

AFAIK, they're incremental. Only a Service Pack
covers all of them in one shot, and Microsoft hasn't issued
any proper service packs. Only these silly
rollup things, without proper in-system identification
of such. If you look in the System control panel,
it doesn't say anything about Rollup.

Windows Update would apply the sets one after
another, and so would you. I presume if the rollups are
applied separately, they will complain if prerequisites
have not been met.

Paul