New upgrade install - cleanup before backup

[- Bobb -]

New Win7 user, so any advice on the best way to do this from experienced
folks appreciated.

I installed Win7 Pro , Office 2007 and went to Windows update - installed
about 75 updates. Rebooted - update, then it installed SP1. ..... when all
done, I activated.
Now I want to do a full backup of the completed install, less stuff I
wouldn't need after a restore. I noticed that by doing the update that the
used space on the drive had grown by about 6gb. I did some research online
( looking for equivalent of NT$Uninstall file info) and found info about the
Winsxs folder: "If you destroy the DataStore, the cache (for hundreds, if
not thousands) of updates must be rebuilt; the installation history cannot
be rebuilt."
Another thread I found online said that in about 10 days that folder should
get purged of "old" files/folders.

Is it OK to first rename and then if no issues in a week, just delete it ?
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...s/thread/f5744a18-d4ca-4631-8324-878b9225251d
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN - AUTOMATICALLY
is that after 10 days those files get purged as "no longer needed" by the
WSUS process

http://everythingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/cleanup-winsxs-after-windows-7-sp1-install/

Better way to clean up the disk ? Once scrubbed then I'll use Ghost 15 or
True Image to do a full backup - from XP ? ( not sure if they'll work on
Win7)

 

[SC Tom]

New Win7 user, so any advice on the best way to do this from experienced folks appreciated.

I installed Win7 Pro , Office 2007 and went to Windows update - installed about 75 updates. Rebooted - update, then it
installed SP1. ..... when all done, I activated.
Now I want to do a full backup of the completed install, less stuff I wouldn't need after a restore. I noticed that by
doing the update that the used space on the drive had grown by about 6gb. I did some research online ( looking for
equivalent of NT$Uninstall file info) and found info about the Winsxs folder: "If you destroy the DataStore, the cache
(for hundreds, if not thousands) of updates must be rebuilt; the installation history cannot be rebuilt."
Another thread I found online said that in about 10 days that folder should get purged of "old" files/folders.

Is it OK to first rename and then if no issues in a week, just delete it ?
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...s/thread/f5744a18-d4ca-4631-8324-878b9225251d
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN - AUTOMATICALLY
is that after 10 days those files get purged as "no longer needed" by the WSUS process

http://everythingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/cleanup-winsxs-after-windows-7-sp1-install/

Better way to clean up the disk ? Once scrubbed then I'll use Ghost 15 or True Image to do a full backup - from XP ?
( not sure if they'll work on Win7)

I don't know about the "10 day purge" rule; I had files in there from 7/2009 (mine's an update from Vista. That may be
why).

If you have the full version of Acronis True Image, you can create a boot disk that will allow you to make an image or
backup to an external device. That will take XP completely out of the loop, which would probably be a good thing, as far
as Win7 is concerned. No need asking for trouble by throwing another OS in there

 

[Paul]

New Win7 user, so any advice on the best way to do this from experienced
folks appreciated.

I installed Win7 Pro , Office 2007 and went to Windows update - installed
about 75 updates. Rebooted - update, then it installed SP1. ..... when all
done, I activated.
Now I want to do a full backup of the completed install, less stuff I
wouldn't need after a restore. I noticed that by doing the update that the
used space on the drive had grown by about 6gb. I did some research online
( looking for equivalent of NT$Uninstall file info) and found info about the
Winsxs folder: "If you destroy the DataStore, the cache (for hundreds, if
not thousands) of updates must be rebuilt; the installation history cannot
be rebuilt."
Another thread I found online said that in about 10 days that folder should
get purged of "old" files/folders.

Is it OK to first rename and then if no issues in a week, just delete it ?
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...s/thread/f5744a18-d4ca-4631-8324-878b9225251d
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN - AUTOMATICALLY
is that after 10 days those files get purged as "no longer needed" by the
WSUS process

http://everythingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/cleanup-winsxs-after-windows-7-sp1-install/

Better way to clean up the disk ? Once scrubbed then I'll use Ghost 15 or
True Image to do a full backup - from XP ? ( not sure if they'll work on
Win7)

In Disk Cleanup, there may be an option to remove the leftover files from SP1.
This will prevent SP1 from being uninstalled (once those are removed), but will
save a small amount of space.

*******

You can use this panel, to create a system image.

http://www.w7forums.com/attachments/555d1253875495-windows-7-backup-software-backup-2.png

That creates a folder, with a couple .vhd files in it. On my laptop, the
..vhd corresponding to the C: partition, is around 26GB. The SYSTEM RESERVED
partition (supports booting) would be a much smaller .vhd file.

Those sit in a backup folder. If you run the System Image option a second time
and point the output at the same storage place, it will overwrite the original
System Image (and change the datestamp directory name). So if you want to save
a snapshot that way, move it to another location so it doesn't get overwritten.

System Image uses VSS, and so even if C: is busy, they can make a backup.
The computer doesn't have to be taken offline to make the backup image.

To restore those files in an emergency, you need a bootable CD. And the
system repair disc in the same control panel, will do that for you.

Paul

 

[Stan Brown]

Better way to clean up the disk ? Once scrubbed then I'll use Ghost
15 or True Image to do a full backup - from XP ? ( not sure if
they'll work on Win7)

Start » Run » CLEANMGR

Select drive C, then "Clean up system files". It will give you a
chance to delete the SP1 backup, which is gigabytes. (I can't
remember how many, because I did this a few months ago, but it's
significant.)

 

[Stan Brown]

If you have the full version of Acronis True Image, you can create
a boot disk that will allow you to make an image or backup to an
external device.

True, but it won't allow you to restore your system to a bootable
state unless your backup includes the system partition. Learn from
my mistake!

 

[...winston]

"- Bobb -" wrote in message news:[email protected] Win7 user, so any advice on the best way to do this from experienced
folks appreciated.

I installed Win7 Pro , Office 2007 and went to Windows update - installed
about 75 updates. Rebooted - update, then it installed SP1. ..... when all
done, I activated.
Now I want to do a full backup of the completed install, less stuff I
wouldn't need after a restore. I noticed that by doing the update that the
used space on the drive had grown by about 6gb.
Hello Bobb,
For reference purposes a clean install (my base system) of a retail Windows
Pro SP1 with a retail Office 10 Professional Plus (excluding Access,
Sharepoint, .NET options), iTunes, IE9, Silverlight, 7-Zip, SunJava, Flash
and a manually created complete System Restore point (created after
installing Windows, all noted software and deleting all prior restore
points) is about 14 GB in size (the System Restore itself is about 0.9GB).
Fyi-without iTunes and 7 Zip it's closer to 12GB.

 

[SC Tom]

True, but it won't allow you to restore your system to a bootable
state unless your backup includes the system partition. Learn from
my mistake!

Damn, that would suck! One of the reasons I make images instead of backups. Very simple for me- put the CD in, reboot,
point to my external drive and folder, start the image creation, then go play some tennis. By the time I get home, it's
all done and the system shut down. My main drive (which uses about 65GB) takes about 45 minutes to finish. My A/V drive,
which is about 110GB full, takes a little over an hour. I could do both drives into a single image (tried it once to
see), but I'm not sure if I could restore just one drive from the image. I've never tried to restore just one drive from
a two-drive image, but I guess I could RTFM to find out. If I had a spare drive, I'd give it a try just to see, but my
current plan works well for me

I could do incrementals, but I'd just as soon do a full image each time. It doesn't take that long in the grand scheme
of things, and I've got the room for both of those drives and my laptop on my external drive (I keep about 3 images of
each before deleting any). Plus I rotate target devices, so I actually have 5 or 6 images of each all together.

 

[- Bobb -]

Damn, that would suck! One of the reasons I make images instead of
backups. Very simple for me- put the CD in, reboot, point to my external
drive and folder, start the image creation, then go play some tennis. By
the time I get home, it's all done and the system shut down. My main drive
(which uses about 65GB) takes about 45 minutes to finish. My A/V drive,
which is about 110GB full, takes a little over an hour. I could do both
drives into a single image (tried it once to see), but I'm not sure if I
could restore just one drive from the image. I've never tried to restore
just one drive from a two-drive image, but I guess I could RTFM to find
out. If I had a spare drive, I'd give it a try just to see, but my current
plan works well for me

I could do incrementals, but I'd just as soon do a full image each time.
It doesn't take that long in the grand scheme of things, and I've got the
room for both of those drives and my laptop on my external drive (I keep
about 3 images of each before deleting any). Plus I rotate target devices,
so I actually have 5 or 6 images of each all together.

It sounds like that's what I want, Tom. What version of TI do you use ? (
Mine's about 3 years old)
"Very simple for me- put the CD in "
Could you give me a quick walk-thru of the cd you're using ? The
store-bought or one you customized with a script ?
Have you restored the boot DRIVE or partition to know it's bootable ?
Thanks

Plan B or C was:
TO make it simpler - I COULD move the Win7 drive to another machine ( I have
lots of hardware)
RE: problems restoring image to bootable state : that's why I thought I
might use XP or Vista to do the backup. I'd boot one drive to IMAGE ( I said
back up but I meant image) the "not being used Win 7" drive so all files
would be closed and hopefully restore properly. In the past, I've found that
if I ran the imaging program ( Ghost or TI) from another drive (OS), then it
was simple - " create image of 'that' drive/partition".
Having just installed Win7 for first time I thought I'd do the same. I have
a few external drives with terabytes of space so even if only partition I
could get by. Worst case, when needed, boot some PC - point to the image,
restore to 'this drive" and put that drive back in the Win7 box.

 

[SC Tom]

It sounds like that's what I want, Tom. What version of TI do you use ? ( Mine's about 3 years old)
"Very simple for me- put the CD in "
Could you give me a quick walk-thru of the cd you're using ? The store-bought or one you customized with a script ?
Have you restored the boot DRIVE or partition to know it's bootable ?
Thanks

Plan B or C was:
TO make it simpler - I COULD move the Win7 drive to another machine ( I have lots of hardware)
RE: problems restoring image to bootable state : that's why I thought I might use XP or Vista to do the backup. I'd
boot one drive to IMAGE ( I said back up but I meant image) the "not being used Win 7" drive so all files would be
closed and hopefully restore properly. In the past, I've found that if I ran the imaging program ( Ghost or TI) from
another drive (OS), then it was simple - " create image of 'that' drive/partition".
Having just installed Win7 for first time I thought I'd do the same. I have a few external drives with terabytes of
space so even if only partition I could get by. Worst case, when needed, boot some PC - point to the image, restore
to 'this drive" and put that drive back in the Win7 box.

I have ATI Home 2010. If you have ATI installed, there's an option somewhere to create a boot CD (I don't have it
installed on my HDD any more since I do it strictly from the boot CD). I don't know exactly what version you have, but I
can also boot from my original installation CD and do the same thing, although it takes a few more steps to start the
image process.

You probably don't have ATI 2011, but here are some FAQ's that still apply to most earlier ones:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/13234

If you go here http://www.acronis.com/support/ you can do a search for "bootable media" and there may be a
downloadable ISO for your version that will create the bootable CD for you.

I set my CD to boot directly into ATI without having to pick it from the ATI startup screen. Nothing really out of the
ordinary. I have restored my C: drive on my XP machine after I screwed up a bunch of things. If I do any heavy-duty
experimenting, I make an image first so I have something to fall back on. I booted to the CD, and did a restore from the
menu within ATI after it was up. It tells you that there is data on the target drive, do you wish to format and
overwrite it. After doing so, I ejected the CD, rebooted, and XP came up like it was a few hours earlier when I created
the image. I didn't have to do anything special; it just came up like nothing had happened at all.

I have Win7 installed on my laptop, and the HDD in it died one afternoon. I went down to Best Buy (closest place in
town), got a new drive, installed it, booted to the ATI CD, restored the image, and was right where I was 4 or 5 days
earlier. The only difference I saw there was that the new HDD was a different brand than the old one, and Windows picked
up on that. That was it; it all ran just like before.

If you restore an image, you can use a HDD of the same size or larger, but not smaller. If you use a larger drive,
you'll have to extend the partition if you want the whole drive as a single partition. There are options within some
versions of ATI to do this; I never checked if mine does that or no since I haven't had to worry about it except one
time when I put in a larger drive for testing. After rebooting into Windows, I saw that it saw only the 400GB that the
original image was, not the 750GB that the new drive was. I used Partition Wizard to resize it with no problems at all.

Hope this helps!

 

[- Bobb -]

I have ATI Home 2010. If you have ATI installed, there's an option
somewhere to create a boot CD (I don't have it installed on my HDD any
more since I do it strictly from the boot CD). I don't know exactly what
version you have, but I can also boot from my original installation CD and
do the same thing, although it takes a few more steps to start the image
process.

You probably don't have ATI 2011, but here are some FAQ's that still apply
to most earlier ones:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/13234

If you go here http://www.acronis.com/support/ you can do a search for
"bootable media" and there may be a downloadable ISO for your version that
will create the bootable CD for you.

I set my CD to boot directly into ATI without having to pick it from the
ATI startup screen. Nothing really out of the ordinary. I have restored my
C: drive on my XP machine after I screwed up a bunch of things. If I do
any heavy-duty experimenting, I make an image first so I have something to
fall back on. I booted to the CD, and did a restore from the menu within
ATI after it was up. It tells you that there is data on the target drive,
do you wish to format and overwrite it. After doing so, I ejected the CD,
rebooted, and XP came up like it was a few hours earlier when I created
the image. I didn't have to do anything special; it just came up like
nothing had happened at all.

I have Win7 installed on my laptop, and the HDD in it died one afternoon.
I went down to Best Buy (closest place in town), got a new drive,
installed it, booted to the ATI CD, restored the image, and was right
where I was 4 or 5 days earlier. The only difference I saw there was that
the new HDD was a different brand than the old one, and Windows picked up
on that. That was it; it all ran just like before.

If you restore an image, you can use a HDD of the same size or larger, but
not smaller. If you use a larger drive, you'll have to extend the
partition if you want the whole drive as a single partition. There are
options within some versions of ATI to do this; I never checked if mine
does that or no since I haven't had to worry about it except one time when
I put in a larger drive for testing. After rebooting into Windows, I saw
that it saw only the 400GB that the original image was, not the 750GB that
the new drive was. I used Partition Wizard to resize it with no problems
at all.

Hope this helps!

Sure did. I'll try it this weekend.
Thanks

 

[- Bobb -]

another question: I just made a recovery CD and it dawned on me...
Does it retrieve anything from HDD first ?
do I need to first install the program ? or can I just use that CD ?
The CD created a folder called Recovery Manager - doesn't look bootable to
me. no hidden / system files on CD - just that folder.

I'm not on the target system right now - just trying to do some homework.

 

[SC Tom]

another question: I just made a recovery CD and it dawned on me...
Does it retrieve anything from HDD first ?
do I need to first install the program ? or can I just use that CD ?
The CD created a folder called Recovery Manager - doesn't look bootable to me. no hidden / system files on CD - just
that folder.

I'm not on the target system right now - just trying to do some homework.

That's all there is on it. It is bootable, and doesn't need anything from the HDD. And no, ATI doesn't need to be
installed on the host PC. Everything you need to create and restore images and backups, or clone a drive, is contained
on that CD. Just boot from it and follow the prompts.

 

[- Bobb -]

excellent

Thanks once again

That's all there is on it. It is bootable, and doesn't need anything from
the HDD. And no, ATI doesn't need to be installed on the host PC.
Everything you need to create and restore images and backups, or clone a
drive, is contained on that CD. Just boot from it and follow the prompts.

 

[Stan Brown]

I have ATI Home 2010. If you have ATI installed, there's an option
somewhere to create a boot CD

There is, and I did. But again, a boot CD will let you run Acronis
and do a restore. It won't make your computer's hard drive bootable.

For that you need a system recovery disk, or a Windows install disk.
Or you need to have backed up the hidden "System" partition with
Acronis before disaster strikes.

Once I knew what I had to do, doing it wasn't hard. But I lost a
week or so after my hard drive was replaced because I didn't know
what to do. Folks here helped immensely, as they tend to.

 

[- Bobb -]

"It won't make your computer's hard drive bootable."

I'm going to backup the drive as an image, so I think that will be all I'll
need.
I'll find out this weekend - and update here.
Thanks

Stan

So, WITH the windows CD , did you have to reinstall from windows ? OR as
part of the restore did ATI just prompt you at some point for the WinCD to
make it bootable ?

 

[SC Tom]

"It won't make your computer's hard drive bootable."

I'm going to backup the drive as an image, so I think that will be all I'll
need.
I'll find out this weekend - and update here.
Thanks

Stan

So, WITH the windows CD , did you have to reinstall from windows ? OR as
part of the restore did ATI just prompt you at some point for the WinCD to
make it bootable ?

 

[SC Tom]

Oops, premature clicking :-(

I have never needed anything but the ATI CD and an image on an external drive to make a new drive bootable. I've never
needed my Windows disk for any part of the operation. I don't know exactly what Stan is referring to; I thought you were
trying to create a back-up/image of your current drive to use in case of failure or some other catastrophe. Or am I
missing something in this discussion (wouldn't be the first time)?
--
SC Tom

"It won't make your computer's hard drive bootable."

I'm going to backup the drive as an image, so I think that will be all I'll need.
I'll find out this weekend - and update here.
Thanks

Stan

So, WITH the windows CD , did you have to reinstall from windows ? OR as part of the restore did ATI just prompt you
at some point for the WinCD to make it bootable ?

 

[Roy Smith]

There is, and I did. But again, a boot CD will let you run Acronis
and do a restore. It won't make your computer's hard drive bootable.

For that you need a system recovery disk, or a Windows install disk.
Or you need to have backed up the hidden "System" partition with
Acronis before disaster strikes.

Once I knew what I had to do, doing it wasn't hard. But I lost a
week or so after my hard drive was replaced because I didn't know
what to do. Folks here helped immensely, as they tend to.

It all depends on which mode you have Acronis set for when you make the
system image. It has 2 modes, drive and partition where in drive mode
it creates an image of the entire contents of a drive, and partition
mode only images a specified partition on a drive. I do mine in drive
mode where it won't matter if there is just one partition or twenty,
everything on the drive is in the image file that Acronis creates. Also
in drive mode, if the drive is bootable when the image is created then
it will also be bootable when the image is restored to that drive or to
a new drive.

--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Postbox 3.0.2
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 4:22:21 AM

 

[Roy Smith]

I have never needed anything but the ATI CD and an image on an external
drive to make a new drive bootable. I've never needed my Windows disk
for any part of the operation. I don't know exactly what Stan is
referring to; I thought you were trying to create a back-up/image of
your current drive to use in case of failure or some other catastrophe.
Or am I missing something in this discussion (wouldn't be the first time)?

It depends on which mode you were using when you created the system
image. In partition mode it only makes an image of specified
partitions, and in drive mode it images the entire drive which includes
the MBR which is a key element in making the drive bootable.

--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Postbox 3.0.2
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 4:32:45 AM

 

[Stan Brown]

So, WITH the windows CD , did you have to reinstall from windows ? OR as
part of the restore did ATI just prompt you at some point for the WinCD to
make it bootable ?

Please quote in the standard way, Bob. Trim the previous article to
just the specific part you're responding to, and put your comments
after that part. This isn't /Jeopardy/.

I did the full restore from Acronis, and found that my partitions
were restored but the computer wouldn't boot: "Bootmgr not found", if
I remember correctly. The solution was to use a Windows install disk
to do a repair, not an install.