Windows 10: A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.

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.









:)

 

Boy do I have a challenge for you guys. Need help fixing PC.

I've now successfully reset my pc back to factory settings and it is running faster than ever!

You deserve recognition for your help, Carlo Fer, thank you very much. <3

Best wishes

p.s. i had to make another account this is Joshuaread1 :3 teehee

 

Boy do I have a challenge for you guys. Need help fixing PC.

Hi Joshua,

The issue you're experiencing could be caused by memory issues or corrupted system files. We understand that you have tried almost all possible solutions and fixes. It would be best that you perform a clean reinstall of your Windows 10 PC.

Please refer to this forum article created by Andre Da Costa MVP about:
How to: Perform a Clean Install or Reinstall of Windows 10.
This will allow you to start fresh with a clean installation of Windows 10.

Note: Performing a clean install will remove everything. Make sure you have a backup of all the files that you need.

Update us with results for further assistance.

 

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.

 

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)

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

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?

 

I think I would mount the image in question and check if the files are there. You can do that in Disk Management by attaching a VHD and browsing for the largest .vhdx file which is described as a Hard Disk Image File. After mounting you will probably need to assign a drive letter. ** when you are done, make very sure you use the "Detatch VHD" option on the left end of the Disk Management line to dismount the image.

If the files are present, then for some reason it wasn't reimaged fully. If the files aren't there then they may not have been on one of the Critical partitions and were not part of the image at all.

 

Hi, no, I never said I though Aomei was the best- Macrium Reflect has been found to be more reliable. Please see e.g. this as one of several threads - you can find more- where people here have discussed this:
Solved Best backup program? - Windows 10 Forums

That probably doesn't mention Veeam Endpoint, another interesting one with a professional background.

Most imaging programs provide a boot medium to cope with the case where the PC is unbootable. One or two use only a boot medium. All I know of allow you to extract files and folders from the image files. Some free options only support one of incremental or differential imaging.

I used Aomei until I came to Win 10, but some quirks/deficiencies in particular circumstances prompted me to change again.

 

I've never heard of Veeam before. I'll certainly take a look. Thanks for that *Smile

Before I totally write off Macrium I'm just going to do a bit of investigation, because it suddenly occurred to me that there might be some default file exclusions that are pre-set. I had a problem a few years ago with Acronis not restoring LibreOffice correctly (spell check was always broken on the restore) and it was due to an excluded file type. Once you knew... one click and it was fixed. So I must look into that first.