How do i make backup of my various programs in Win 8 before Clean installing to Windows 10 so that i can restore it later ?

[coolsharmar]

Thing is i have various programs and software in my win 8 but i want to clean install windows 10 not upgrade for better performance , but also want to restore my all programs later too as it took a lot of pain to install some specific software/programs like visual studio (it has many setup files and i don't even remember which files i used to installed those).

Also 90-95% of software i have installed on another drive rather than C Drive so i don't have to install all those software again if I've to format the C drive.

So all i want is:
1) To be able to view all my installed software in start menu even if they are installed on another drive.
2) To backup and restore some software installed on C drive to Win 10.
3) Backup and restore drivers.
4) To roll back to Win 8 even if I've clean installed if some driver or any issue persists.

That's it.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I'll answer your specific questions in a moment, after two general warnings.

Well, if you've installed programs on another drive they almost certainly will not work from that drive after you do a clean install. Most installations make registry entries and / or write dll and other files to the windows directories, and you won't have them with the new installation. Unless the applications is specifically made to be portable, it will run after an upgrade to win10 but won't run after a clean install. Be prepared to re-install everything if you do a clean install.

Second, the Win10 upgrade leaves a version of your old windows that you can roll back to for a month, then removes it. If you do a clean install, you won't have that anymore.

With that said, my recommendations are

1) Print out your entire Start Menu tree (I use a Unix shell to do this) to paper and / or save it to a file on another disk. This will save a list of what's in the start menu, regardless of which disk you did the install on, IF the software made an entry in the Start Menu. I personally also bring up the Control Panel, go to Programs, and print out screen after screen of entries from there. This will pick up things like the C++ Runtime distribution that you installed to make a game work, but that isn't in the Start Menu.

2) Two answers to this. The first is that the upgrade process will do it. If you want to do a clean install, and then bring over all the programs and settings that you have, there is commercial software that will do a very good, but perhaps not perfect, job of this. If you are doing a clean install on the same machine you have to make a backup with that software package first, then do the clean install, then use the software package and its backup to bring things over.

If you are moving to a new machine, you install the package on both, install 10 on the new machine, and connect them and run the software.

A typical package for this (not an endorsement as I have not used it) is Easeus PC Trans. I think Microsoft has a free tool; they did for Windows 7. But none of them are perfect.

3) N/A? Use new drivers for Windows 10?

4) The rollback can't be done directly. But if you take a complete image backup of both your system drive and the partition where you installed other software BEFORE upgrading to / installing WIn10, and you don't like Win10, you can restore the backup and will be back to where you were before you upgraded.

Come to think of it, make backups of them anyway. Just in case something goes wrong, or you forgot something, you can always reload the backups.

 

[coolsharmar]

I'll answer your specific questions in a moment, after two general warnings.

Well, if you've installed programs on another drive they almost certainly will not work from that drive after you do a clean install. Most installations make registry entries and / or write dll and other files to the windows directories, and you won't have them with the new installation. Unless the applications is specifically made to be portable, it will run after an upgrade to win10 but won't run after a clean install. Be prepared to re-install everything if you do a clean install.

Second, the Win10 upgrade leaves a version of your old windows that you can roll back to for a month, then removes it. If you do a clean install, you won't have that anymore.

With that said, my recommendations are

1) Print out your entire Start Menu tree (I use a Unix shell to do this) to paper and / or save it to a file on another disk. This will save a list of what's in the start menu, regardless of which disk you did the install on, IF the software made an entry in the Start Menu. I personally also bring up the Control Panel, go to Programs, and print out screen after screen of entries from there. This will pick up things like the C++ Runtime distribution that you installed to make a game work, but that isn't in the Start Menu.

2) Two answers to this. The first is that the upgrade process will do it. If you want to do a clean install, and then bring over all the programs and settings that you have, there is commercial software that will do a very good, but perhaps not perfect, job of this. If you are doing a clean install on the same machine you have to make a backup with that software package first, then do the clean install, then use the software package and its backup to bring things over.

If you are moving to a new machine, you install the package on both, install 10 on the new machine, and connect them and run the software.

A typical package for this (not an endorsement as I have not used it) is Easeus PC Trans. I think Microsoft has a free tool; they did for Windows 7. But none of them are perfect.

3) N/A? Use new drivers for Windows 10?

4) The rollback can't be done directly. But if you take a complete image backup of both your system drive and the partition where you installed other software BEFORE upgrading to / installing WIn10, and you don't like Win10, you can restore the backup and will be back to where you were before you upgraded.

Come to think of it, make backups of them anyway. Just in case something goes wrong, or you forgot something, you can always reload the backups.

Hey first of all thanks for replying & helping me out.
Thing is i do have more than 130 programs installed according to the list exported by CCleaner. most of the that programs are installed in other drive rather than OS Drive or C Drive. As said by you i will not be able to run those programs after clean install as these programs also saves their settings in registry and c drive. So my question is:-

1) Which software can i use to make backup of those specific data/registry of those programs and later can restore them on win 10 so i don't have to re-install all those more than 130 programs again. (Yeah it'll be a lot of PAIN to reinstall them).

As the only reason I'm not going to choose upgrade option is i want the speed and fresh feel of new OS. Don't want some speed down ,lag , problems which are currently in win 8 to be in win 10 too.
So i thought i would clean install it and then backup/restore programs data/registry,startmenu items to win 10.

Hope you understand What I'm trying to convey here as re-installing all those many programs will not b feasible solution in my case.

UPDATE- Just checked out Easeus Pc transfer , So this is the solution to all my problems here ?

 

[WyomingKnott]

1) There are several commercial utilities to do this. I named one above without endorsing it.

UPDATE - might be, might not. I don't know how well it works. And keep in mind that for the in-place version you need an external drive for an almighty big backup.

Try it and tell me how it works - AFTER you do the image backup so that you can fall back in case of an epic failure.

 

[Alabalcho]

One more advice: Use software like this to make a list of activation keys for software you already have installed.

But - no backup software will know where an installed program has spilled it entires into registry and the file system. Be ready to reinstall a lot of software even after using such software. If I was you - I would make an image copy of existing installation, uninstall all the stuff you don't need after upgrade, use something like CCleaner (they say it works) to "optimise" the system, and perform in-place upgrade.

Visual Studio is one of easiest to reinstall.

 

[coolsharmar]

1) There are several commercial utilities to do this. I named one above without endorsing it.

UPDATE - might be, might not. I don't know how well it works. And keep in mind that for the in-place version you need an external drive for an almighty big backup.

Try it and tell me how it works - AFTER you do the image backup so that you can fall back in case of an epic failure.

Okay so I made an local image backup of selected programs and made the backup(just 5.6GB compressed from 8.7 GB).
To know it works i tried restore only IDM on another computer and well it restored it in C drive(in my pc it was installed on some other drive) and i run it to check if there is download history present or not and it was not but my IDM was full version and it restored full one. So i don't know till now how It'll work with other programs. There should be option to allow only data to be restored but it backup-restored whole program. Damn , Android is so much simpler in Backup-restore android apps with data when reset and trying different ROMS. Windows way of installing programs and kept its different parts in different location is such a mess in 2015.

Is there any practice in which I don't need to go through any of this. If i install an program it'll stay installed no matter what which windows I'm using ? So don't have to go with this pain of wasting your whole day ?

 

[coolsharmar]

One more advice: Use software like this to make a list of activation keys for software you already have installed.

But - no backup software will know where an installed program has spilled it entires into registry and the file system. Be ready to reinstall a lot of software even after using such software. If I was you - I would make an image copy of existing installation, uninstall all the stuff you don't need after upgrade, use something like CCleaner (they say it works) to "optimise" the system, and perform in-place upgrade.

Visual Studio is one of easiest to reinstall.

That's what my problem is , this Spilled thing has ruined everything. What i'll try to do is check each and every program installed and see if it has it's data in app data folder, if it is i'll backup it . I don't know what I'm doing lol.

 

[Alabalcho]

The application is not just files (in your C:\ProgramData, C:\<user>\AppData, and probably more folders), but a lot of registry entries, which usually containg configuration, state information. It is these registry entries which are (generally) impossible to move by a tool without that tool having intricate knowledge on each and every app it is supposed to migrate.

That why you have two options: Clone your HDD, or start fresh.

 

[LaFaye_58]

you can do a regular backup on your external hdd also I'd suggest that you just upgrade your windows 8 to windows 10 instead of a fresh clean install this will allow you to operate your current programs without a comparability problem.

but if you really want to do it as you plan here is one you can try its free and safe- https://www.afterdawn.com/software/security/backup_tools/macrium_reflect_free.cfm

 

[USAFRet]

you can do a regular backup on your external hdd also I'd suggest that you just upgrade your windows 8 to windows 10 instead of a fresh clean install this will allow you to operate your current programs without a comparability problem.

but if you really want to do it as you plan here is one you can try its free and safe- https://www.afterdawn.com/software/security/backup_tools/macrium_reflect_free.cfm

1. This thread is 3+ years old. Please don't dredge up old threads like this.

2. Don't link to some 3rd party site for tools like that.
Please link direct to the publisher of that tool, Macrium.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree