UPDATE & BUILD YOUR OWN CLONEAPP PLUGINS
CloneApp hasn’t been updated since late 2020, and while it continues to work well, some of its plugins need updating to work with the latest program versions. For example, the Handbrake plugin only works with pre-1.0 releases of Handbrake because of changes to how the app stores presets.
Fixing this in CloneApp is simple: select Handbrake from the list and click ‘Edit Plug-in’. Simply amend presets. xml to presets.json and settings.xml to settings. json, and the program’s key preferences and presets (default and usergenerated) will be backed up when you next run it.
The user_presets.xml line is now defunct and can be safely removed. Click Save when you’re done.
These minor edits are all well and good, but what about if you fancy creating your own plugin for a completely unsupported program? Browse to the cloneapp/ Plug-ins folder and open #Sample.txt in your text editor. You can then fill out the [Info] section and see that there are three basic elements you can back up: files (BackupFile), folders (BackupFolder) and Registry keys (BackupRegKey). Open the #Rules.txt file from the same folder for an example plug-in with a guide to how to put it all together.
Of course, this all relies on you knowing where your chosen app stores its configuration data. If you’re unable to track it down to the usual locations—your personal %AppData% folder, the program’s own folder or the HKEY_CURRENT_ USER or HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE keys in the Registry—or you’re uncertain what Registry entries and files to include, visit the program’s support pages or user forums to see if others have followed a similar path, or Google the program and the words ‘back up configuration’ to see what might be out there. If all else fails, why not email The Doctor to see if he can help?
Now is also a good time to vet your list and see if portable versions are available—switching to a portable app means that everything is housed inside a single folder, making it easy to back up and restore. If you do decide to go down this route, use the PortableApps.com launcher as a
convenient tool to manage and access these apps.
When it comes to your web browser, CloneApp has you covered, but you can also make use of your online account— simply look for the option to synchronize your settings to upload them to the cloud. Doing so will save you the bother of restoring the backup later—all you’ll need to do is log into your account and let it sync everything back.
If all else fails and you’re unable to track down any information about program settings, you’ll need to make a note of your favorite settings, perhaps with the aid of the built-in Snipping tool to capture each configuration screen and the layout of toolbars and other customizable elements, allowing you to manually restore them later.
GAMES
What about backing up your games? The aptly titled Game Save Manager (free, www. gamesave- manager. com) is constantly updating its game-save database to cover more games—nearly 9,800 are currently supported. Like CloneApp, it’s run as a portable application, so download it to your backup drive and run it from there. Let it run as an administrator and leave the default settings as they are by clicking OK, followed by Close. It’ll then scan your system for supported game saves (as well as related apps like OBS Studio for recording your gameplay) and allow you to back them up—once you’ve reinstalled Windows and your games, you’ll be able to use the tool to restore them.
What about your game preferences? The best place to go for help here is the PC Gaming Wiki (www.pcgamingwiki.com)— search for your game and you should find both ‘ Configuration files location’ and ‘Save game data location’ sections reveal what files and folders you should look to add to your backup.
HARDWARE DRIVERS
One option with your hardware drivers is to find a suitable tool to back them all up, allowing you to restore them en masse after your reinstall. But a far better—and cleaner—option is to take this opportunity to identify and download any driver packages you need for a fresh install after you’ve reinstalled Windows.
If you’re reinstalling Windows on a laptop or pre-built desktop, all the core drivers you need should either be supplied by Microsoft or made available through your manufacturer’s website. You’ll also need to download drivers for other core components—your video card, network adapters and sound—plus peripherals like webcams and printers.
If you need help identifying anything, Free PC Audit lists your hardware by name and manufacturer under System, although no actual driver information is supplied here. Instead, right-click the Start button and choose Device Manager to work through each piece of hardware— focus on the Driver tab, where you’ll get driver manufacturer and driver version number. If it’s supplied by Microsoft, then this will be installed with Windows 11, and updates will be supplied through Windows Update, but if you want to push the performance envelope, see if the hardware manufacturer supplies its own dedicated drivers.
Create a Drivers folder inside your Windows 11 reinstall folder and store all your downloads here, ready for quick deployment after you reinstall.
FINAL CHECKS
Before taking the plunge, now is the time to separate your data— typically residing in your personal User folders—from your Windows system drive. Ideally, you’ll have another drive— say, a fast 512GB or 1TB SATA SSD—lined up for the role ( 512GB SSDs can be purchased for under $30 these days), but if it’s not practical—you have a laptop, for example, and your system drive is at least 512GB in size, then you can always partition it in two following the advice in the box.
Next, it’s time to move your user folders to the new drive. Rather than do this using simple drag and drop, open File Explorer and navigate to your Home directory. Right-click the Documents folder under Quick Access and choose the
Properties > Location tab. Click Move… to choose a suitable location on your data drive or partition (say, D:\
Note: moving your data to another drive protects it from data loss should something happen to your Windows installation going forward, but the data itself remains vulnerable—use Hasleo’s file backup tool to create a regular back up of these folders to your backup drive, too.
Next, dig out a USB flash drive—at least 8GB in size—and download the latest version of the Media Creation Tool for Windows 10 (https://go.microsoft. com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209) or Windows 11 Installation Assistant
(https://go.microsoft.com/ fwlink/?linkid=2171764) and use it to create bootable installation media. If you want to reinstall from DVD, visit www. microsoft. com/ software- download/ windows11 to download the ISO file, which can also be used in conjunction with a Ventoy USB disk (just copy the ISO file across).
You’ve backed up your application settings, downloaded hardware drivers and program installers, made a note of product keys (and deactivated software that requires reactivation), ensured your data is moved to a different drive to Windows itself, created Windows installation media and taken one final drive image of your entire system drive— just in case (if you’ve not already verified it, do so now). Take a deep breath—it’s time to reinstall.
REINSTALL WINDOWS
Although the following steps are written for the latest version of Windows 11 (22H2 release), they should work with minimal changes in Windows 10, too. First, insert your boot media, then open Settings and navigate to System > Recovery and click ‘Restart now’ next to ‘Advanced startup’. After rebooting to the Windows boot menu, select ‘Use a device’ followed by your boot media. If prompted, press any key to boot from CD or DVD.
The Windows setup process is straightforward—start by verifying your language, currency and keyboard formats and click Next followed by ‘Install Now’. You’ll be prompted to enter a product key—assuming you have a digital license,
simply click ‘I don’t have a product key’ to skip this step. Next, you’ll need to select your Windows 11 edition—typically Home or Pro.
Agree to the license terms, then choose the Customized version to install a fresh copy of Windows from scratch. The next step is the trickiest of the entire reinstall process—you need to identify your Windows system partition, which could be complicated if you have multiple internal drives fitted. Use the ‘Total size’ and ‘Free space’ indicators to identify it, but if in any doubt, cancel the process, boot back into Windows to identify the correct drive before returning to this step.
The reason why it’s critical to identify the right drive is apparent the moment you select it and choose Format to wipe it clean. Make a note of the warning, then click OK. Once the format is complete, click Next. Now it’s just a case of sitting back and waiting for Windows to install itself—a remarkably quick process these days, particularly on NVMe drives.
SET UP WINDOWS 11 AFRESH
If you’ve not reinstalled Windows for a while, the post-install process is, shall we say, different, even compared to Windows 10. After your first reboot, you’ll be asked to confirm your country and keyboard layout method, then click Skip unless you want to add a second keyboard. Finally, wait for Windows to prompt you to name your PC (for identifying over the network) to complete the first part of the post-setup.
After another reboot, you’ll be prompted to sign into your Microsoft account, which will handle the reactivation
process quietly behind the scenes, as well as giving you access to select settings synced from your previous installation, such as your choice of desktop wallpaper. If you’ve not disabled OneDrive, you should be given an option to sync certain Windows settings as well as OneDrive files and apps you’ve installed through the Store. Make a careful note of the PC name and sync date—if you have multiple Windows devices or don’t want to bring over your previously installed apps, click ‘View more options’ to choose ‘Set up as new device’ or select a different backup.
You’ll next be prompted to simplify the login process—if Windows detects a suitable device (webcam or fingerprint reader), you’ll be invited to set that up, otherwise you’ll be given the option of choosing a PIN.
The next few steps require you to pause for a moment—Microsoft is going to bombard you with options designed to loosen your privacy settings—some, like location settings, are more useful than others, like setting an advertising ID to make it easier for advertisers to track you. There’s also a whole section on Microsoft ‘experiences’, involving personalized tips, recommendations and—you guessed it— ads. Thankfully, you can skip this and set up a connection between your Android phone and your PC if you wish.
Next, you’ll be invited to link your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders to OneDrive, so they’re constantly being backed up—if this doesn’t fit in with your workflow, simply click ‘Only save files to this PC’ (but note OneDrive will still be installed and running after reinstall completes). Microsoft will then attempt to get you to sign up to its PC Game Pass— again ‘Skip for now’ is available.
That’s job (finally) done—Microsoft will then spend a few minutes tuning your system and getting it set up, then you’ll find yourself with a very clean and uncluttered desktop.
GET
SET
UP (AGAIN)
Now the task of putting everything back to together begins. Start by mapping your user folders to their new home: open File Explorer, right-click
your Documents folder and choose Properties > Location tab, then repeat the steps you did prior to reinstalling Windows to link each folder to the drive where you moved them.
Next, reinstall your drive imaging tool to take your first post-reinstall backup. This means that if anything goes wrong with your restoration, you can simply roll back and start again from here instead of having to go through the whole reinstall process again. Don’t forget to verify your backup before proceeding further.
Next, take a trip to Windows Update and bring your PC bang up to date—you may need to run it a couple of times (with at least one reboot) before everything is in place, and don’t forget to check under ‘Advanced Options > Optional Updates’ to see if any additional drivers are waiting.
Speaking of drivers, once your PC is up to date, go to Device Manager—you’ll see that while most (if not all) your hardware has been recognized, the drivers are all quite old, including your graphics card. So now’s the time to install all those drivers you collected earlier to ensure your PC is running as fast as it can.
RESTORE YOUR APPS
Here’s a good time to take another drive image—if you are running Hasleo Backup Suite Free, click Actions next to your current backup and choose Backup > Incremental to minimize the new backup size ( and time—it’ll complete in just a few minutes). Again, don’t forget to verify it before proceeding.
Now begins the task of restoring your apps and their settings. Start with the essentials: your security software, office suite, and other tools you find yourself using on a daily basis. After installation, let them run at least once to create the required folders, then look to restore your backed up settings— either through the app itself, or by manually copying files back to their original locations.
If you backed up using CloneApp, you can either relaunch the app and choose Restore, which should ask you to confirm the backup by date before you click Yes. Note that this will restore all settings you previously backed up, so it’s worth leaving until all the relevant apps have been reinstalled (or you can manually browse the backup folder and restore files and Registry entries separately). Also, don’t forget to restore any saved games using Game Save Manager.
Congratulations—Windows has been reinstalled and your system is up, running and much faster than it was before. Over the next few weeks you’ll find yourself restoring other apps and settings as you need them, but the main job is done. All
that’s left to do is set up two scheduled backup jobs in Hasleo—one system to cover your Windows partition, and either a partition- or file-based backup to cover your data drive—and you’re good to go. Until the next reinstall…