Windows 8: Recovery, Reset, Restore

[Hauskaz]

www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-8-win8-recovery-reset-restore,10794.html

We all know about "Windows rot," where the operating system slowly degenerates to a slow, sluggish state after numerous installs, uninstalls, and other things that a system accumulates over time.

Those of us who perform good housekeeping practices on our computers keep our Windows installs running better, longer, but that's not the case for everyone. The action of a fresh format and/or reinstall can make things feel new again, even on old hardware. And now it seems that Microsoft could be building a reinstall feature into Windows 8.

As seen in some of the leaked presentation slides, Microsoft could have a recovery option to "reset Windows" while retaining all personal files and user accounts. One of the presentation images shows the option of reinstalling all of the app purchases from the Microsoft App Store. Interesting stuff.

If this comes to fruition, it will basically flip the whole reformat cycle of the past 10 years on its head. Fuck.

[solocityElectricCyan]

lol

[solocityElectricCyan]

why relaunch the app store?

[Hauskaz]

Windows 8 is going to adopt an app store model for dumb people. If you reset Windows you can easily replace all your downloads from it.

[solocityElectricCyan]

lol App Store.

[Hauskaz]

Yeah. It could either become really handy and useful like the package/RPM model various Linux distros use, or it could become mandatory and horrible like the iOS App Store. I hope to god they adopt the Linux model. MSI packages have already existed for a while; they should be reworked and integrated into a repository system. The death of installers would be excellent.