Create a system image in Windows 8
- by Greg Low
One of the things that I've just come to accept is that the designers of Windows 8 and I think very differently.It'll take a long time to convince me that shutting down the computer is a "setting". Even after using Windows 8 for quite a while now, I still find that I struggle nearly every day, just trying to do things that I previously knew how to do. That's just not a good thing.Today I decided to create a system image as I hadn't made one lately. I started in Control Panel looking for Backup options. That yielded nothing except programs that wanted to "Save backup copies of my files with file history". I thought "oh well, let's just try the new search options". I hit the Windows key and typed "Backup". No, nothing came up there either.I searched again all over the Control Panel options to no avail.So it was time to hit Google again. Once again, clearly lots of people used to know how to do this and have been trying to work out where this option went.The first trick is that there are a bunch of Control Panel options that don't appear in the Control Panel. In the address bar at the top, if you click on Control Panel, you'll find there is an option that says "All Control Panel Options". That is curious given that's where I thought I was when I opened Control Panel. No hint is given on that screen that there are a bunch of hidden options. None the less, I then checked out "all" the options.The option that you need to create a system image in Windows 8 turns out to be the "Windows 7 File Recovery" option that appears in this extended list. Why does it say "Windows 7" when it's for "Windows 8" as well and I'm running "Windows 8"? Why do I have to choose an option that says "File Recovery" to create a system image backup?<sigh>But at least I've recorded it here for the next time I forget where to find it.
