The second is that recovery images can be corrupted or deleted, leaving the user with less options for recovery. And with many notebooks now employing small capacity solid-state disks (SSD), every GB that can be saved is a bonus. Recovery images, even when compressed, use a considerable amount of disk space. There are a couple of issues with this approach. A ‘push-button’ reset feature that makes it easy for users without any technical experience to restore Windows to a working state, Windows 8 used a recovery image, usually provided by the device manufacturer, to recover the operating system. Also included, although hidden in the legacy Control Panel, are the Windows 7 backup and restore features, which include simple file backup and restore, and the ability to create full-disk system images. You can also use System Restore on Windows 10 to go back to a previous restore point. You can also go back to a previous version of Windows 10 for a limited period of time after upgrading to a new feature update. There’s Reset this PC, with options to keep user data and settings, or remove everything. The recovery options in Windows 10 give users several different alternatives to restore Windows to an operational state in the event of a problem. In this article, I dig deeper into how Reset this PC works. Windows 10 Reset this PC makes push-button restores a reality for end users with no technical skills but it’s not always clear what gets restored.

Legacy backup tools may not have been designed for push-button resets, but system administrators knew exactly how they worked and what would be restored.

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