To create a system image on Windows 8.1

To create a system image on Windows 8.1

open the Control Panel, navigate to System and Security > File History, and click the System Image Backup link at the bottom-left corner of the window. On Windows 7, open the Control Panel, navigate to System and Security > Backup and Restore, and click the Create a system image option.

You can then restore these backup images using the Advanced Startup Options on Windows 8 or the System Recovery option on Windows 7. These can be accessed from a Windows installation disc or recovery drive.

On a Mac, you can use Time Machine create and restore system image backups. Time Machine backs up system files as well as your own files, and you can restore a Mac from a Time Machine backup from Recovery Mode. On a Linux PC, you can use the low-level dd utility to make an exact copy of a drive and restore it later.

Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost are popular third-party disk imaging tools you can use for this, too.

While developing Windows 8.1, Microsoft removed the “System Image Backup” option from the user interface and forced people to access it from a PowerShell window. After widespread complaints, Microsoft restored this option to the graphical interface.

Microsoft’s motive was pretty clear here — average PC users shouldn’t be distracted by system image backups and should just use a simple backup solution like File History. Microsoft eventually restored the graphical option to make people happy, which is fine — but they were right that most Windows users shouldn’t use it.

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