William

Can this procedure be done with an external hard drive also?


"Gene Fitz" <GeneFitz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:66C480C0-88B9-48C0-AC26-870A0D6EE74D@microsoft.com...
> Well, Julie, when you format your computer, you wipe out all the stored
> information on it. Thus, your computer is freshly loaded. At that point,
> it
> doesn't know whether you have activated or not..
> But here is a little secret for ya.
>
> 1. Get yourself a small hard drive, doesn't need to be more than about 20
> Gigs.
>
> 2. After you set Vista up and get it just how you like it, goto Start >
> All
> Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Status and Configuration.
>
> 3. Choose the Complete PC Backup option.
>
> 4. When you are there, click the text that says "Create Backup Now." You
> will be prompted by a UAC message, Click to continue.
>
> When the window comes up, asking you where to place your new backup, point
> it to your extra (small) hard drive. then Click next.
>
> What this will do is back up your computer's configuration, EXACTLY as it
> sits, to a file on that hard drive that is protected, even from you.
> Moreover, it is saved as activated, so when you format and restore that
> back-up, it is already activated, drivers are already installed,
> anti-virus
> and everything is already running, you will have no problems.
>
> Now, to restore from that back-up, you put your Windows disk in, and
> instead
> of choosing to install, you want to choose the "fix" option. When the
> prompt
> comes up, you choose Complete PC Backup and restore from that backup.
>
> Something else that does, is enable you to play around a little. If you
> screw it up, you can always restore from that backup. And using this
> system,
> it will automatically format, re-install, and set everything up, exactly
> as
> it was when you created the backup. And this way only takes about 20
> minutes
> from disk insert to up and running happy vista.
>
> Hope this helps :-)
>
>