It still is.
My "Data" directory (the one Windows calls "Documents" points to Z:\Data, Z being a mapped network drive on my file server (just finished moving it all around, just one restore to go).
As long as I remember to save my bookmarks in Brave there's nothing there that I would miss (I think!!).
Don't forget to allow for the time of reinstalling everything. My wife's computer has been replaced a couple of times, and I'd reckon
12-18 hours to rebuild as it was.And there's not anything particularly special installed, and all actual data lives on our house server. But there's one hell of a lot in the Registry after a full installation of applications is completed, and it all has to be put back brick by brick on a clean install.
An occasional Windows image backup, such as after a significant software installation, will save a lot of time after a drive failure. I wouldn't try using it to clone to another machine, though, even of the 'same' model.
Yes, but generally with different results. Human error will lose the odd few files and/or directories of user data, drive failure will probably wipe everything, or at the very least render the operating system untrustworthy and require immediate replacement of the drive.
You need different types of backups to deal most efficiently with each failure mode.
You shouldn't need to backup the OS. If it gets corrupted or the drive it's on dies then you simply get a new drive and re-install.
You *do* need to backup the configuration but that should be held in a well defined, small, area and is thus easy to backup.
After my recent re-shuffle I have reinstalled Win10 several times. My machines are set up for easy reinstall as when I was an MSDN subscriber I would reinstall every three months. Any CD/DVD I need has been extracted to an iso and mounted using PowerISO when needed. Many apps don't need to be installed they just work so they are on my D drive and available for use as soon as the OS is installed. I usually have the laptop on my lap and carry out program installation using RDP while I am desperately trying to find something worth watching on TV!
Yes, I use Acronis for that - and keeping the OS on its own drive makes it easy.
This is where a tool like puppet fits in. It preserves the state of the system (meaning it will rectify borked settings back to their last known configuration) and built a node from scratch if needs be.
Then just plug in your database backup (or whatever) and off you go.
Not really a DIY solution, but when you have over 100 servers ...
When I get a new Mac I just fire up Migration Assistant and point it at the old one. An hour or so later I can wipe the old one, end of.
Of cpourse. Apple has to make it dead easy to replace computers every time they refuse to support them any longer. Is that down to a year now?
New Windows versions always support old software (backward compatible). Not in the case of Apple. If you use a Mac, you can pretty well kiss your current software goodbye when you upgrade to a new OS.
But not hardware. I had to chcuk a perfectly good scanner when Win7 turned up
My iPad had had a number of OS updates in the 10 years that I've had it.
The link, like this thread, is typical of what you get when this subject is discussed - with every scenario someone pops up with a what if ......
That's the objective surely? Draw on people's experience and try and summarise it (that will be hard work). Not every possible solution will suit everybody.
Don't be soppy. This Mini is 5 years old, and the server here is 9 years old. SWMBO's is only 3 years old but that replaced a 10 year old Mini. None of those we have now is anywhere near EOL.
I bought the server Mini back in 2015 or so as the low-end model with 4gig and a a 500G hard drive. I recently sent it off to friend Jon at Bramley Computers to have the hard drive replaced by a 1TB SSD. That now has two partitions, one with the OS, the other with our file system. There are two Crucial X8 plugged in for Time Machine backup. It's a simple and quiet solution to having a file server, and I can use Screen Sharing to keep tabs on it.
This, of course, is total garbage.
You dont remember the power PC to intel transition?
The PowerPC to Intel transition, like the 68k to PowerPC transition, and now the Intel to ARM transition, was largely transparent. SWMBO and I, f'rinstance, both have copies of Office 2016, which I run on my Intel Mini, and she runs on her ARM-M1 Mini. We both also have Lightroom 5, same outcome. She, being interested in family history, is running a 2015 version (thus Intel) of Heredis. All without issue or loss or performance.
For the record I bought Tim's old 2011 Mini, which is now happily running Monterey via the OCLP third party patcher. It was less happy running Ventura (it worked, but wifi was very slow), and will no doubt be even less happy running Sonoma, but Monterey is still supported - so with a little bit of third party help it is running a still supported OS.
The M1/M2 Minis are excellent for that - the RAM and storage aren't upgradeable, but you can plug in external drives. Super low power consumption, which is excellent for a fileserver. There are a lot cheaper options if that's all you want (RPi 5 looks good), but it's nice that the machine can be both a 24/7 fileserver and a desktop machine when you want to use it that way.
Theo
VurtualBox is pretty good at running old versions of Windows with access to USB devices plugged into your machine.
Yes. I run VB to give me VMs of Win7, Win10, and Mint 20. Seems quite solid for that and useful for software testing. Ultimately it's necessary to test on real hardware, as I found when I tested my email client under Win11. Everything was fine until I put that actual machine to sleep. When I woke it up again it had arbitrarily closed a network socket the app was using. Couldn't test that in a VM, unfortunately.
Win7 doesn't actually look too bad as an OS, compared to its successors.
If you were complaining that they issue new OS versions every year, I'd agree with that. But then I'm not obliged to install them, and in fact I don't. You might also complain that OS versions after Mojave don't support 32-bit apps any longer, but I can't get excited about that.
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