Even on the best systems every now and then something can go wrong with Windows, a virus or a bad driver can cause problems and the best way is to reset the system either with a clean install, OEM recovery options or restoring a backup. With Windows 8 Microsoft have a new push button reset feature that will reset Windows to a know state but retain some of your settings . On the Building Windows 8 blog Microsoft have details the feature and explained how it works:
Misconfigured settings are sometimes the cause of problems that lead to customers needing to refresh their PCs. To ensure that Refresh is both effective in fixing problems and in making sure customers don’t lose settings that they might have trouble reconfiguring, we’ve thought a great deal about which settings to preserve. In Windows 8 Beta, some of the settings we’ll preserve include:
Wireless network connections
Mobile broadband connections
BitLocker and BitLocker To Go settings
Drive letter assignments
Personalization settings such as lock screen background and desktop wallpaper
On the other hand, we deliberately chose not to preserve the following settings, as they can occasionally cause problems if misconfigured:
File type associations
Display settings
Windows Firewall settings
We will continue to enhance and tune both lists over time based on how we see the feature being used in the Developer Preview and Beta.
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