Ok, this is a bit weird.
Backstory: My original RT got dropped and cracked the screen and ruined the digitizer, and I was able to get Microsoft to repair it (easier, cheaper than if I did it). It came back with WRT8.1 pre installed.
The problem I ran into is that since I got it back, my Surface RT has not really been running properly. Several apps would lock up or just die. Searching was problematic, general slowness, and not a good experience overall.
I've done several refreshes, trying to see if that was an issue. I even bailed on restoring my settings and set it up as a fresh "PC" with no improvement. I've even went as far as creating a recovery USB drive, and doing a boot from USB to refresh. Nope, still having issues.
In my archive of recovery ISO's I found a WRT8.1 ISO and decided to try it instead, and got to wondering if during the update process updated the recovery partition. Which I found out... yea... they do update and change the recovery partition with their updates.
What I've done is try to document the changes. After every major update I recreated a recovery USB drive and used ISO Creator from sourceforge to make new ISO's of the USB drive. This is what I found, just looking at the file sizes:
---------------------------
2,143,959,040 Surface RT 8.1 prior to update 1.iso
2,143,973,376 Surface RT 8.1 update 1.iso
2,146,762,752 Surface RT 8.1 Recovery.iso
3,102,603,264 Surface RT 8.1 from Microsoft.iso
---------------------------
The "from Microsoft" is what I got from my RT when it came back from Microsoft with a sticker of "Windows RT 8.1 installed", which is almost a whole gig larger from my archived copy of "Recovery", and as you can see "prior to update 1" is actually bigger than "update 1"
And what I've noticed so far from starting from "Recovery" and going to "prior to update 1" and eventually to "update 1" is that my Surface RT is running a whole lot better. Instead of "from Microsoft" on up with windows updates.
I just thought this as interesting, and thought to share.
P.S.
I really wish I could remember how/where I got "Surface RT 8.1 Recovery.iso" image. But it's defiantly a better image than what came back with my RT.
Backstory: My original RT got dropped and cracked the screen and ruined the digitizer, and I was able to get Microsoft to repair it (easier, cheaper than if I did it). It came back with WRT8.1 pre installed.
The problem I ran into is that since I got it back, my Surface RT has not really been running properly. Several apps would lock up or just die. Searching was problematic, general slowness, and not a good experience overall.
I've done several refreshes, trying to see if that was an issue. I even bailed on restoring my settings and set it up as a fresh "PC" with no improvement. I've even went as far as creating a recovery USB drive, and doing a boot from USB to refresh. Nope, still having issues.
In my archive of recovery ISO's I found a WRT8.1 ISO and decided to try it instead, and got to wondering if during the update process updated the recovery partition. Which I found out... yea... they do update and change the recovery partition with their updates.
What I've done is try to document the changes. After every major update I recreated a recovery USB drive and used ISO Creator from sourceforge to make new ISO's of the USB drive. This is what I found, just looking at the file sizes:
---------------------------
2,143,959,040 Surface RT 8.1 prior to update 1.iso
2,143,973,376 Surface RT 8.1 update 1.iso
2,146,762,752 Surface RT 8.1 Recovery.iso
3,102,603,264 Surface RT 8.1 from Microsoft.iso
---------------------------
The "from Microsoft" is what I got from my RT when it came back from Microsoft with a sticker of "Windows RT 8.1 installed", which is almost a whole gig larger from my archived copy of "Recovery", and as you can see "prior to update 1" is actually bigger than "update 1"
And what I've noticed so far from starting from "Recovery" and going to "prior to update 1" and eventually to "update 1" is that my Surface RT is running a whole lot better. Instead of "from Microsoft" on up with windows updates.
I just thought this as interesting, and thought to share.
P.S.
I really wish I could remember how/where I got "Surface RT 8.1 Recovery.iso" image. But it's defiantly a better image than what came back with my RT.
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