Way to restore apps and/or start menu after clean install?

[kwill]

Is there really no way to restore your start menu or at least your currently installed apps should you choose to do a clean install? I'm having a few problems (one where apps wont pin to start screen while I have 3 columns of tiles) and want to do a clean install to hopefully clear it up. But, don't want to go back through installing every app I have installed manually and completely redoing my start menu.

 

[hprvez]

The only way is to restore the backup when you sign in with your Microsoft account

 

[kwill]

But, do you get that option if you choose to completely wipe and reinstall on Windows 10 since there's no option to backup at all on Windows 10 while you're already running it?

 

[kwill]

95 views and no one has actually did a full reset of their PC while on Windows 10 to see if you're actually offered the option to restore from a backup? I do see that my last backup is from 6/22 which is when I was on 8.1. That alone leads me to believe I won't get the option to restore if I do a reset on Windows 10.

 

[BryceMD]

As far as I can tell Win 10 no longer backs up to OneDrive. Well, Win10 Mobile does, but PC doesn't seem to anymore. So, I doubt there would be a restore backup option after doing a reset.

Some settings, like desktop wallpaper, do seem to get stored somewhere and they do sync up... but apps definitely don't get reinstalled after a reset.

 

[Arsynic]

If you sync your settings to One Drive you can at least restore settings and installed apps, but I don't think it will restore your start screen layout though.

 

[BryceMD]

Syncing settings won't restore apps. There is very few things syncing settings actually syncs, pretty much just theme and browser settings/passwords. It is not a managed backup that actually shows up in your OneDrive backups like it used to.

 

[kwill]

Awesome! Thanks for the replies folks!

Guess I'll just deal with the few minor bugs until RTM ​comes out. Hopefully they'll put the backup functionality back in for the actual release version. Then I'll do a clean install from there. Can't believe that they haven't at least been allowing the functionality to be tested throughout the preview releases though (if they plan to include it in Windows 10).

 

[michail71]

RTM is already out but things will still evolve.