How to Enable System Restore (and Repair System Problems) on Windows 10 | Dramel Notes

With Windows 10, Microsoft seems to have disabled System Restore by default — at least on some PCs. System Restore has been around since Windows ME, creating snapshots of system files you can restore if a problem occurs.

Windows 10 still does contain System Restore, so you can re-enable it if you feel more comfortable with System Restore as a safety net. Windows 10 also offers other system-recovery features, helping lessen the need for System Restore.

Why Did Microsoft Disable System Restore?

Microsoft hasn’t really explained why it’s not enabling System Restore by default. However, we do have some idea. System Restore can use quite a bit of disk space when it creates those snapshots, and Microsoft is trying to get Windows 10’s disk space requirements down. Microsoft wants Windows 10 to run on devices with as little as 16 GB of internal storage — all the better to compete with Chromebooks and cheap Android tablets.

System Restore is also less necessary thanks to other features in Windows 10 that can quickly get your Windows system back to a fresh state without a full reinstallation of Windows. Windows 10’s PC reset feature that will give you a fresh Windows system without necessarily wiping your files is one big help here.

How to Re-Enable System Restore

You can re-enable System Restore from the Control Panel. It will use some system storage space for its snapshots, so you probably won’t want to do this on inexpensive laptops and tablets with only a small amount of storage space. If you have a big hard drive in your PC, however, it won’t be a big deal.

Bear in mind that it’s disabled by default, so it hasn’t been creating snapshots. If you’re experiencing a system problem, re-enabling System Restore won’t help because you won’t have any old snapshots to restore. When you re-enable it, it will create a new snapshot — of your current system in its damaged state, if it’s damaged. If you want to enable and rely on System Restore, this must be done preemptively, before you have a problem.

This option is only available in the Control Panel, not the new Settings app. The quickest way to access System Restore settings will be to open the Start menu or Start screen, type “Restore” to search for it, and click the “Create a restore point” shortcut. You can also open the Control Panel, navigate to “System”, and click the “System Protection” link in the sidebar.

Open this window and you’ll see that system protection is “Off” for your Windows 10 system drive and the other drives in your computer. Select your system drive and click the “Configure” button if you want to enable it.

Click the “Turn on system protection” option and choose how much disk space you want to reserve for your restore points. The less space you provide, the fewer restore points System Restore will be able to kepe at once. Click “OK” and System Restore will be enabled.

To use System Restore in the future, just go back to the same “System Protection” panel you used above. Click the “System Restore” button — now no longer grayed out, assuming you enabled System Restore — and you can use System Restore to go back to a previous restore point.

If Windows isn’t normally bootable, you can also boot into Safe Mode and run System Restore, or launch System Restore from the “advanced startup options” recovery environment.

Other Ways to Fix System Problems

If you wanted to use System Restore to fix a problem but found out it’s been disabled all along, you’ll have to fix whatever system problem you’re encountering in another way.

If the problem was caused by a recent update, you can look at uninstalling that Windows Update or reverting to a previous “build” of Windows 10. This should fix problems that might occur due to Windows Update and issues with your specific hardware and software.

If your system files are corrupted, you can try using the SFC — system file check — command to scan your system files for problems and automatically repair them.

If you installed a program or hardware driver and the problem started after that, you can visit the Control Panel and uninstall that program or hardware driver.

If Windows isn’t booting properly so you can’t do any of this, you can boot into Safe Mode. You can also visit the “advanced startup options” screen — these will automatically appear if Windows 10 can’t boot normally — and use the options there.

There are many other ways to troubleshoot and fix a Windows 10 system. However, the one surefire solution will be to use the “Reset this PC” tool in the Settings app. This will wipe your Windows 10 system and restore it to factory-default settings. You’ll have to reinstall your software and reconfigure Windows afterwards. However, your personal files will be kept and won’t be erased. Whatever system problem you’re having, this will restore all your Windows 10 system files to their default state.

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System Restore has always been a bit of a shotgun approach, just rolling back an entire system rather than fixing whatever that individual problem was. It used a bit of disk space, too.

Having it disabled by default is certainly a loss that makes tech support harder to perform. It used to be enabled by default and was a quick thing to try whenever a Windows PC isn’t working properly. Now, you just might have to use the “reset” feature instead.

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How to Rename Any Computer, Smartphone, or Tablet | Dramel Notes

It’s a good idea to give each of the devices you use a meaningful name. This is especially important on Windows 10, as Microsoft has removed the computer name option from the first-time setup process. Windows 10 PCs will just receive random, meaningless names by default.

On a network, this “hostname” identifies the device on your router’s status pages and when browsing shared files. Such names are also used in “find my device” interfaces and anywhere else the device needs to be identified.

Windows 10

Microsoft simplified the setup process in Windows 10. Windows will no longer ask you to enter a name for your PC when you set it up, which means that your Windows 10 PC probably has a meaningless, confusing name.

To provide a name, open the “Settings” app from the Start menu or Start screen, select the “System” category, and select “About” at the bottom of the list. Click or tap the “Rename PC” button and provide a new name for your PC. Your change will take effect after a reboot.

Windows 7, 8, and 8.1

On previous versions of Windows — or even Windows 10 — you can open the Control Panel, click “System and Security”, and click “System”. Click the “Advanced system settings” link in the sidebar, click the “Computer Name” tab at the top of the System Properties window, and click the “Change” button to the right of “To rename this computer, click Change”. Type a new name into the “Computer name” box and click “OK” to rename your computer.

Mac

On a Mac, this option is in the System Preferences window. To access it, click the Apple menu on the menu bar at the top of your screen and select “System Preferences”. Click the “Sharing” icon in the system preferences window, and enter a new name for your Mac in the “Computer Name” field at the top of the window.

iPhone and iPad

This option is available on the “About” screen on Apple’s iOS, used on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. To find it, open the “Settings” app from your home screen, tap the “General” category, and tap “About”.

Tap the “Name” field at the top of the About screen and you’ll be able to enter a new name.

Android

For whatever reason, Google doesn’t offer this option on an Android device. If you’re setting up a Wi-Fi hotspot from your Android phone or tablet, you can change the name of that Wi-Fi hotspot in the hotspot settings — but that’s it.

There’s no way to change the device’s name so it’s identified by that particular name on your network. The only way you can do this is to root your Android device and search for an app that can change the “hostname”. You can still use the device’s MAC address to uniquely identify it, at least.

You can rename your Android device in Google Play to make it more distinct when installing apps via Google Play and tracking your lost device, however. Head to play.google.com/settings, or visit the Google Play Store website, click the gear icon, and select “Settings” to access this page. Click the “Edit” button and enter a new name for your device.

Chromebooks

Like Android, Chrome OS is also made by Google. So it should be no surprise that Google hasn’t provided a way to change your Chromebook’s name, either. As with Android devices, you can use the MAC address to uniquely identify a Chromebook on your router’s settings page, if you need to.

Chrome OS is just Linux underneath it all, however. If you put your Chromebook into developer mode — for example, you have to do this to install a Linux desktop alongside Chrome OS — you’ll then have write access to the system configuration files and can change your Chromebook’s name.

Linux

Different Linux distributions handle this in different ways. You can generally change your hostname just by running the “hostname” command as root, but it’ll be reset when you restart your PC. Different Linux distributions define the hostname in different configuration files. For example, on Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions, you’ll need to edit the /etc/hostname file.

If you’re using another Linux distribution, perform a web search for something like “change hostname on [name of Linux distribution]”.

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Other devices will have hostnames, too. They may or may not provide a way to change their names, but you’ll often find this option on an “About” screen or somewhere else in their settings if they do.

Image Credit: miniyo73 on Flickr

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How to Combine Multiple Partitions Into a Single Partition | Dramel Notes

Some manufacturers ship PCs with their internal drives divided into multiple partitions — one for the Windows operating system, and an empty “data” partition for your personal files. You can combine these partitions into a single one, if you prefer.

This trick can also be used to remove recovery partitions, freeing up space that would normally be used for recovery data. Or, if you set up a PC with multiple partitions, you can undo all that.

Why Do Some PCs Ship With Multiple Partitions, Anyway?

Some PC manufacturers seem to think that devoting one partition to the operating system and another to data will provide a clean separation of the two, allowing you to wipe your operating system and reinstall it while keeping your data in a separate area.

This may be convenient for some people, but it often isn’t necessary. Windows 10’s “Reset this PC” feature will reset Windows to its default settings without erasing your personal data, even if both are on the same partition. This divides the space on your hard drive into two chunks, and you might fill up one of the partitions and not have space for programs on your system partition or data files on your data partition after you do.

Rather than live with the drive setup your manufacturer chose, you can change it yourself. It’s quick, easy, and should be fairly safe. You can do it all from within Windows, too.

Note that some PCs actually have multiple hard drives in them. If they do, you won’t normally be able to combine these multiple drives into a single partition without some more advanced tricks.

Delete One Partition and Expand the Other

We’ll start first by deleting one of the partitions. If you have a new PC with one partition containing your system files and an empty partition labelled “DATA” or something similar, we’ll be erasing the empty partition.

If you have data files on that partition already, you should move them from the data partition you’ll be deleting to your system partition you want to keep. If there isn’t room, you can temporarily move the files to an external hard drive or USB flash drive. Just get those files off the partition as they’ll be lost when you delete the partition.

When you’re ready, open the Disk Management utility. On Windows 10 or 8.1, right-click the Start button and select “Disk Management.” On Windows 7, press Windows Key + R, type “diskmgmt.msc” into the Run dialog, and press Enter.

Locate the two partitions you want to combine. In the example below, we’ll be combining the OS (C:) partition with the DATA (D:) partition.

These two partitions must be on the same drive. If they’re on different drives, this won’t work. They’ll also need to be adjacent to each other on the drive, or else you’ll need to do a bit more work.

Remove the second partition by right-clicking it here and selecting “Delete Volume”. Remember: You’ll lose all the files on the partition when you do this!

Next, right-click the remaining partition you want to enlarge and click the “Enlarge Volume” option.

ClIck through the wizard and accept the default options to enlarge the partition to the maximum amount of available space. It’ll expand into the free space left behind after the adjacent partition was deleted.

It’s that simple, and the change will be instant and happen without a reboot. The second partition is gone, and the first partition now contains all the storage space previously allocated to the second one.

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You can’t create a partition that expands across several drives. However, the Storage Spaces feature added in Windows 8 will allow you to combine multiple physical hard drives into a single logical drive.

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How to Upgrade From Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Professional | Dramel Notes

Most new PCs come with Windows 10 Home, but you can pay for an upgrade from within Windows 10 to upgrade from Home to Pro. If you upgraded from the Professional editions of Windows 7 or 8.1, you already have Windows 10 Professional.

If you decide to upgrade to the Professional edition of Windows 10, you’ll get BitLocker drive encryption, integrated Hyper-V virtualization, a built-in remote desktop server, and other business-targeted features like domain join.

How Much Does The Upgrade Cost, and How Does It Work?

This upgrade costs $99.99 in the USA. Microsoft sets other prices in the rest of the world, but the price should be comparable.

You can buy the upgrade right from the Windows Store, like you’d buy an app, music, or a movie. After you do, Windows 10 will be automatically upgraded to the Professional edition and the Professional-only features will be enabled.

The upgrade will be licensed only to a single PC. So, if you purchased a retail Windows 10 Home license and you purchase a Windows 10 Pro upgrade, that upgrade will only work on a single computer. While you’re entitled to move the original Windows 10 Home license to another computer, that Windows 10 Pro upgrade won’t follow you to another PC.

If you’re buying your own Windows 10 license to build your own PC instead of buying a PC that comes with Windows 10, it’s more cost-effective to just purchase Windows 10 Professional upfront. Microsoft sells Windows 10 Home for $119 and Windows 10 Professional for $200. Buying Windows 10 Home and then upgrading it to the Professional edition will cost you a total of $220, and you won’t be able to move the Professional upgrade part of that to another PC. None if this matters if you just purchased a PC with Windows 10 Home included, of course.

Note that you can’t upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Enterprise — that will require a complete reinstallation with an Enterprise product key. There’s also no Ultimate edition of Windows 10 with the Enterprise features available for Home users as there was with Windows 7 and Vista.

How to Upgrade From Windows 10 Home to Pro

You’ll need to start the upgrade from the Settings app. To open it, open the Start menu or Start screen and select “Settings”.

Select “Update & security”, and then select “Activation”. You’ll see the edition of Windows 10 you have displayed here.

To upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Professional, click or tap the “Go to Store” button in the Activation pane.

The Windows Store app will open to a special “Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro” screen. From here, you can click or tap the “$99.99” button to purchase the Windows 10 Professional upgrade form the Store like you’d purchase anything else from the Store. You’ll have to provide your Microsoft account information and payment details.

If you have a Windows 10 Pro product key, you can select the “I have a Windows 10 Pro product key” and enter the product key to upgrade.

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These features aren’t really necessary for most people. Even features like Hyper-V virtualization and remote desktop can be replaced with third-party virtualization and remote-desktop-access tools. If you don’t need business features like the ability to join a domain, the most compelling feature restricted to Professional editions of Windows 10 remains BitLocker drive encryption.

Image Credit: DobaKung on Flickr

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