14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is making it extremely easy for customers that performed a custom installation of Windows 7 to restore their personal files from the previous Windows client.
The Redmond company has been offering a Knowledge Base article describing the process for quite some time now, but the resource was also updated with a Fix It solution.
By leveraging the Fix It tool, users will be able to automatically restore personal files after a custom installation of Windows 7. According to the software giant, the solution will also work in the case of Vista custom deployments.
“In some scenarios, you may be unable to perform an upgrade from an earlier version of Windows. If you cannot upgrade, you may have to perform a custom installation,” Microsoft explained.
“When you perform a custom installation of Windows Vista or of Windows 7, Windows creates a Windows.old folder that contains the files from your previous system. You may want to recover your personal files from the Windows.old folder, and move them to the custom installation of Windows.”
All that users need to do is click the Fix It button/link in the KB 932912 article or here, download the file, run it locally on their machine and follow the Wizard’s instructions.
Microsoft informs that customers can also manually restore their personal files, and provides detailed step-by-step guidance.
At the same time, the software giant underlines that:
“The Windows.old folder that contains the files from your previous system should exist on the computer.
“You may receive some error messages in the command prompt when you run the package. You can ignore the error messages.
“This wizard may be in English only. However, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.
“If you are not on the computer that has the problem, save the Fix it solution to a flash drive or a CD, and then run it on the computer that has the problem.”