Day 4 – Refresh your Windows 8 PC, be careful, refresh will uninstall programs

Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet
3/15/2013

Welcome to Day 4 of working with a Microsoft Surface Pro Windows 8 tablet for educators.

Another thing that I learned as part of my trouble-shooting the past couple of days is that there is a feature in Windows 8 called “Refresh your PC without affecting your files” and you must be logged in as an Administrator to use. Since I was having some difficulties I decided to give it a try. Sounds like something that might help an ailing PC.

It worked but what I was not expecting (although I should have known) was that the “Refresh” also removed all of the installed programs that did not come with the Surface Pro. Since I was just starting there were not that many but still it caught me by surprise. Now knowing this I will only use  “Refresh our PC” as a last resort.

Below is a screenshot after the refresh with a file that was posted on the Desktop after I did a refresh. It listed all of the “removed” programs after the refresh. For me this included the Office 2013 suite of programs, Audacity, Ink2Go, and the ScreenBeam wireless display program. Luckily I was just starting to use the Surface Pro and had not invested a lot of time installing apps.
 

Another lesson learned.

Until next time...

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, PhD

Follow me on Twitter @tomgrissom

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