Windows 10 Discussion | Ontrack Blog

At the end of July, Windows 10 launched as an operating system upgrade in the market. All current Windows 7 and 8 users can use the new system for free at least for one year and Microsoft has added several new features and improvements over previous versions to entice users to make the change.

Updates - In with the… old?

Windows 10 returned to the old, familiar, Start Menu on the desktop. The trial of the hidden start menu proved to be too big of a change to be embraced at this time. Another drastic change that came with Windows 8 was the touch-based tileconcept. This concept has been minimized in Windows 10since many usersstill use a normal, non-touchscreen,displayanddo not require thistype of operation.

There are two prominent new additions with Windows 10.  The first being its personal digital assistant: Cortana. With her, it is possible to perform text- or voice-based searches in order to organize appointments, personal information, or to simply read aloud the weather. Closely interwoven with Cortana is the new web browser, Microsoft Edge, it is the first browser which supports the new audio format Dolby Advanced Audio and provides a new reading mode.

New operating system - new challenges for data recovery?

From a data recovery perspective, however, nothing much has changed from the previous operating systems. Windows 10 uses the default file system NTFS, as does Windows 8 and 8.1. Although a complete change to the new ReFS file system was rumored by professionals in recent months, the last technical build released by Microsoft resulted in no dramatic changes and Windows 10 continuing to use NTFS as the standard file system.

As with Windows 8.1, ReFS is only used in one place of the operating system: the so-called “Storage Space.” This technique allows multiple physical disks to combine into one logical drive. This concept has been transmitted from server technology to the desktop computer. Simply put, you can combine multiple existing hard drives of a computer to a connected storage pool. All hard drives connected in Storage Space are using the new file system, ReFS.

In the case of a data recovery, it all depends on what precisely failed on a Windows 10 computer and which data structures are affected. If it is a standard installation, the data recovery engineers have to work with, among other things, the NTFS structures. With a failed Windows 10 operating system with Storage Space enabled, they have to work with ReFS sometimes including NTFS file systems.

But no matter what file system - both require the detailed experience and know-how in restoring files or complete systems provided by a professional data recovery service Also with Windows 10, the rule is: Users should not attempt to restore data by themselves when the system goes on strike. The wrong technique could cause irreparable damaged to existing data. One should contact a professional data recovery service provider such as Ontrack.

Windows 10 Users – Let us know what you think!

Being it has been almost a month since Windows 10 has launched, I would love to get some honest reviews from the early-adopters out there. If you are currently running Windows 10, let me know what you think in the comments.