I need to do a fresh install of Windows on a home PC. I would like to keep the process as simple as possible. The machine it's going on is actually new and not full of old crap, in an ideal world I would just like to take a complete mirror of what's on there now, do a fresh Windows install and copy everything back over.

I realise I've got to re-install all the programmes I'm running, but is there a simple way to back everything else up to an externall HDD drive, including all my favourites, saved passwords etc? So I don't miss anything? I'm not running any email on this machine, so I don't have to worry about that.

Any good bits of software that will do it painlessly for me ?

Is it windows 7? If it is just use window easy transfer within accesories/system tools, in xp there was a files & settings transfer wizard, guesing there is something similar in vista.

Worth a look

Cheers

Rich

[Edited on 27/5/10 by RichardK]

If you want a complete mirror of the system I'd always recommend Acronis.

But, it sounds like you actually want to selectively restore bits rather than the whole system. TBH, I'd just use the built in Windows backup thing for that.

OR, make a virtual machine image of the machine, resinstall windows, download the free version of VMWare, then you can have your 'old' PC running as a virtual machine when needed and copy the bits over as/when you spot you're missing them.

Chris

As already said, Win7 has the transfer thingy to replace MOST of your stuff and will list anything it is not able to transfer.

I tend to do a fresh install about once a year as it cleans a lot of crap out of the system and you get a chance to leave the unnecessary stuff out, therefore speeding up the 'puter quite a bit.

It's running & already, so I'll use the onboard back up.

Cheers chaps