Dread doing a full reinstall?

[bapu]

Sparing you the gory details, I needed to do a full fresh reinstall since my Win 64 Pro OS simlply would not update to 22H2 (needed for Studio One V7).

I tried repairing Win 10, in place install of Win 10 (saveing files and apps) with no love.

So I did some research about my Acronis backups. As fate would have it, they really are only good for file recovery but not for apps recovery. Along the way I discovered a product called Zinstall.

Zinstall can ‘migrate’ a Win 10 install on one machine to a Win 10 or Win 11 on another machine. Zinstall Pro can do a deeper richer ‘backup’ of the source Win 10 install (which I did to my NAS) and then read that backup to any ‘new machine’.

Then I purchased a m.2 nvme 2tb drive, disconnected my Win10 c: drive and installed Win 10 (22H2 and updated it to all the latest patches etc.) to the m.2 drive.

I am in the process of migrating the Zinstall ‘backup’ to the m.2 drive.

Some numbers. My original SSD was a 2tb and it had just under 1tb of data.

The backup took 10 hours. As of right now the migration is about 35% complete and it’s been running for 5 hours. At that rate I’d expect it to be complete in another 8-10 hours. All completely unattended.

The last time I did a full fresh install and reinstalled all my apps, libraries and plugins it was over a two to three week period of a few hours of each week night and several hours each weekend day. Granted that required all my sample based products too (over 8tb at that time, today I have over 12tb on my samples drive).

I know it’s apples to oranges to compare but since my samples drives is still intact, after approx 24 hours of nearly unattended operation I should be back up on an even faster OS drive. Also I decided to upgrade my projects drive from a spinner to an m.2 drive (both are 4tb drives).

If it works, it will be the best $189 I’ve ever spent on my music making hobby.

If it fails to perform, I will be requesting my money back and at a minimum I will spend the next few weeks doing a traditional re-install and I may decide to start out on Win 11 at that time.

Fingers crossed.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

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[Kirean]

I dread doing this so much, especially with how goddamn varied the software activation bullcrap is with music plugins.

You also never know what triggers some plugins to think you’ve got a brand new machine even though you only added a hard drive or replaced a GPU.

Had an issue with Cubase 13 loading up today due to some plugin effing up so I’ve spent all day going through them.

Any developer that obscures the licence process should step on a lego. Just give me the chance to deactivate & activate, preferably without having to go through any weird hoops. And anyone who isn’t direct, clear and open about their customized house of activation horror up front, before a consumer buys your stuff, needs to stop doing business.

While I’m at it, a two other things I’ve come to hate a lot today:

• Random install locations for files. Allow me to choose where you place files. If you browse your system drive, you’ll find random files from the plugins everywhere. .
  (Today I noticed that Tracktion is especially bad. Some of their plugins put things in X while other plugin puts its things in Y and then you’ve also got some random stuff in Z.)
• Devs should name their VST-files better — Why is it so hard to name your files dev-pluginname.ext or heck, put them under a dev-subfolder inside the vst3 folder, since that seems like a supported feature.

And on that note. Codemeter can burn in hell.

Hope you succeed Bapu.

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[Old Joad]

That sucks big time..

[peter]

I moved this topic out of the Deals forum the Forum that handles computer-related issues, where people would be more apt to look for this kind of information. I created a new subforum: “Computer Optimization, OS’es, Software Issues & Solutions.” I originally had a Forum labeled “Computer and Mobile Devices” but deleted it to simplify things after receiving feedback that some community members felt overwhelmed by all of the empty forums when we first launched.

Best wishes, Ed. Keep us updated.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

1

[Anonymous]

To answer your question, I definitely don’t relish finishing a full reinstal.
It feels like a pain in the neck.
I hope everything is going well for you and that the safe OS migration process continues.
Personally, I might upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Windows 11 Pro.
I can therefore see why migrating or saving an OS that takes many days is not something you can accomplish quickly.
If it (did) work for you, it would be interesting to hear about.

[dsteinschneider]

I have a Dell Precision 5810 that is about 50 percent faster than my current music computer and has 4 times the RAM but I haven’t bothered to migrate to it because the installs/activations. So yes, I do dread doing a full reinstall 😐

[bapu]

What I found with Zinstall it worked better if I backed up the source machine to an internal SSD and not the NAS.

After the migration, the first thing I needed to do was uninstall and reinstall iLok License manager.

The next issue I have is my four Apollo devices are not recognized by my two UAD Octo satellite devices are recognized. I’ll deal without today after work. I’m thinking a full removal of everything UAD related and reinstalling it all.

A couple of vendors required that I activate to this “new machine”.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

[Blacque Jacque Shellacque]

Wow, this is the first time I hear about Zinstall. Seems very handy indeed.

@bapu Would it transfer licenses to a new computer or we still have to unauthorize and re-authorize everything?

My name is Jacques but you can call me Blacque Jacque Shellacque for short

[bapu]

On Blacque Jacque Shellacque said

Wow, this is the first time I hear about Zinstall. Seems very handy indeed.

@bapu Would it transfer licenses to a new computer or we still have to unauthorize and re-authorize everything?

My name is Jacques but you can call me Blacque Jacque Shellacque for short

For me most licenses that I checked (I have 40 local installer apps) they worked just fine after I logged back in. Some installer apps remembered me, some did not. The only reauthorization I needed to do so far was in the XLN installer and Studio One V6.

As I said my second post, iLok auth manager was funky, so I uninstalled and reinstalled that and all was well.

My Apollo issues was user error. There was point where i did a default set on bios (for an unrelated problem) and that turned off Thunderbolt support. Easy fix.

Now I’m installing Studio One 7 and from there I’ll start spot checking all my most used plugins. I’ll worry about the one-offs later. A large portion of my plugins are bound by the plugin requiring to open the auth file so I expect those to be OK. There are some that probably will require me to login again if they are the phone-home type auth.

All in all it really only took 10 hours of unattended backup and 5 hours of unattended restore. Then a few hours of checking.

As I said before, a traditional, wipeout of the OS fresh OS install and all DAW, libs and plugins took me weeks before. Again, best $189 I ever spent.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

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