After a fresh install of Windows operating system, the first thing we do is install our favorite software. For example, I personally choose to install Mozilla Firefox web browser, Notepad++ and Adobe PDF Reader immediately after the Windows installation has completed.
The second thing that we all do is make changes to the Windows settings as well as to the settings of all the third-party software. For example, after installing Notepad+++, I turn off its auto-completion settings because it interferes in my work. Similarly, we make changes to the web browsers like Firefox or Chrome.
And if we have to reinstall Windows, we are forced to repeat these same steps all over again. Fortunately, there is a tool called Cloning that can save some of your time by allowing you to backup and restore installed software settings. It does not support all the software but supports many of the popular software titles.
After launching Cloning, we can select the software for which we want to backup the settings. To save time, we can just click on the “Select Installed” to select all the installed software. After this we can simply click on the Backup button and it will create the backup in a sub-folder titled “Data”.
The tool comes with a feature to make a backup of the installed drivers too. For this we can click on the Drivers button and choose the drivers that should be backed up. These drivers are also placed in the “Data” sub-folder.
For restoring the software settings, we can click on the “Restore” button, select one of the backups and proceed to restore the settings. Everything is done automatically and you get your saved software settings back.
The users can see a list of backups either by manually checking the “Data” sub-folder or by using the backup manager feature of the Cloning tool.
You can download Cloning tool from https://github.com/hellzerg/cloning.