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If I perform a PC Reset/Reinstall of the operating system, retaining my files, but not my installed programs, which directories are kept safe, and which directories should I back up? I'm looking for a comprehensive list, so that I can make sure I minimize the amount of files I have to sift through but also don't lose data that some of my apps install into, for example, the %APPDATA% or %LOCALAPPDATA% directories.
For background, my Windows installation seems to be corrupted—it was probably corrupted from the start, since a few programs (such as GeForce Experience) never worked right from almost the beginning, but it got worse when I tried uninstalling the Virtual Machine Platform feature since disabling Code Integrity & memory scanning from the Settings dialog didn't fix anything. This broke things severely, though the computer is still limping along for now.
Since it doesn't seem that there's a chance I can just go in and prune the settings to fix whatever broke earlier (since reinstalling Virtual Machine Platform didn't change anything), I think my only option is a PC reset, but I don't want to lose data from my programs that aren't backed up to the cloud already.
It all depend on your program sadly. Most program will use a, aka; the c:\user\username directory. I would at the minimum backup that.
If you can just use a freeware like lasersoft and do a full image of the c: to an external drive, that way you can easily restore any files missed afterhand
My concern is for what the Windows installer will clear out when performing a "Reset this PC" operation while still opting to keep the files. I'm looking for a complete list of which directories are cleared in such an operation, so that I can know exactly which directories to back up. Storage and method aren't an issue, since I can copy directories to Dropbox, but I'm looking to minimize the time spent (especially since I can't do such a reset for a while anyway, so I might as well optimize the time it will take when that rolls around).
