Recovery components

Push-button reset features by default restore only drivers (installed through INF packages) and preinstalled Windows apps. To configure the features to restore other customizations such as settings and Windows desktop applications, you will need to prepare one or more customization packages which contain the customizations. These customizations packages are in the form of provisioning packages (.ppkg).

To ensure the Recovery folder has to correct permissions, and to protect the packages from tampering or accidental deletion, use the following commands to create the C:\Recovery folder:

mkdir C:\Recovery
icacls C:\Recovery /inheritance:r
icacls C:\Recovery /grant:r SYSTEM:(OI)(CI)(F)
icacls C:\Recovery /grant:r *S-1-5-32-544:(OI)(CI)(F)
takeown /f C:\Recovery /a
attrib +H C:\Recovery

Some settings and customizations cannot be included in provisioning packages. Instead, you can restore them using an unattend file applied using the Push-button reset extensibility points. For settings which are supported by both provisioning packages and unattend, it is recommended that you specify them using only one of the mechanisms, not both. To learn more, see How push-button reset features work.

Auto-Apply folders

Auto-apply folders can't be used in conjunction with extensibility points.

Auto-apply customizations

The following customizations are supported by Auto-apply folders:

Configure Auto-apply

To use Auto-apply folders, you have to copy configuration files and any related asset files C:\Recovery\AutoApply. Related asset files are files that the configuration files rely on, like an graphic that unattend will set as a wallpaper or .lnk files that are used by TaskbarLayoutModification.xml.

During a recovery, files in this AutoApply folder will get copied to the correct folders in the restored image. For example, when you place unattend.xml in the AutoApply folder, it will be copied to the C:\Windows\Panther folder during the recovery process.

The following table shows the available customizations and where to copy the configuration and related asset files so that PBR can restore them to the restored OS:

Capturing Windows desktop applications using Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT)'s ScanState tool

When /apps is specified, ScanState uses a set of application discovery rules to determine what should be captured, and stores the output as a reference device data image inside a provisioning package. In general, the reference device data includes the following:

• Windows desktop applications installed using either Microsoft Windows Installer or other installers
• All files and folders outside of the Windows namespace (in other words, outside of \Windows, \Program Files, \Program Files (x86), \ProgramData, and \Users). This applies only to the volume on which Windows is installed.
• Not captured: Windows apps.
• Not captured: User state/data.

You can also specify additional rules to include or exclude specific files, folders, and registry settings. For example, if you are using ScanState during factory deployment, you might need to exclude manufacturing-specific tools so that they will not be restored when end users use Push-button reset features. To specify additional rules, you will need to author a migration XML and specify the /i option when using ScanState.exe.

ScanState’s /apps option also supports the following optional parameters:

Restoring settings using unattend.xml and extensibility points

Most settings which are configured using unattend.xml and other configuration files (e.g. oobe.xml) cannot be restored using provisioning packages. Instead, you will need to use the Push-button reset extensibility points in order to restore them during recovery. These extensibility points allow you run scripts which can:

• Inject an unattend.xml into the recovered OS
• Copy other configuration files and assets into the recovered OS

To learn how to author scripts to be run using extensibility points, see Add extensibility scripts to push-button reset.

To learn how to use ScanState to capture and store the resulting PPKG under C:\Recovery\Customizations, which is restored automatically during PBR, see Deploy push-button reset features using ScanState.

Recovery strategies for common customizations

The following table outlines the recovery strategy for common customizations.