Coming soon - Get a detailed view of why an account is flagged as spam!
view details

This post has been de-listed

It is no longer included in search results and normal feeds (front page, hot posts, subreddit posts, etc). It remains visible only via the author's post history.

21
Hard Reset on 8.1- reporting back how it works with our new sync features
Post Body

My phone was running a little sluggish after I upgraded to 8.1, and I saw a tip that a hard reset would help. I decided to try it. A.) I wanted a less sluggish phone and B.) I wanted to see how the syncing worked. Here is my experience with it:

Overview

First, I checked to make sure I had everything set to back-up. One nice thing, it said when the last time a back-up happened. That gave me confidence. Then, I hard reset like normal.

When the phone came back up, the very first step was to connect to WiFi (I think this has been the case since GDR 3). That was nice, so I could use my home internet right away. After I logged in, it asked me if I wanted to restore or start fresh. I selected restore, and then I waited about 2 minutes as it restored.

Everything worked wonderfully! My Start Screen returned to just how I had it, and it is like it took a screen shot of how my screen looked before I reset, because apps which weren't downloaded yet were half transparent, but I noticed my weather tile (for example) was showing the weather from the last backup. I didn't have any tile counts when I hard-reset, but I wonder if those would have carried over too. Then, the apps started downloading, and it asked me to sign into my email.

Good Stuff

Start Screen was restored just how I had it. IE saved my favorites. Bing Apps were connected to my Microsoft account, so they came up fully how I had them before. I know this is still the same as how it was, but I still find it amazing that our texts come right back.

Best of all, my phone is running a lot faster. Of course clean installs help, but I was worried that 8.1 would always be at least a little laggy on my 8x, but it runs pretty good now (more on that "pretty good" below)

Not so Good Stuff

All your old apps get queued for re-install. And not just the ones that you had installed last, but every app you have ever had installed. So, apps I tried and didn't like are now back on my phone. I know, it isn't hard to un-install them, but I shouldn't have to. Edit: I've been told this is a bug that is only affecting me, not everyone. Most likely this won't happen to you Also, this might be me being picky, but there was no way to prioritize which apps got downloaded when. So, in this case, I had to run out to a meeting before everything had re-downloaded, and my maps app was not yet one of the installed apps, so I was turn-by-turn less. I wish I could have moved that, and other apps of my choice, to the top.

Cortana does actually remember my settings, but she doesn't act like she does. When I first launched her, she asked if she could get to know me, but then didn't actually ask me the questions, since they were already known to her. I checked, my work/home address and favorite teams are still there, but she still acts like it is a brand new set up.

Finally, I use a couple groups of contacts and place them as live tiles on my homescreen. Even after the hard reset there is a short delay when I go into that group where the boxes of people in the group appear, normally four at a time. It doesn't take very long, but it still takes longer than I wish it did.

Let me know if you have any questions for me about the hard reset. All and all, this was the least painful hard reset I've done- and I've done them on Windows Phone and Android. I can only assume it will get better as developers tie into the sync options available.

Author
Account Strength
100%
Account Age
14 years
Verified Email
Yes
Verified Flair
No
Total Karma
386,554
Link Karma
6,904
Comment Karma
370,092
Profile updated: 1 week ago
Posts updated: 9 months ago
Htc 8x red

Subreddit

Post Details

We try to extract some basic information from the post title. This is not always successful or accurate, please use your best judgement and compare these values to the post title and body for confirmation.
Posted
10 years ago