So your desktop is very cluttered with things or programs that you no longer use on your computer and you want to reorganize it and get rid of the clutter. Maybe your computer has gotten a virus or other malware infection and you need to restore your desktop after reloading your operating system into your computer.
The first steps you need to take is to backup your computer. Windows has this option built into it’s operating system. The best option is to use a external or portable hard drive to save your backup on. Other third party programs have this same option, and some programs even allow for you to choose what you want to backup or not backup. Always remember to backup the un-replaceable items such as your pictures, music, videos or personal documents first. Most programs are easy to be re-installed after restoring your desktop.
Some online cloud programs are designed for this same purpose, of backing up your computer for safe storage. And most of these companies allow for you to install a program into your computer, and then it just takes a simple drag and drop method to backup these files into the cloud for example you can use online backup storage from backblaze. With Windows 8, it’s even easier and the new UI and Microsoft apps store allows you to download many of these programs and set-up automatic backups to these services.
Now after backing up these files, the next step is to either stat un-installing the programs and deleting the files you don’t want on your computer anymore; or re-installing a fresh copy of the operating system on your computer. That decision is based on your preference or problem you are having with your computer. After you are done, it is very easy to start bringing your backup files back into your computer. If you used the operating system backup option, you would just run the program again and hit the restore option. Of course the clod method is a little different as you will need to download those files back into your computer.
There are pros and cons using either backup solutions, using the cloud you are not able to backup programs and will need to re-install them manually. Using the OS method, you may not always be able to choose what you backup, and even things you no longer want may be put into the backup. Always do your research before you make decisions affecting your computer such as a backup.