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Newbie- Basic questions

maxwelldm

New Member
I posted in the Win 8 forum, but got no responses. Maybe here? I am an old man, and not a techie. Acquired a Surface-RT, (Win 8.1) 6 months ago, and still struggling to figure out how to use it. A couple of basic questions:

1) Can I create a system image and recovery "disk", either on a USB stick or on an external hard drive. (Will the RT allow the programs included in external drives from companies like WD to run?) (The Surface flatly refused to turn on recently when my wife travelled to some long-lost relatives 2000 miles away, and was unable to show them family photographs. Eventually fixed with voodoo, but highlighted vulnerability)

2) This is related to previous question: am I correct in thinking that the RT will run only programs compiled for its own processor, meaning, in practical terms, programs from the "Windows Store"? If it ain't in the Windows Store, you're out of luck. Presumably confers a considerable degree of security - won't run malware. But at the same time, seriously limits usability. For example, we continue to use a POP-3 mail client for our email. Unlikely to be such an animal in the Store. Indeed, as best I can gather, the only means of accessing email on the Surface is using Outlook. Correct?

3) Back to #1, is there any program either in the Surface-RT, or in the Store which does make make a system image? (I assume that 3'rd party apps like Acronis True Image, etc. won't work.)
 

jimkraz

Member
You are correct in that RT will only run "Apps" from the store, as far as POP mail is concerned Outlook free as part of Office on RT will run POP, the "Mail" app does not. You can make an USB recovery, many have done so and removed the recovery partition to gain space, I made my recovery but kept my recovery partition, just in case. I have a Surface Pro too that I use for Desktop programs like PaintShop Pro Adobe Elements etc., which I might say they run well, so on the Pro 2/3 will run better.
 

kundas1

Well-Known Member
for question #2 yes you can run pop3 mail accounts with the STOCK mail app as I have done so on my RT, as for apps and games, yes you can only run apps from the app store just like android and iPads which do help in security and when had my RT there was a lot of good stuff I needed/wanted

for the recovery partition I made a back up on a USB stick and then deleted it as I didn't need it afterwards as I had it on the USB stick and I gained 7GB of space which I think you will need as you only have very limited space...
 
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