We’re proud to introduce the immediate release of our newest utility for Windows users: the NeoSmart Technologies Embedded Product Key Tool. Designed for users of Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10, our embedded product key tool will retrieve and display the Windows setup product key embedded in the BIOS or EFI, allowing you to store it for safe-keeping or use it to reinstall Windows with an official Windows setup image.
Today’s the big day: Windows 8 has hit the shelves and customers are flocking to buy the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system. In the back of everyone’s mind is the big question: what do I do to properly set up my Windows 8 installation, and in the (hopefully unlikely) situation of disaster, if I can no longer get into my Windows 8 PC, what can I do about it?
All of NeoSmart Technologies products are 100% Windows 8 ready. They’ve all been vetted and heavily tested against the latest version of the Windows OS and have been updated with all the features you require for peace of mind. They’ll help you get your system working the way you want it, and then God forbid something bad happen, get you back on your feet as soon as possible.
Download our recovery and repair disk for Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (also available for Windows Vista, 7, XP or Server editions) that can be used to access system recovery tools, giving you options of using an antivirus, System Restore, document and picture backup and recovery, automated system repair, and a command-line prompt for manual advanced recovery.
Download recovery disk for Windows 8/8.1
Our recovery disk is compatible with desktops, workstations, laptops, notebooks, netbooks, ultrabooks and servers from Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Samsung, Lenovo, IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, Gateway or eMachines that have Windows 8 or 8.1 installed.
The disk is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. It supports x86 and x64 platforms and works with EFI and MBR configurations.
Easy Recovery Essentials – or EasyRE – is a 50 to 135 MB ISO image that you can download and burn to any CD, DVD or USB drives.
With Easy Recovery Essentials you can recover and repair your computer.
Contents
It has become harder and harder to get recovery or installation disks for your computer as major PC manufacturers no longer distribute a recovery or repair CD/DVD with your purchase.
A Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 installation DVD can be used to recover your computer. You can use it to access many recovery options, use System Restore and automatically fix boot errors or blue screens.
But instead of giving customers real recovery CDs and DVDs with their purchase of a computer (like notebooks, laptops, desktop computers etc.), PC manufacturers (like Dell, HP, Samsung, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and others) usually require you to make the recovery media by yourself.
If you can’t boot into Windows or your PC isn’t working, only a bootable recovery and repair CD/DVD/USB can save you.
Our recovery disk, called Easy Recovery Essentials, is an ISO image that you can download today and burn to any CDs, DVDs or USB drives.
You can boot from our disk to recover or repair your broken computer.
We provided instructions on how to do this below, see Burn to CDs, DVDs or USB drives.
With Easy Recovery Essentials you can:
Easy Recovery Essentials is used by computer technicians and IT experts for its many features:
Read more about EasyRE for computer repair professionals here.
Our recovery and repair disk uses a non-destructive repair process that can recover your PC without formatting your hard drive or reinstalling Windows.
Easy Recovery Essentials comes with:
Update: Please note that this disk is no longer free, due to licensing restrictions imposed upon us.
Download Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1
Our recovery disk supports x86 and x64 platforms and all Microsoft Windows 8 editions:
Our disk is in ISO image format. You can burn the image to any CDs, DVDs or USB drives and then use it as a bootable recovery media.
You cannot use a recovery or repair disk to install or reinstall Windows 8.
We published a guide on how to burn an ISO image to CD or DVD. Our recovery ISO image can be burnt to any CDs or DVDs and USB drives.
You can burn it with your favorite burning program. We published step-by-step instructions and guides on how to do this for any CDs or DVDs:
You can opt for a recovery USB instead: follow our guide on how to make a EasyRE recovery USB drive here.
Our recovery and repair disk works with any desktop computers, workstations, laptops, notebooks, ultrabooks, netbooks or servers computers from all major PC manufacturers:
It’s also compatible with older or no longer available PC brands, such as:
If your computer runs Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, you can download Easy Recovery Essentials.
Our recovery disk is compatible with Dell computers:
Do you have a Dell computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for Dell.
Easy Recovery Essentials work with your HP computer. It’s compatible with the following series of HP PCs:
Do you have a HP computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for HP.
Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with Asus computers.
Do you have an Asus computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for Asus.
Our recovery disk can be downloaded by Acer customers. The disk is compatible with all Acer series and models:
Do you have an Acer computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for Acer.
Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with Lenovo computers:
Do you have a Lenovo computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for Lenovo.
Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with any Samsung laptops or desktops:
Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with all Toshiba series and models:
Do you have a Toshiba computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for Toshiba.
These PC manufacturers were either acquired by another company or they are no longer on the market. Our recovery disk is compatible with these PCs, if your computer runs the supported Windows versions:
IBM
Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer division in 2005.
Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with IBM computers and laptops (like the ThinkPad series) and Lenovo computers (see Lenovo).
Compaq
HP acquired Compaq in 2002.
Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with Compaq desktops and laptops (including the Presario series) and HP computers (see HP).
Gateway and eMachines
eMachines was acquired by Gateway Computers in 2007. In 2007, Gateway Computers was acquired by Acer. The eMachines brand was used until 2012.
Easy Recovery Esssentials is compatible with Gateway computers:
Do you have a Gateway computer running Windows 8? Read our recovery and restore guide for Gateway.
Easy Recovery Esssentials is compatible with eMachines PCs and Acer computers (see Acer).
You can download Easy Recovery Essentials for other versions of Windows, such as Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP or the Windows Server editions.
Windows 7
Read more about our recovery disk for Windows 7.
Our recovery disk supports Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) and its editions: Ultimate, Enterprise, Professional, Home Premium, Home Basic and Starter.
Download the disk for Windows 7.
Windows Vista
Read more about our recovery disk for Windows Vista.
Easy Recovery Essentials supports Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) and its editions: Ultimate, Enterprise, Professional, Home Premium, Home Basic and Starter.
Download the disk for Windows Vista.
Windows XP or Server editions
If your computer runs Windows XP or Windows Server, you can download Easy Recovery Essentials.
Our disk supports Microsoft Windows XP, including the Service Pack updates:
Download the disk for Windows XP.
You can download the disk for any of the following Windows Server editions:
Download the disk for Windows Server.
Please don’t ask for help below, it’ll get real cluttered real soon!
Open a support thread at https://neosmart.net/forums/ and we’ll help you resolve your problem ASAP.
Quick: what takes 5 years, two failed attempts, and thirteen contributors? Answer: EasyBCD with multilanguage support!
Who knew it would be this hard to release a version of EasyBCD that supports languages from English to Arabic and from Korean to Russian? We certainly had no idea it would take this long and this much work back in June of 2007 when we first attempted this gargantuan task! It turns out it’s not such an easy thing to organize and manage the translation of a medium-sized software project – and that no good tools existed to make it possible.
We were expecting to find (this late into the game) a plethora of .NET localization tools and resources that would make the job ridiculously easy, but it turns out all the existing solutions were terrible for one reason or another: too hard for non-developers to grasp, no versioning support, no on-the-fly deployment (i.e. requires recompilation), no unicode support, text-only interfaces, and the list goes on and on. We had to develop our own complete end-to-end translation and globalization framework and associated utilities (xml-based, text-editable, translation interface, versioning support, unicode support, on-the-fly deploy, string aliasing, derivable strings, language cleanup, outdated/missing string search, and more!), which we’ve open sourced to save others the trouble in the future.
Now that we have the excuses out of the way, let us introduce EasyBCD 2.2, complete with 13 languages from around the globe. With much thanks to the following people, we have been able to provide these languages out-of-the-box with EasyBCD 2.2:
Continuing the tradition started long ago, now that Windows 8 RTM has been made available, we’re excited to announce the availability of the one part of Windows 8 everyone can agree is an excellent and welcome feature, and one we’re all more than willing and eager to welcome and embrace with open arms: the new official wallpapers and backgrounds!
There are some really great additions to the previous entries from the beta builds, though in a completely different vein from what we’ve come to expect from Windows Vista and Windows 7: not as much focus on natural beauty. In many ways, the Windows 8 wallpapers feel a lot more like the ones we first saw in the Longhorn beta: focus on effects, stressing modernity, and lots of color. Not a bad thing, of course… after all, the Longhorn wallpapers were what first started the whole craze.
As trivial as it may seem, ever since the Windows Longhorn beta program one of the most exciting “features” of a new Windows build release are the new wallpapers that come with it. Build 8250 comes with six new wallpapers (and one old one), which we’ve added to our gallery.
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview has just been released, and we are reminding everyone that EasyBCD is here to help save the day if whilst playing around with errrr, testing Windows 8 CP bootloaders get broken and PCs stop booting. And if things get too badly broken, our Windows Vista and Windows 7 bootable repair CDs should come in handy.
This is a post that should probably have been made a little earlier, but we’ve been rather busy cranking out new EasyBCD versions and working on some exciting new developments. We’ve had a lot of questions regarding EasyBCD‘s compatibility with Windows 8, and what our findings are regarding the new Windows “touch-enabled” bootloader screen. In this post, we’ll cover the new bootloader and what works and doesn’t with EasyBCD.
Literally the very first thing you notice when installing and testing Windows 8 Developer Preview is the new boot screen. I personally find it to be very cluttered and unorganized, and generally aesthetically unappealing. However, compared to the decades of text-based boot selection menus that people are accustomed to, reviewers are seeing this as a dramatic improvement.
Yesterday, Microsoft made available the first public beta of Windows 8. The developer preview can be downloaded on the Microsoft website, and has received plenty of media coverage and has been the subject of much scrutiny and review. However, in our testing of Windows 8 for compatibility with NeoSmart software and products, we came across a rather, shall we say, interesting approach that Internet Explorer 10 now takes to its crashes. With Windows 8, as with previous versions, when an application hangs or crashes, an error reporting dialog is displayed prompting the user to select an action to take with the crashed program.
What’s different with Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 is that Microsoft chooses to deflect the blame from itself, and pin it instead on the unfortunate owners of the website that the user had last visited. In the following screenshot, Internet Explorer 10 has crashed after being unable to handle some of the web scripting on our website. Except instead of the error dialog you would expect (something to the effect of “Internet Explorer has stopped responding,” an error caption which we are all familiar with and of which the web is full), the error dialog instead reads:
neosmart.net is not responding.