HP Recovery Manager - SP74123 and SP81254 -- please clarify vis-a-vis Windows 10 backup & recovery

[RTX]

I bought a brand-new HP Spectre x360 laptop, with Windows 10 (64-bit) pre-installed.  As I started to learn its basics and came into the Backup & Recovery aspects,  the HP Support Assistant (HPSA) led me to their website document which unfortunately I cannot upload as part of this post.  The title of the webpage says:

HP PCs - Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 10)

In that document (page 2), HP says that its Recovery Manager for pre-installed Windows10 systems has a bug and won’t work, so users were advised to install SP74123 (page 2).

I was about to implement SP74123 when HPSA alerted me that an update is waiting for my approval for an update to HP Recovery Manager.  I approved it, which after a successful installation registered as (on HPSA’s Action Log on my laptop):

Windows 10 Redstone2 Recovery Manager Installer - CPS

HP Recovery Manager - Inhouse solution

Softpaq Number;  SP81254   Version: 18.10Ap1    Size: 1.24MB

I am now hesitant to install SP74123 because I am left with a total lack of knowledge – and clear  understanding – as to which update should be done first, and what’s next and/or what’s applicable or not.   I have held off my urgent need to create:

1 – a Windows 10 image/backup

2 – a Windows 10 recovery disk (off line, away from the internal hard disk)

3 – a Windows 10 boot disk on a USB flash drive

Because reading the HP document and numerous other Microsoft blogs on Windows 10 Backup and Recovery has proven to be cryptic and confusing.

I understand that as far as Recovery – and only recovery of Windows 10 OS goes, I can do it the “HP way” or the “Microsoft Windows 10 way”.  And on the x360 laptop, the HP way seems better because HP has reserved a parition (D: ) of about 12 GB for rebuilding the factory version of Windows 10.  But for “peace of mind” I still need to create an offline copy of it in case the SSD fails/gets corrupted on the (D:) partition.

As far as recovery of other software, I will use the Windows 10 “restore point” approach, but there seems to be no clear documentation of how this is done and what the user must do.

As far as recovery of personal files is concerned, I just make copies to offline media.  It would be nice to use the Win10 “File History” approach, but my reading of the documentation so far (more like lack of good documentation) tells me it is an unstable system (prove me wrong please!)

I hope some expert(s) out there can shed some light on my lack of understanding of Windows 10 Backup and Recovery.   Any tips, pointers and/or suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Thanking you in advance for your attention.

[banhien]

Hi,

From my view, your approach is very good to protect your data in case of hardware failures or software hiccups. Fro Windows 10 Backup & Recovery, the following articles could be very helpfull:

   https://www.tutorialspoint.com/windows10/windows10_backup_and_recovery.htm

   https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/17143/windows-10-back-up-your-files

   https://www.howtogeek.com/220986/how-to-use-all-of-windows-10%E2%80%99s-backup-and-recovery-tools/

Regards.

[RTX]

My sincrest thanks, HP Expert.

Should SP74123 be installed as I had described in the original post, vis-a-vis SP81254?

Thanks.