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I upgraded to Win8 a couple of weeks ago. My computer has been acting up the last couple of days so I stumbled upon the Refresh option. I read the warning that apps would be removed but i thought those would be the ones on the new start screen. My whole MS Outlook, Word, Excel are gone. These came pre-installed on my Acer Aspire Laptop (18 mo old) The Acer website says to go to Start-Programs-Acer Restore but I can't get there with Win8. Please Help!!!!!

Teri
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    You were warned that ALL applications would be removed. Sadly this means your only choice is to get your Outlook data, back that up, and use the Acer Factory Restore tool to get the applications back. – Ramhound Nov 03 '12 at 21:07
  • [Should have read this](http://superuser.com/questions/492792/what-do-windows-8-refresh-and-reset-my-pc-really-do) first – Moab Nov 04 '12 at 01:34
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    You are not warned that "Applications" will be removed, it only says "Apps" (semantics, however, Microsoft has been very clear that desktop applications are *not* "Apps" -- the wording on this message is EXTREMELY misleading IMHO). – BrainSlugs83 Jun 10 '15 at 20:00

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You could try typing "Acer Restore" at the start screen to see if it is even there, but given that it removed the pre-installed apps, I guess that it would also have removed Acer's tools too.

Did the computer come with a restore DVD? If so you might want to use that in the first instance to see if you can install Acer's tools, drivers and apps off of it.

If not you may need to restore the OS back to what came with the computer (weither that be by restore DVD or the built in recovery mechanism, e.g. hidden partition on the HDD) and upgrade to Windows 8 again.

Windos
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Your laptop can be restored to it's factory settings but this means you'll restore to an older OS(whatever version of Windows it came with). Also, an upgrade invalidates/replaces your previous license.

You could check if the hidden 'restore' partition contains the missing programs and can they be used without restoring to factory settings(there's not much info about this). Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > "View" tab > check "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" and the hidden drive should be visible in 'Computer'.

page4096
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  • "Also, an upgrade invalidates/replaces your previous license." This is only half true. Once the upgrade is removed from the system the previous license is valid. The upgrade CAN be moved to system to system, but only be activated on a single system at a time, there are also limits to the number of transfers that can happen. – Ramhound Nov 03 '12 at 21:06