I think this is an apt topic, not just because I spent [a long] yesterday seemingly chasing my tail, but because Microsoft pushed out another bad update that's got a bunch of people that were running 10, well, not running anything at all.
I wish I could present a neat, packaged answer, but I'm afraid at the moment there aren't any. The only related tech stuff I can pass on is that Windows now either uses an EFI folder for booting UEFI systems, or a bootmgr file + a Boot folder for old style booting -- when both are present sometimes removing one or the other can allegedly help.
The Recovery folder is an apparently evolving thing. It can be protected, & may contain a recovery environment image file [Winre.wim] -- it can be hidden, even if you have viewing hidden & system files turned on. You may have recovery folders in a hidden, reserved partition, on C:\, & in Windows\System32. Updating/upgrading to 8 or 10 may also update that Winre.wim, which is separate from any OEM Recovery partition. It's managed [if you can call it that] but a cli tool called Reagentc.exe. Windows uses that environment when you want to attempt a repair or go into Safe Mode in 8-10, while other software *may* rely on it for example if something has to be carried out before Windows starts.
WinPE is Microsoft's bootable mini OS -- it normally provides a windows with a command prompt, though other companies, e.g. Paragon, may build an app with a GUI that runs on it. There are 32 & 64 bit versions, + each version of Windows has it's own version of WinPE. Newer versions pretty much work with older versions of Windows, but you have to watch for gotchas. 32 bit WinPE works with 32 or 64 bit systems &/or Windows -- 64 bit only works with 64 bit -- & you generally need 32 bit Windows to create a 32 bit WinPE disc or stick or ISO. You don't just download WinPE, but all or part of an installation toolkit that lets you create things like bootable USB sticks with WinPE on them. Maybe most confusing, Microsoft docs can cover more than one version of WinPE, & it's sometimes difficult to determine what works in what versions.
If you were running Windows when 98 was current, you got used to some stuff working, some not, & other than try, try again, there often wasn't an awful lot that you could do about it -- try something enough times & often it'd finally stick, but actual fixes could be a bit rare. XP by & large took care of that -- something that continued with 7 -- but XP got too old & won't work with most stuff any longer -- something that might be [hopefully barely] starting with Windows 7 now.
Our devices, our cell phones, tablets, PCs, & laptops, are in a somewhat unique class I think. We can depend on them as much as we do our cars & trucks, and like our vehicles, we can do maintenance & quite a few repairs. They're less expensive, so we can more easily replace them &/or have spares, but if your car's engine blows up & you decide to scrap it, unlike a dead PC, you can still easily get your valuables out of it. If you're the type that plans ahead as well as believes in maintenance, you should do a bit of that planning, and more importantly testing -- to make sure your plans work -- when it comes to your stuff that runs Windows. You might be surprised at how much doesn't work, or doesn't work any longer.
In a nutshell, here's what's happening... It's relevant that Microsoft in it's latest revenue statements is making a ton of money off it's server & cloud-related biz, while everything else is in decline, & their phone sales are dying. Add the fact that co-called cyber crime is now Very big business. Mobile apps & services, chiefly for iOS & Android are also huge. And finally, people buy based on price &/or image, [often much] more than they base buying decisions on service & quality, as importantly adopting the mindset that stuff is disposable as they abandon thoughts of maintenance.
All of that combines to mean cheaper, less tested, mostly non-supported hardware & software, especially at the consumer end. It doesn't help from reliability & service standpoints that both hardware & software are evolving based on new tech & markets, while simultaneously facing ever greater threats to security, and perhaps more motivating, more & better news coverage when they fail. [Companies are now starting to threaten security researchers who would publicize their weaknesses.] In light of all that it's maybe understandable that any relationships with customers are focused on marketing, treating them as dummies who can be manipulated for sales, but have to be coerced [forced] when it comes to any upkeep.
Processors [CPUs] are getting smaller & cheaper, often with integrated graphics processing [GPUs], with so-called System On a Chip products becoming more common. They're supported less, and for a shorter length of time when it comes to the software drivers that allow them to work. The specialized chips & code that tie everything together, the bios & its firmware, have been slowly moving [since win7 was new actually] to running a mini version of *nix.
Because UEFI [as that sort of bios is called] is an OS, it has security vulnerabilities. The worst malware included a boot or root kit that loaded before the OS [usually Windows], & they've designed protection against that & built it into the UEFI bios. Because they were afraid of losing sales, the companies making these bios chips & their firmware designed them to be compatible with older hardware, so many [most?] bios had/have different modes & different ways of triggering those modes.
Where all of this comes to a head is when something breaks, or when you try to do maintenance in case something should break. Getting your device to start [boot] is now difficult & a bit iffy. Manufacturers deal with this, & once they get something that will work, put that same exact image on every one of whatever product, be it a cell, tablet, laptop, or PC. From then on it's a moving target, & all bets are off. Companies selling Android devices deal with this by never updating the OS -- the majority might get one update if a new version of Android is released while they're still being sold new. With Windows you get constant updates, but on the flip side if there are any problems, you're on your own.
There are a great many things you cannot do to Windows while it's running -- any backups you perform are useless if you can't restore them, & that's one of the things you cannot do, replace all the files for Windows while they're being used to run Windows. And while restoring a current, disk/partition image backup is arguably the easiest way to fix things when Windows won't run, there are quite a few things short of that that you can do to fix things. Working on your system without Windows running may also help or allow you to fix the root cause of whatever problem, because when you restore a backup you're not necessarily fixing whatever caused it to break in the 1st place, so it could conceivably happen again.
To be able to do any of that you have to be able to boot or start another OS of some sort, and since that's the really iffy part, you need to not only plan, but to test.
There are a LOT of compatibility problems with the boot discs &/or USB sticks you create with backup software [as well as partitioning software etc.], and Windows 7's tools may no longer work. With Windows 7 you have the repair console, and if you do a bit more work, WinPE, but you might find neither will do you any good. With Windows 8 & 10 you have a few recovery tools -- their versions of WinPE may work, but that's the only one of their tools you can have relative confidence in. Just because you can create a rescue or recovery USB stick in Windows 8-10 does not in any way mean that they'll work. Just as frustrating, you might find that while you can boot to one of those tools, your mouse &/or keyboard might not work, or might not work most of the time so you have to keep trying. You might lose USB entirely, & with the tools that might allow it, network hardware is iffy too.
What you do about all that depends on how much you depend on whatever device, how hard it would be to replace whatever's on it, & how well you can afford to replace it or the stuff that's on it. The few studies I've read on the topic, & some of those were years ago, said that a surprising number of people replace their systems or devices not because they were worn out or obsolete, but because Windows &/or their software was broken. [If you're a big believer in planned obsolescence, you might cite Windows 8-10 here as Microsoft's efforts to boost sales. ;) ]
I don't know at the moment that there are any great, or even good solutions that even *might* work for everyone. That's why the emphasis on testing -- most everyone's hardware is different, just like they have different software installed. You might find that you have to keep another mouse or keyboard around to use when booting to a USB stick with your backup software, or you might find that the USB stick that software's on won't work with your PC, or you might find that that software won't work with your PC at all, or... while the list of solutions is limited, the list of potential problems unfortunately isn't. It might be a good time to start getting your feet wet in Linux, if only as a spare OS.
