GUARD v0.5.0

The biggest GUARD release yet: full system imaging, a built-in updater, a new navigation-pane layout, and GUARD's own icon.

System Image (new page)

• Bare-metal system imaging using Windows' built-in wbadmin: create full images of the whole PC to a local or external disk (keeps several past images) or a network share (keeps the latest). Run on demand, or on a Daily, Weekly or Monthly schedule that runs as SYSTEM so it needs no prompt at run time. Self-disables on Windows editions without wbadmin (such as Home).
• Create Recovery Media wizard builds a bootable Windows installation USB for restoring an image, using built-in tools only. Only removable USB drives are offered, and the drive is confirmed before it is erased.
• Restore Instructions walk through the offline restore via Windows' System Image Recovery, including how to reach a network share from the recovery environment; when the destination is a network share, GUARD shows the exact IP path to enter.

Built-in updater and Settings page

• GUARD now checks GitHub Releases for updates once a day (on by default, configurable). When one exists, a notice appears above the status bar and is announced to screen readers; Ctrl+U jumps to it from anywhere. The update dialog shows the release notes as plain readable text and offers Install and Relaunch, Remind Me Later, or Skip This Version.
• Installing verifies the download against the release's published SHA-256 checksum, applies the update after GUARD closes, and reopens it; settings, generated scripts, and logs are untouched. An optional hands-off mode installs updates silently when GUARD exits.
• New Settings page (the gear at the bottom of the navigation): update options, an Appearance choice (follow Windows or pin light/dark), and the page GUARD opens on at startup. Changes save immediately and travel with the folder in guard-prefs.ini.

New look

• The two-tab layout is now a left navigation pane with four pages: File Backup, System Image, App Management, and Settings, plus Help (F1) and About in the footer. On a narrow window the pane collapses to a compact icon rail.
• Each page groups its settings into titled cards with a pinned action bar along the bottom, so the primary actions stay in view without scrolling; advanced sections are collapsible.
• A progress ring on a page's navigation entry shows when that page has a job running, filling as the job progresses, so you can tell at a glance which page is busy even from another page. The status bar's progress area now follows the page you are viewing.
• GUARD has an original app icon: a glossy blue glass shield carrying a bold white G with an amber drive-activity light, shown in Explorer, on the taskbar, in the title bar, in Alt+Tab, and in the About dialog.

Quality of life

• The backup progress bar advances within each folder as bytes are copied, instead of stepping once per folder.
• Closing with unsaved backup settings now prompts with the familiar Save / Don't Save / Cancel choice; closing while a job runs now says what closing means for that job.
• Save refuses a backup whose destination sits inside a source (or vice versa), which could otherwise nest the backup into itself on every run.
• Save Settings greys out when there is nothing to save; Run Now and Preview no longer re-save unchanged settings, so runs start several seconds sooner.
• The Stop button uses the same Alt+T access key on every page.
• The release download is ~24 MB (was ~28) and the app folder is far tidier: unused Windows AI / Copilot Runtime components and ~80 non-English resource folders no longer ship.

Fixed

• The generated guard-backup.cmd keeps its window open again after a double-clicked run, as its usage notes promise.
• Exporting an app list or saving System Image settings no longer silently commits the other pages' unsaved edits.
• Source folders ending in a backslash (including whole drives like D:\), and paths containing & or other special characters, no longer break the generated script; the folder dialog now rejects characters that would corrupt it.
• GUARD run from a drive's root folder (such as a USB stick) now finds its settings, script and logs correctly.
• Screen readers reading a progress line with the review cursor now hear the current step (e.g. "Reinstalling 3 of 10") instead of a fixed label.

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These notes are the highlights; the complete list of additions, changes and fixes is in the changelog.

Install: download GUARD.zip below, extract, and run GUARD.exe; or winget install PlanetLinux98.GUARD. Requires Windows 10 version 1809 or later. From this release onward, GUARD can update itself from the update notice in-app.