Backup Where Is It?

  • Thread starter Thread starter William Holmes
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William Holmes

Hi,

Where is backup on vista? All I see is this Backup Status and Configuration
Wizard. I want to read a backup file produced on and restore some files
from it. Please don't tell me that this Wizard is all that's available.

Bill
 
William Holmes said:
Hi,

Where is backup on vista? All I see is this Backup Status and
Configuration Wizard. I want to read a backup file produced on and
restore some files from it. Please don't tell me that this Wizard is all
that's available.

Bill
Click to expand...


Well, first I don't think the Vista backup is compatible with the previous
backups (actually, I'm pretty sure), so if your backup isn't from a Vista
backup you're out of luck there.

To answer your question, yes, that's it. Just the wizard. No fuss, no
muss, no real control as far as I can tell, but I can attest to the fact
that it's pretty thorough in backing up everything in your user folders, and
lots of other stuff on the computer that you don't really need it to bother
backing up as well.
 
Actually, it's a big step forward. The backup program in Vista is way more
powerful, and useful, that any provided by Microsoft previously. Because of
that there is no way for it to work with backups from previous versions.

BTW: this is called progress. I have some old backups from Windows 3.1 days
that are about 6 times removed from being able to be accessed.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Richard Urban said:
Actually, it's a big step forward. The backup program in Vista is way more
powerful, and useful, that any provided by Microsoft previously. Because
of that there is no way for it to work with backups from previous
versions.

BTW: this is called progress. I have some old backups from Windows 3.1
days that are about 6 times removed from being able to be accessed.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
Click to expand...


My only complaint is that there's no real control. Sure you can tell it
what types of files to back up and what not, but you can't tell it exactly
what directories/files specifically you want it to back up.

I recently did a basic backup (did not save TV shows) expecting just my User
folders to be backed up. I have 35 gigabytes of crap in those folders, yet
my backup is well over 64 gigabytes. I had to use an extra internal drive
to hold it since my external drive is only 60 gigabytes (It's an old drive
in a USB box).

So, if I told it to backup just my files and my files total 35 GB, where did
the other 29 GB come from? Actually, more than 29 GB because it compresses
everything that can be compressed.
It must have backed up files from somewhere other than my Users folder(s).
Files/folders that I really don't need backed up, but the Backup Wizard must
think I do.

I agree that the need for simple backup is there, people don't do it often
enough (or at all) and pushing one button, or even better, have it do it for
you on a schedule is welcome, but I'd at least like the chance to decide
exactly (right down to each file, if I want) what gets saved in the backup.

I'm running the perpetual beta of One Care on my XP partition and don't use
the backup that comes with One Care for these same reasons. At least
Vista's backup lets us omit entire disks, One Care doesn't even do that and
was insisting on backing up the 100 GB drive that I use just for my DVR. In
XP I use Sage TV, so the files are saved as mpgs and the space needed to
complete a backup was insane . . . and it wouldn't let me omit just that
disk, only omit mpgs from the file list, and I do have other mpgs that I
want backed up . . . well, I digress, sorry, this is about Vista.

I'm glad Microsoft is taking a proactive role in security and data
protection, but I think more people would prefer a little less hand-holding
and would at least like the option to have a little more control over these
things.

Mic
 
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