Windows 7 Feature Focus: Backup and Restore. Note: This article is adapted from Windows 7 Secrets Chapter 2. Keeping Your Data Safe. Key among this functionality is Backup and Restore, which can be ued to copy your important files and folders to a safe location or create a system image that can be used later to restore a broken PC. You may never need to turn to a third- party backup and restore utility again. Backup and Restore supports the following types of backups: Data Backup If you think of your Documents library as the center of your data universe, and keep an elaborate series of folders and files there and in other libraries, then you? To this end, Windows 7 supports both automatic and manual data backup options, enabling you to choose which files to back up and when. You can then restore your backups at any time to recover previous versions of documents, or to replace a file you may have accidentally deleted. System Image There? Windows for some reason. Not only do you have to take the time and make the effort to reinstall the operating system again, you also have to ensure that you have drivers for all your hardware, find and reinstall all the applications you use regularly, reload all your personal data, and reconfigure all of the system? Rather than go through this rigmarole, you can use a Windows 7 feature called System Image Backup to create what is called a system image or snapshot. This image? which is essentially a huge backup file? PC as it existed the day you created the image. If you need to recover your entire PC, you can simply restore the system image and get right back to work. In addition to these capabilities, Window 7 also offers a way to access previous versions of data files (called Previous Versions) and a way to return to a previous state in time, or restore point (called System Restore). These features are not part of Backup and Restore, but when you add it all up, what you have is the makings of a full- featured data recovery software suite. Amazingly, Microsoft provides all of that functionality in Windows 7, for free. Secret: OK, there's gotta be a catch, right? Actually, there is: Microsoft does not offer two kinds of backup that would be useful to have as part of Windows 7. Experience ExtraOrdinary Yoga Classes. At The Soul, yoga is much more than a form of exercise. In every class our instructors combine physical asana with inspired. All 3 have to be setup and maintained separately. Isn't MS ever going to fix this. The first is PC- to- PC data synchronization, or what we might called peer- to- peer (P2. P) synchronization. With a such a solution you could, among other things, make sure that all of the files in your home PC's Documents library were always duplicated, automatically, with the Documents library on your laptop; any time you made a change in either place, it would be replicated in the other. As it turns out, Microsoft does make such a tool, two in fact. They're called Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh, respectively. The second type of backup is online backup, where you backup files to the Internet cloud. Microsoft does have two online storage solutions, Windows Live Sky. Drive, which is aimed at general online storage needs, and Office Live Workspace, which is really about document collaboration. However, neither offers any automated way, perhaps through Backup and Restore, to backup files or system images from your PC to the Internet. Maybe in Windows Live Wave 4. Or in Windows 8. Available Backup Capabilities in Various Windows 7 Product Editions. The different product editions of Windows 7 include support for different features. Backup and restore tutorial for Windows Server 2008/2003/2012/2016 and Windows 8/XP/Vista/Windows 7. Original title: Error Message tried to use system restore, to restore computer to a previous date about three days before and error message #0x800700B7 A ppear, what. These differences can be dramatic in some cases? In Windows Vista, lower- end versions lacked some of the systems? PC reliability features. Fortunately, this is no longer the case in Windows 7: Now, all Windows 7 product editions get Backup and Restore (with file and system image backup capabilities), Previous Versions, and System Restore. The only exception is network- based backups: Only Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate support that capability. As a reminder, the following table outlines the Backup and Restore technologies that are available in each mainstream Windows 7 product edition. You can find the complete list of Windows 7 features in my article, Windows 7 Product Editions: A Comparison. Starter. Home Premium. Professional. Enterprise & Ultimate. Windows Backup. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. System image. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Backup to network Yes. Yes. One Tool to Rule Them All: Using Backup and Restore. Although various data recovery tools are available scattered through the Windows 7 user interface, a single interface? Backup and Restore? Shown in the following figure, this application helps you backup and restore files on your PC, create and restore complete system image backups as well, and access the System Restore recovery utility. It? s a one- stop shop for all your data protection needs. Tip: This interface was called Backup and Restore Center in Windows Vista.
Because Backup and Restore basically sits in front of most of the other data recovery functions included in Windows 7, we will use this as the obvious starting point for the data and system backup and restore features discussed here. Tip: Backup and Restore can be found in the Start Menu under All Programs, Maintenance, but the easiest way to find this application, as always, is Start Menu Search: Type backup and press Enter. Backing Up Documents, Pictures, and Other Data. If you want to create a data backup, you can use Windows Backup, which is available from Backup and Restore. To do so, launch Backup and Restore and click the Set up backup link. This launches Windows Backup's Setup up backup wizard, as shown here: Windows Backup helps you manually create a backup of your important data files. In the first step of the wizard, you must choose a location to store the backup. You can save a backup to an internal or external hard disk or other storage device, a recordable optical disk (typically a writeable CD or DVD), or a network share. The wizard autoselects the local storage offering the most free space, but you can change this selection, of course. Tip: Microsoft does not allow you to back up to the disk or partition you are backing up. That is, if you are backing up data from the C: drive, you cannot save the backup to the C: drive. In the second step, you have two choices: Let Windows choose (recommended) and Let me choose. If you choose the former, Windows Backup will automatically backup data files saved in libraries, on the desktop, and in any folders founder in your user folder. From this interface, you can pick and choose exactly what to backup. You can also optionally cause a system image to be made with this type of backup. If you have specific backup needs, you can micro- manage Windows Backup as well. In the next step, review what you've chosen. This step is important because you can change the schedule on which Windows Backup backs up your data going forward. Click the Change schedule link to change the default, which is to make a backup every Sunday night at 7: 0. This is your last chance to adjust settings before the first backup is created. Click Save settings and run backup to start the backup and establish a backup schedule going forward. As the backup begins, Backup and Restore displays its progress. You can monitor the backup progress or get on with other work. Tip: If you set up an automatic backup schedule now, Windows 7 will monitor your PC usage and prompt you to perform occasional full backups over time as well. As the backup runs, the Action Center icon in the notification area of the taskbar changes, adding a small black clock. If you click this icon, you'll see the message shown below: A backup is in progress. This message will occur in the future, when Windows Backup runs in the background. Backups trigger a change in the Action Center notification icon. Tip: You can create multiple automatic data backup schedules if you want. For example, you may want to back up different drives or data file types at different times or with different regularity. Managing Data Backups. Once you have created your first data backup, a few things change. First, Backup and Restore indicates that you? You can also change the automatic backup settings and restore all of the files for the current user. Backup and Restore reflects the recent backup. You can also manage the disk space used on your backup device. When you click the Manage space link in Backup and Restore, the Manage Windows Backup disk space window will occur, displaying information about the currently selected backup device. As you can see in the figure below, you can browse the file system of the backup location, view backups stored on that device, and change settings associated with system image backups. From this simple interface, you can manage details associated with your backup device and the backups stored on it. If you do click View backups, you can't actually navigate around inside of the backups you have made so far. Instead, you're provided with the window shown below. From here, you can view the backups and delete them, but not get into them in any meaningful way. Only the simplest of backup management choices are available. Tip: Want to see what's in a backup? You can do it, but not from this interface. Instead, go back to the previous window and click Browse. This will open Windows Explorer, pointing at the location of your backup. At this location, you will see a special folder with a Windows Backup icon and the name of your PC. If you try to double- click this folder, a Windows Backup window will appear. Instead, right- click the folder and choose Open. Then, click Continue in the permission folder that appears. You'll be presented with a folder structure representing your various backups. Inside of each of these folders? A number of standard ZIP files (shown below). Worse comes to worse and you lose everything, at least these files will always be accessible. Windows Backup uses regular ZIP files under the covers to backup your data. Restoring Files. Backup and Restore can also be used to restore files you have previously backed up. There are three general file restore methods. Restore my files.
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