Windows Vista Backup and Restore: Almost Useless

[Jason Dunn]

Vista is a deep product, and I find myself discovering new things about it all the time. I was using the comparison chart to look at which features were available in <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx">each version of Windows Vista</a>, and I saw that both Business and Ultimate came with <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/completepcbackup.mspx">Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore</a>. I hadn't actually looked at that application in Vista yet, but when I started reading about it I thought it was essentially a replacement for <a href="http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/">Acronis TrueImage</a>, and it was free. Cool (or so I thought at the time). <br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/vista-backup.gif" /><br /><br />I started to poke around with the tool, and discovered something ugly: while you can back up individual files to a network resource, the complete system backup option only works with local drives. That might be fine if someone has an external hard drive, but I don't have one attached to my main workstation - all my mass storage is on other computers or connected to a home server. If Acronis TrueImage can create system backups to a network resource, why can't Windows Vista Backup and Restore? That's just weak. This issue is eliminated if the user has a Windows Home Server product, but we shouldn't need a whole new product to solve the simple program of storage location.<!><br /><br />Next I tried the individual file backup tool. Since it enabled me to back up to a network location, I went through the wizard - and also found it lacking. The core problem is that it's not location based, it's file-type based. That means that instead of allowing the user to select their Documents, Pictures, Video, Music, and Desktop folders, the wizard asks them if it wants them to back up pictures, music, videos, e-mail, documents, etc. - regardless of location, and all file types are checked off by default. That sounds good at first, because not all users are going to understand where their files are located, right? <br /><br />The problem is, gigabytes of useless data is going to get backed up in the process, making recovery of the actual user data difficult. For instance, in the partial backup I ran on my system using this "smart" filtering system, I ended up with ZIP files from video drivers, readme.txt files from programs, and a whole bunch of other junk that isn't user data - and stuff that no user would ever need to keep.<br /><br />The Vista tool is a passable solution in some scenarios, but like many Microsoft products, I'm left scratching my head and wondering why they didn't adjust a few minor things to take the product from "barely usable" to "really great". Come on Microsoft, I know you can do better. In the meantime, there's a Vista-compatible version of <a href="http://carbonite.jasondunn.com">Carbonite</a> [affiliate] out now that's a far better solution.<br /><br /><i>Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He thinks data backup is a really good thing.</i>

[Felix Torres]

If Acronis TrueImage can create system backups to a network resource, why can't Windows Vista Backup and Restore?

Because their name isn't Microsoft and they don't have 60 Billion in the bank and they're not going to get sued for a chunk of that change if they make somebody else's obsolescent cash cow worthless.

(Right now, Adobe is whining trying to protect their abominable and redundant PDF monopoly and Symantaic is screaming bloody murder at MS improving VISTA security. And each has a cadre of bought and paid for politicians on their side.)

Remember, the high-sand mighty European Commision decided MS *had* to remove WMP out of Windows, even though Windows had a media player built-in long before any of their whiney competitors even started building one.

But because Microsoft is the devil they are not legally allowed to provide necessary OS features in their product (stuff like full backup and full security) so that the whiney competitors can have a shot at milking the consumers by bad-mouthing the very product the politicians don't let Microsoft perfect.

At this point, if I was MS, I would call the next OS product something *other* than Windows and refuse to release it in any country where politicians insist on legislating what can and cannot be in their product. I'm willing to bet enough local consumers would complain at being treated like second-class customers that *something* would change.

But until then...

[bmhome1]

Bigger issue with Vista Backup is that it will only archive the entire hard drive and all partitions when choosing OS backup. So a dual-boot XP setup gets also imaged, erased and restored along with Vista without option to deselect.

[EscapePod]

Unbelievable.... I intended to post a great reply, but Felix beat me to it WORD for WORD. :lol:

I definitely agree with Jason's evaluation of the file backup portion. I want to do specific folders and files, too.

As far as the whole disc backup, I really like it. My primary "OS and Apps" drive is a W-D 10,000 RPM SATA I with Vista Ultimate OEM. I just want to be able to make an occasional image of it (at various stages of loadset) -- makes it easy to reblast if something really gets messed up. And, I don't have to screw around with re-authenticating my Vista copy. I use an external SATA II drive to back it up, but I'd like to try a double-layer DVD to see if that works.

My data drive(s) is a twin W-D 250GB SATA II in RAID 1. For that, I only need an occasional backup for storage offsite. Unfortunately, I may have to use a third-party app for that.