News Windows 8 File History backup feature detailed

Microsoft has detailed the File History automated backup feature of Windows 8.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/07/12/windows-8-file-history/1

 

Looks good, as at the moment my backup is always out of date.

 

Still not enough for me to even think about upgrading to W8.

 

So.. Akin to "Previous versions" on their server environment?

 

Between this and Storage Spaces (the built-in multi-drive dynamic RAID type set-up thingy) Win 8 is looking very tasty for effective file management and backup.

I'm still wary about Metro, even though I haven't used it. Definitely a try before you buy product.

 

About bloody time!

I've always been a Windows man, but as for mentioned i did the ACMT course a few months ago (Apple Certified Macintosh Technician). We did a whole module on the function of TIme Machine and the File Volt encryption and i though, **** me this is good Microsoft need to get their **** together..

 

The slightly disappointing thing about File History is that it only tracks files in certain locations; Libraries, the Desktop, and a couple of other places. Time Machine, on the other hand, tracks whole disks. Arstechnica has a good article about the new Windows 8 feature:

http://arstechnica.com/information-...ep-back-in-time-with-windows-8s-file-history/

 

Pretty much everything important on my pc is in those folders. Maybe they'll add functionality for the whole drive at some point (hopefully )

 

Entire disk backup wouldn't be possible with a system like this. A weekly snapshot maybe, but constantly monitoring every single file for change, and then saving a copy if that change whilst keeping originals would take up a hell of allot of space!

 

Thanks, after reading the blog post I can see the reasoning behind Microsoft not letting users backup the whole drive. I was just worried, after reading the Arstechnica piece, that in the case of hard-drive failure it might be harder to get a working system on a new drive (which it is to a slight degree).

They've traded a few steps in the recovery process against a saving in hard-drive space and being able to reinstall the OS from scratch without the problem-causing system settings/apps. I think I'll still stick to my backup program, but I think this will be worth experimenting with when I get Windows 8.

 

Sounds good, keep it coming MS.

 

I use SpiderOak for important changing documents. Not only am I backing up my files via an automated means, but I'm also sharing them across multiple computers.

 

But most people don't need a system that keeps every single version of every single file - no matter what.

Having twenty different backed up versions of a document you worked on for one day a year ago is probably overkill for most people.

 

This all sounds very very familiar. Maybe because it's unlike any backup system Microsoft has given us for the home before, and almost identical to Apple's 5 yo Time Machine.

But why limit the locations backed up? (Hopefully these are the just the automatic settings and can be overridden).

And how much control is there over it's behaviour to keep every single version of every single file? Surely like Apple they will provide some mechanism to assign higher priority to more recent versions?

And can this be used during a system restore? Can you install windows and at the time of install point it at your backup disk and get all your PC back? Settings and all?

 

Useless with no option to easily define what places I want to take backups of. Any good backup program should allow the user to say they want to back up any location to any other location. Any "backup" service that does not do this is a joke.

 

I think this would explode with my 13 TB of media

 

File History isn't suitable for the whole disk. Files in media collections are unlikely to change, so a straightforward backup makes more sense than something that tracks changes. Similarly, many of the operating system and program files won't change. (Config setting might, but DLLs won't.)

Also, you may want to forget some files. Do you really want that goat pr0n movie you donwloaded on the sly tracked forever?