How to Backup Files in Windows Vista

Windows Vista has significantly increased its backup and recovery capabilities from previous Windows versions. Vista offers a new "Backup and Restore Center" that consolidates its many backup options. Follow these steps to backup your files.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Open the "Backup and Restore Center." Select "Start," and then type "Backup" into the search field. Choose "Backup and Restore Center" from the top of the search field.

2. Choose a backup location. Click "Back up files." Vista will search for backup devices and will present a list of options, including local media such as hard drive partitions, CD and DVD drives, external drives and network locations. To backup to local media, select from the drop-down list under "On a hard disk, CD, or DVD." Make sure that the local media has sufficient space for the files to be backed up. To backup to a network resource in all versions of Vista except Home Basic, select "Browse" under "On a network" and locate the network share. Ensure that it has enough space for your files. Click "Next."

3. Select the files to backup. By default, Vista provides a set of pre-selected file types, such as pictures, music and videos. To choose unlisted file types, select "Additional Files."Click "Next." Note that only files that are on NTFS-formatted partitions can be backed up. System, executable and temporary files are not options.

4. Establish a backup schedule. Vista can automatically back up the selected files daily, weekly, or monthly. Select how often to backup your files, and the day and time for each backup. Note that scheduled backups are not available on Vista Standard and Home Basic.

5. Start the backup. Select "Save settings and start backup" to begin the backup, or "Cancel" to quit and start over. A dialog will appear showing the progress of your backup. Select "Stop backup" to end the backup.

Tips & Warnings

• On subsequent backups, Vista will only backup those portions of files that have changed, thus saving significantly the amount of storage space and time required.
• Backing up files is not suitable for restoring a system after a crash, because executable, system and temporary files are not backed up.

[plandon]

on 9/5/2009 Backup and Restore, put simply, just doesn't work on Vista Home Premium.
Many files are not backed up, and dangerously it leads you to believe that the backup was successful! I have just learnt from this forum that it doesn't do .exe and other files!

Home Premium doesn't even do complete backups.

It is not up to the job of trying to be a professional operating system. A basic requirement of an operating system for the past 50 years has been the task of backing up (& restore if ever needed).

Without this it should not even be released to Beta Testing.

It is not "fit for purpose" (a legal consumer phrase in the UK) and you should get your money back from the supplier.