Identifying which system backups are of my current build.

[WyomingKnott]

The problem with having a dozen (more, actually) backup drives around is that I eventually lost track of what was on each. How can I identify which backups are on the path to my current system state?

I have only the OS on my system drive and do complete backups. It was my practice to restore the last backup before making changes and then do a new backup. It kept the system young.

Enter a two-year hiatus as other things happened in my life. Now I'm trying to find the most recent backup before my current build; there are backups for at least four other builds out there and they may overlap in time.

My best guess here is a simple most recent date. What I intend to do is restore one at a time to a separate SSD and boot them. When I find one that is a predecessor to my current state I'm done. But how do I tell if I've got a restore from the correct system build? My current guess is that user IDs in file ownership will map to names correctly, but any other suggestions are welcome.

 

[Colif]

See if this helps - it is included in win 10 - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/wbadmin-get-versions

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c7665e24-cc04-41c1-95a8-20d3e32c0116/wbadmin-on-windows-10-1703?forum=windowsbackup

You need to know its version as though Build could be 1803, the version matched the patch numbers you are up to so 1803 = 17134.286. number after decimal point changes depending on patches installed.

1809 due out next few weeks so will need to figure it out before windows updates itself again.