Question The old microsoft file backup fraud--is it over, or is it still with us?

[gn842a]

I keep reading about Win 10 offering a file backup utility and I was thinking "Oh neat, can't wait to use it" when some gnawing anxiety began to grow in my mind. I couldn't place it. But finally it moved up the memory filters and now I remember quite vividly:

--In the old days, like 98, 00, 02, round about there, if you used the Windows file saving utility it did two things.

1. It saved your files but in an encrypted or machine language that was absolutely NON-TRANSFERABLE to another machine
2. The saved data was ONLY recoverable if installed ON THE MACHINE WHICH HAD CREATED IT. So if your psu had trashed your mobo your backup was absolutely worthless. Even if you wanted to buy another Windows system. It was worthless.

I remember at the time asking "people who knew" wotthehell was going on and what idiot would create a backup system only usable on the machine that had crashed and maket he the back up necessary. I just got a bunch of shrugs and comments like "A lot of people are wondering about that," or "A lot of people are mad about that." I remember that I had carefully followed a backup protocol that used ten or twenty 3.5 inch floppies that you inserted in order and carefully numbered for correct re-installation, and then discovering they were worthless after a real world crash.

So my question to the community is as follows: Before I do too much reading up on the modern backup utility on Win 10, IS IT IN FACT USEFUL OR IS IT STILL THE SAME OLD FRAUD?

Thank you,
Greg N

 

[britechguy]

The only built-in utility under Windows 10 that Microsoft recommends (that is, is not officially deprecated) is the File History feature, which is marvelous for user data backups. It is not a full system image utility, and MS currently recommends a third party solution for that, anyway.

File History can be used to recover on/transfer data to other machines than the one on which it was created, and there's a ton of tutorials out there already written on doing same.

System images are only recoverable (at least in any meaningful way) on the system on which they were created or its hardware twin (and in the latter case you'd have to go through some hoops but you can get Windows 10 relicensed if the initial machine was physically destroyed beyond repair).

 

[AllanGH]

I don't remember that at all, and I've been in computers since the IMSAI was a cool, new thing.

What I don't understand is how people think that it's actually to their benefit to tie-up their data in ms proprietary file formats.

There are so many non-ms options for backing-up data that I find it difficult to believe that the company, who has always cleared the road for "third party opportunities", would be motivated to put the time and effort into making things easier for their own customers.

 

[gn842a]

The only built-in utility under Windows 10 that Microsoft recommends (that is, is not officially deprecated) is the File History feature, which is marvelous for user data backups. It is not a full system image utility, and MS currently recommends a third party solution for that, anyway.

File History can be used to recover on/transfer data to other machines than the one on which it was created, and there's a ton of tutorials out there already written on doing same.

System images are only recoverable (at least in any meaningful way) on the system on which they were created or its hardware twin (and in the latter case you'd have to go through some hoops but you can get Windows 10 relicensed if the initial machine was physically destroyed beyond repair).

Yes well I'm not looking to image the drive I have not had good with doing that. The problem lies in making an image of some aspect of the OS which is not right or is failing and so all that happens (in my case) is that the corrupted system is reinstalled. I am looking for much more humble objecting of preserving data files.

I'll look into file history. I'm also looking for a third party software option that copies files from one disk to another, replacing the ones that have changed, that can be scheduled. Many of these products offer a zillion options that are not interesting to me.

thanks,
Greg N

 

[gn842a]

I don't remember that at all, and I've been in computers since the IMSAI was a cool, new thing.

What I don't understand is how people think that it's actually to their benefit to tie-up their data in ms proprietary file formats.

There are so many non-ms options for backing-up data that I find it difficult to believe that the company, who has always cleared the road for "third party opportunities", would be motivated to put the time and effort into making things easier for their own customers.

Well yes I intend to pursue a non-MS file back up option as well. I was looking at options last night, there are dozens, so if you have a preferred one please do share it and I'll check it out. What I want is:

1. Scheduled back up
2. Replacement of files that have changed
3. Leave alone the files that haven't.
4. Copy whole directories and sub directories.

The goal is more to protect against hardware failure (my no. 1 enemy over the decades) than hacking (though I suppose that is next).

The system to which I refer was proprietary. It may be older than I recall, but I seem to recall messing with this system in the house in which I currently reside, so late 1997 but no earlier. And I forget at what point I began to take over computer maintenance from my wife. The computer could have been older though, say vintage 1995. My wife took some kind of computer training program which insisted that she have a $2k desktop, so you can be sure I tried to make it last as long as possible. $2k was very very pricey. Both my brothers, who were totally into computers, thought it was crazy to buy so far ahead of the curve as prices would fall in the next 6 mos, etc.

About all I can say is that in those days the system installation for a new computer was a series of 3.5 inch disks that had to be inserted in order. And the backup system was pretty much the same thing in reverse, and could ONLY be unlocked on the machine that made it. The files that were saved were labeled with numeric sequences that had nothing to do with natural language file names. I suppose we would say they were "proprietary" but to my mind they were encrypted. I don't know how to look up something that old. The usual search strings such as "file saving" and "Microsoft" bury you in irrelevant stuff.

 

[britechguy]

What you are looking for exists under the built-in File History.

That being said, I no longer recommend that anyone keep any backup drive connected to a machine to allow for automated backups. The risk of losing everything were you to be struck by crypto-malware, AKA ransomware, is just too great. Any drive active will be encrypted virtually instantly.

There are some third-party solutions that claim to be able to protect against this, but I would rather not take even the slightest chance. I hook up my backup drive frequently enough, based on the amount of new user data I've generated either via creating new material or altering old material, that I save what I need based upon my , "Would I cry and rip my own hair out if I had to do this over again," metric.

I really suggest you read up on the File History feature, as a huge amount has been written about it and how to use it, and I have yet to see it criticized with regard to being a user data backup solution. My only problem is that the default backup retention period for your versioned backups is "forever," which means each and every version will be kept unless you manually delete it. I've never, ever needed anything older than 3 months (or whatever was the most recent change older than that), so I set the retention period to 3 months. It also has a default "check for changes" frequency of hourly, which is way more frequent than I want or need when I'm actively working on lots of word processing files, spreadsheets, editing photos, etc. Once a day is plenty frequently, and since I don't even connect the backup drive except on an "as needed to backup" basis this really doesn't matter that much, but for many people it will. Having versioned backups, taken hourly, and the versions retained forever on a system where a lot of constant changing of existing files is occurring will fill up your backup drive with obsolete and unneeded versions very, very quickly.

 

[gn842a]

What you are looking for exists under the built-in File History.

That being said, I no longer recommend that anyone keep any backup drive connected to a machine to allow for automated backups. The risk of losing everything were you to be struck by crypto-malware, AKA ransomware, is just too great. Any drive active will be encrypted virtually instantly.

There are some third-party solutions that claim to be able to protect against this, but I would rather not take even the slightest chance. I hook up my backup drive frequently enough, based on the amount of new user data I've generated either via creating new material or altering old material, that I save what I need based upon my , "Would I cry and rip my own hair out if I had to do this over again," metric.

...

Thank you for the heads up on keeping all the versions. That could get complicated. I'll have to think about whether I want to use that.

I have an external HDD case on order and have like you come to the conclusion that a physically disconnected medium is necessary. So I am resigning myself to once a week or once a month separate, manual backups.

In addition to this I subscribe to Carbonite. I'm not sure I would recommend it at this point, but it has been the resource that worked when my other efforts failed. Greg N

 

[britechguy]

You don't have a choice about keeping versions, just about how far back the versions other than the most recent should be maintained.

For files that don't change frequently, or at all, you'll just have one version. For a file that's under active change, say editing once per week, by the end of 3 months you'll have 12 versions and will keep 12 versions, but no more, if you keep editing once per week. [I'm presuming that you're not changing it daily and not taking daily backups, but just once a week with a "change checking interval" of daily.]

When editing ceases, each week (or several weeks, if your backup is not weekly) you will lose the oldest versions, one per the number of weeks since the last backup. Eventually, you'll have only one, the final version when you finished your editing.

This is why I say to people you really need to think about how far back you think you'd ever reach for a version of a file and, just as importantly, how often you want it checked for changes for version creation within the retention period. Think about how many versions you'd have of a file that is under update every few minutes with a change check interval of 1 hour and a retention period of just 3 months. You'd be getting 24 versions per day times roughly 90 days, for a grand total of 2160 versions. If that retention period were the default of "Forever" just keep adding 24 versions per day, every day, and think about how quickly this gets entirely out of hand as far as both storage space goes and any human having even the slightest idea of which of the versioned backups to pick for recovery.

 

[USAFRet]

Read here for my backup recommendations and procedures, along with others:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[gn842a]

That was a good read USAFret thanks.

My a$$ has been saved twice by Carbonite. I have a remarkable ability to defeat my own backups. That's a long story, it might be instructive to others if I were to write it up, but not today.

My general strategy: I moved email on to hotmail about 16 years ago. I spent a lot of time in the 90s doing some pretty hair stuff to recover emails that were entombed in proprietary software. At one point I even had a special program that could read the emails in the propietary software and make them so you could import them into somewhere else. In those days about 80% of my backup efforts went into recovering email.

I do like to keep several backups in the computer which are made via an on-board utility. I have just selected Iperius and it seems to do what I want (actually more than I want).

I also am adding an external HDD to my protocol which will be attached only for the backup.

Anyhow in this latest crash I plugged the cables from my Thermaltake into my Seasonix. It blew out all my peripherals, so it was pointless that I had three drives in there with backups of different dates. If I had had an external backup that would have worked. But I didn't. I do however pay for the Carbonite and it was in the end what got my data back.

Carbonite is running something of a blackmail system where you pay for the backup, they do back it up, but they make it nearly impossible to get your data back. They throttle the download speed to 1/2 gig an hour which would be a couple of weeks. Given the speed of my home connection and comparing say, to Netflix or Amazon movies, this is something they should be able to do in a day or two (150 gigs). So they pretty much make it so you HAVE to pay $100 for an SSD copy of your data (you send the drive back to them). So I'm feeling very ambivalent about Carbonite. But it has been a "when all else fails" solution even if I don't like them.

Greg N

 

[AllanGH]

Honestly, the best back-up solution I have found has been this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K
and a few spare hard drives that never get connected to a system except in the case of a drive failure or corruption.

 

[gn842a]

Honestly, the best back-up solution I have found has been this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K
and a few spare hard drives that never get connected to a system except in the case of a drive failure or corruption.

Looks like a nice system though it appears to need physical removal of an installed drive to transfer the data to your other never-to-be-installed drives. I have added an external drive to my collection so I'll stick with that for now. And maybe move to 500 gig flash drives when they get a bit cheaper. The problem there though is they'll end up all over the house.

I gave up on mirrors. If I have the data files that's good enough for me. I know there are people who make their whole living off the dependability of mirrored drives and setup fancy RAID arrays. It's way over my head.

Greg N