It wont do you any good to get it because it doesn't work (to do an Automated System Restore (ASR)) in XP home.
The following is from Woody's XP Watch #2.05 (2/4/2002):
Last week I promised you that I would tell you about backup techniques for Windows XP/Home. If you'll recall, I told you that Windows XP/Pro has a downright decent backup and restore wizard, which runs as part of Automated System Recovery, accessible by clicking Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Backup. I also told you about the way Microsoft decided to include the backup half of the wizard in Windows XP/Home but, uh, neglected to include the restore part. In my WinXP book, I say "that makes XP/Home's backup just about as useful as a Ferrari Testarossa with no wheels."
If you really, really want to use the ASR backup routine in XP/Home (it's the NTBackup program that Windows 2000 users have come to know and love), you can install it from the Windows XP/Home CD. To do so, put the XP/Home CD in your CD drive. When the installer asks, "What do you want to do?" click "Perform additional tasks" then "Browse this CD", navigate to VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP and double-click NTBACKUP.MSI.
But don't bother installing the program until you've the rest of this newsletter. It should send a chill down your spine.
I tried a few experiments and learned a few surprising things about XP/Home backup. There's an MS Knowledge Base article that's supposed to tell you what you need to do in order to perform an XP/Home restore, but I tried and tried and couldn't make heads from tails out of the article. The boot diskette generated by the backup program, following the description in the KB article, doesn't work on any of my systems. The steps detailed there for creating a backup file do work - you have to manually override the wizard's settings - but in the end, the backup isn't much use.
Microsoft outright lies in their Knowledge Base article Q309340 where it says the restore feature "applies to Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" when it most assuredly does not - any backup that you make in XP/Home is essentially worthless. Even if you tell the XP/Home "Backup or Restore Wizard" to restore the entire contents of the c: drive, it misses parts.
The only way I found to restore the c: drive, after using NTBACKUP to create a backup file was to boot from the Windows XP/Home CD, completely delete the partition that held Windows, re-install WinXP/Home, re-install NTBACKUP using the steps I outlined above, and immediately run the restore using the Advanced settings in the wizard.
You know the worst part of it all? At every turn, it appears as if everything is working correctly, No error message. No warnings. No nothing. The Knowledge Base articles occasionally warn you that the procedures don't work with XP/Home - then go ahead and give you specific steps for performing the procedures that don't work! Unless somebody's clued you in, you'll only get heartburn over XP/Home's clueless backup when you need it - and find out that it didn't do what it was supposed to do.
Trustworthy computing, eh?
So now I've spoiled all your illusions about Backups in Windows XP what can you do? In the next issue I'll tell you what I do and what options you can try.
From #2.06 (2/12/2002):
There are a million ways to back up your system, and at least a half million of them work.
I've been playing the backup game for a long time, and I've only bumped into three basic scenarios where I really needed a backup. Mind you, I'm not a major multinational corporation, and I don't have a server farm. Although I do have an orchid farm. But that's another story.
I need backups for three reasons.
First, sometimes my c: drive dies. When that happens, I need to stick a new drive in the machine, boot, restore the hard drive, restore my data, and get going. I also lose at least two hanks of hair and at least one night of sleep.
Second, sometimes I screw up a file so badly I need to go back and retrieve an earlier copy. When that happens, I know about it right away: I shout and kick the computer and swear a few times, then go spelunking to look for an old copy of the file.
Third, on rare occasions, I'll make a change that needs to be undone and not catch it right away. I can only think of a couple of times I've done that, and it usually involves dial-up networking settings - I get the wrong password typed in, or I forget the name of a mail server, or something else equally obscure, and it's a couple of days later before I realize that I changed something I shouldn't have.
The technique I use for backup works very well for the second kind of problem, and pretty well for the first kind. It doesn't do beans for the third type.
My method is really simple. I like it that way.
1. All my PCs have two hard drives. The second one is primarily for backups, but I'll also stick device drivers and Service Packs and other not-critical-but-a-pain-to-download files on the second drive. The second drive also has copies of my old Outlook files, which I cycle manually once a month.
2. Every week or two (or whenever I'm going to do something fun like install new software) I run PowerQuest's Drive Image and create a full backup image of my main boot drive on the secondary drive. Drive Image generates boot disks and all the other goodies necessary to recovery from a crashed c: drive.
3. Every day - usually at the end of the day, I run a little batch file that copies all of my important data files from the main hard drive onto the backup drive. This is really a bailing wire 'n chewing gum approach, but it works fine for me. To make your own batch file that copies your data files from the c: drive to the d: drive, just do this:
a.. Right-click on the desktop, pick New | Text document
b.. Immediately type the name backup.bat and hit Enter. Windows will warn you not to change the file name extension. Which is really weird because Windows doesn't bother to show you file name extensions in the first place, but such is the Wonder of Windows. What you have is an old-fashioned batch file.
c.. Right-click on the new backup.bat file and pick Edit
d.. Type in this line:
xcopy "c:\Documents and Settings\*.*" "d:\Backup" /d /e /c /h /y
a.. Close backup.bat.
b.. When you want to run a backup, double-click on backup.bat. The first time you run it, Windows will ask if you're trying to create a file or directory. Type "d" for directory. After the first time, it'll run without a hitch.
Hate to disappoint you, but that's my entire backup strategy.
That strategy might not suit you, not all of us have to install beta versions of Office and Windows from time to time.
XP/Home users have some other options. For example, Microsoft has a set of six (six!) setup boot diskettes that you can download. Those diskettes will let you boot from your floppy drive, so you can run Windows XP setup from the CD, if your computer won't boot from the CD.
The archives are at
http://www.woodyswatch.com/winxp/archives.asp.
MS was originally not even going to include ntbackup in XP home but (apparently) someone talked them into including it, with reduced functionality.
I used ASR with XP pro, it worked as advertised. However I now use an imaging program from
www.acronis.com TrueImage which works very easily and does the job much better.
Look on your XP CD in the value added folder for ntbackup.msi if you want to try it.
--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| I have Windows XP Home Edition. I click "Start", "All
| Programs", "Accessories", "System Tools", and there is
| no "Backup" shown. It states "Activate Windows" but I
| know that Windows is activated. I have seen other
| computers with the "Backup" listed in the "Systems
| Tools". How do I get it???
