Backup exe, sys, dll files

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As I've found with many other individuals, I too am fairly disappointed with
Vista's backup feature.

Recently, I did a "Back up files" and chose Additional Files, not paying
attention to it's description that it doesn't back up program files and such.
I'll admit that the not paying attention was my bad, however I had not other
feasible option available to me (as far as I know).

I chose "Back up files" over "Back up computer" because the total size would
have been unreasonable and unnecessary to backup all drives when just
reinstalling the system drive.

As a developer, I create dll, sys, and exe files and after the restore,
found compilation errors when linked dlls no longer existed. Not a huge deal
since I had the original source as well.
However, there were other applications I had on my system that were simply
exe or sys files, such as Reflector.exe or Giveio.sys and those were wiped
out.

Now considering Microsoft developers created Vista and the backup feature, I
am certain they had considered this issue and would like to know why they
chose the path they did. Perhaps they have a better method that didn't
require the backup feature or their backup media was not restricted by size.
I don't know. But it is a concern of mine.

Nathan
(bring back the old backup as an option for advanced users. In fact, I think
that should be general practice. Create features for the (lay && advanced)
person(s).
 
Nathan said:
As I've found with many other individuals, I too am fairly disappointed
with
Vista's backup feature.

Recently, I did a "Back up files" and chose Additional Files, not paying
attention to it's description that it doesn't back up program files and
such.
I'll admit that the not paying attention was my bad, however I had not
other
feasible option available to me (as far as I know).

I chose "Back up files" over "Back up computer" because the total size
would
have been unreasonable and unnecessary to backup all drives when just
reinstalling the system drive.

As a developer, I create dll, sys, and exe files and after the restore,
found compilation errors when linked dlls no longer existed. Not a huge
deal
since I had the original source as well.
However, there were other applications I had on my system that were simply
exe or sys files, such as Reflector.exe or Giveio.sys and those were wiped
out.

Now considering Microsoft developers created Vista and the backup feature,
I
am certain they had considered this issue and would like to know why they
chose the path they did. Perhaps they have a better method that didn't
require the backup feature or their backup media was not restricted by
size.
I don't know. But it is a concern of mine.

Nathan
(bring back the old backup as an option for advanced users. In fact, I
think
that should be general practice. Create features for the (lay && advanced)
person(s).
Click to expand...

Are you talking about Complete PC Backup in Business, Enterprise and
Ultimate? Complete PC Backup is disk imaging. Yes, if you use it to create
an image using the GUI, it will backup the boot/system volume (or both if
they are separate) along with whatever other volumes you choose . The
theory is that if you need to restore the system you would need to restore
the boot/system volume(s) .

Subsequent backups of the same volumes to the same backup media, for example
an external drive, are based on what's been changed. I have one system
where the initial backup was in the 80GB range (all volumes included). It
is on a 120GB external drive. Since then I have done a weekly backup to the
same drive every week since 3/18, I think there are six backups on there now
and the volume is not full yet. A restore can be done of any of those
backups.

If you want to image a single volume other than the boot/system, you can do
so from an elevated command prompt using wbadmin.

If you want more flexibility look at Acronis True Image Home version 10. It
runs in both XP and Vista, and does partition and drive imaging, drive
cloning, and file backup, and restores can be done an a file, partition or
drive basis.

Personally I like Complete PC backup. I never liked ntbackup. It wasn't
reliable, and you could not easily restore a system intact. The ASR process
was very cumbersome, and not as reliable as I needed a system recovery
process to be. I moved to drive imaging years ago.
 
Oh man, perhaps I should at least have gone into the Complete Backup. I opted
not because it said it backs up the entire computer which I assumed was
including all volumes.

But come to think of it, I only needed my profile backed up which is why I
wanted to only choose the "Back up files" option. If I chose Complete PC
Backup, I would be restoring everything which in some cases is not what I
want because there are times when I can't pinpoint a problem and the only
option at hand is to reinstall and restore my profile minus the registry info.

Trust me that I run into problems that bad. I've posted elsewhere about my
issues with no resolution. Eg. search was failing to scan through my profile.
I found event error messages relating to it. With nothing to go on, I
troubleshot it to somewhere in my ntuser.dat which I removed and had
recreated. That fixed that problem, but brought up another one with my Orcas
installations which also related to the registry and I decided to just
reinstall.

I'm aware of Acronis as my momz has it for her XP machine for the simplicity
of imaging. Complete PC is great for complete backup/restoration. But I refer
to my needs which were met with ntbackup, though I'll also agree with you on
the reliability factor which I believe Vista's "Back up files" may very well
have taken care of. Eg, I had a nicely sized backup on a compressed drive.
What I ended up learning the hard way is that compressed drives get
fragmented easily and I'd defrag every day when my other backups on the media
would fire. I would get bad sectors and eventually it affected that file and
I was no longer able to restore from it. With Vista backing up files in many
compressed folder, that helps alleviate the all-or-nothing that I found with
bkf files.

I guess I'm saying I'd like the best of both worlds. Vista backup options
are nice, but doesn't give enough control like ntbackup.

Nathan
 
Nathan said:
Oh man, perhaps I should at least have gone into the Complete Backup. I
opted
not because it said it backs up the entire computer which I assumed was
including all volumes.

But come to think of it, I only needed my profile backed up which is why I
wanted to only choose the "Back up files" option. If I chose Complete PC
Backup, I would be restoring everything which in some cases is not what I
want because there are times when I can't pinpoint a problem and the only
option at hand is to reinstall and restore my profile minus the registry
info.

Trust me that I run into problems that bad. I've posted elsewhere about my
issues with no resolution. Eg. search was failing to scan through my
profile.
I found event error messages relating to it. With nothing to go on, I
troubleshot it to somewhere in my ntuser.dat which I removed and had
recreated. That fixed that problem, but brought up another one with my
Orcas
installations which also related to the registry and I decided to just
reinstall.

I'm aware of Acronis as my momz has it for her XP machine for the
simplicity
of imaging. Complete PC is great for complete backup/restoration. But I
refer
to my needs which were met with ntbackup, though I'll also agree with you
on
the reliability factor which I believe Vista's "Back up files" may very
well
have taken care of. Eg, I had a nicely sized backup on a compressed drive.
What I ended up learning the hard way is that compressed drives get
fragmented easily and I'd defrag every day when my other backups on the
media
would fire. I would get bad sectors and eventually it affected that file
and
I was no longer able to restore from it. With Vista backing up files in
many
compressed folder, that helps alleviate the all-or-nothing that I found
with
bkf files.

I guess I'm saying I'd like the best of both worlds. Vista backup options
are nice, but doesn't give enough control like ntbackup.

Nathan
Click to expand...

Sorry Nathan I was confusing one thing with Complete PC Backup ( I was tired
and mixing in ATI). In Complete PC Backup, subsequent backups are based on
what's changed but you can only restore the most recent backup. In the
example I gave the first backup was made on 3/18 and subsequent are still
being made based on that but only the most recent state can be restored.
Acronis True Image Home version 10 can keep multiple images from different
points in time on the same backup media.

Have you looked at ATI for it's file backup, plus with ATI although imaging
is done an a partition and drive basis, restores can be done on a file
basis. After a full image, subsequent ones can be either differential or
incremental, so the time and space involved in subsequent images is much
less.

I use both, for redundancy.
 
Thanks for the info Rock. I'll either be looking toward ATI or wait/hope for
Microsoft to include this as a change for SP1 (among many other issues such
as Contact dates and Calendar integration, or Minesweeper's hangs).

Nathan
 
Nathan said:
Thanks for the info Rock. I'll either be looking toward ATI or wait/hope
for
Microsoft to include this as a change for SP1 (among many other issues
such
as Contact dates and Calendar integration, or Minesweeper's hangs).

Nathan
Click to expand...


You're welcome. I wouldn't expect any expansion of the feature set in the
backup programs. Interesting, I don't have any problems with minsweeper,
except for getting blown up.
 
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