How to use Windows backup tools

The importance of making regular copies of files and folders to keep as backups cannot be overstated. If your computer develops a fault and there isn’t a recent backup on hand, you may lose collections of documents, photos and music built up over months or years.

Backing up is a chore but beyond initial setup the process needn’t involve much time. What’s more, for most people the backup tools built in to Windows will do an adequate job. In this Back To Basics guide we’ll explore what’s on offer in Windows 7, Vista and XP to keep your files safe.

Backup tools have long been part of Windows but they have evolved with each successive release of the operating system, though as we’ll see, not always for the better. Note that in all cases, restoring files will require use of the same backup tool – look for a button or link marked ‘restore’.

Windows XP
We’ll start with the backup tool included with Windows XP. It’s called Windows Backup and, surprisingly, in some ways it is better than the equivalent utilities in Windows 7 and Vista. However, in order to make use of Windows Backup you’ll either need to have the original Windows XP installation CD to hand, or be using Windows XP Professional edition.

The reason for this is that while Windows Backup is installed automatically with Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home users (this is the version most likely installed on your home PC) will need to do so manually from the Windows CD.

To do this, pop the Windows XP CD into the drive and double-click the CD icon in My Computer. When the Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP screen appears, click the Perform Additional Tasks link. Now click Browse this CD and use Windows Explorer to navigate down through the ValueAdd, Msft and Ntbackup folders in turn.

Finally, double-click the ‘ntbackup.msi’ file and follow the prompts to install Windows Backup. When this has finished, launch Windows Backup by clicking Start, pointing to All Programs followed by Accessories then System Tools and click Backup.

Windows Backup can be operated in either wizard or advanced mode. The wizard method is the default and the obvious choice for novices, so just click Next and follow the prompts to customise the backup options.

In brief, you will need to decide which files and folders are to be backed up and then choose a destination for them: this could be another partition on the same hard disk (not recommended, because it’s an all-eggs-in-one-basket situation), a shared drive on a computer network or an external hard disk drive.

Windows Backup allows backups to be executed automatically to a specific schedule set up by you. To do this, on the last page of the wizard click the Advanced button and work through the secondary wizard to the When to Back Up page. Select Later and click the Set Schedule button: use the Schedule Job dialogue box to specify how and when automatic backups should be performed.