Using a USB harddisk drive, which is the way I would recommend you backup your computer, Windows 7 and Vista offer a completely unobtrusive backup solution that you will not have to worry about.
For the first time, as the screen shot above shows (you can click it to make it larger), you click on the Set up Backup option, and you are then asked to set a location for your backup, pick what you want backed up, and how often.
Windows will find your USB harddisk and by default will identify it as the best means of backup media. You can simply leave this drive plugged in, and let the computer get on with the backups. You are asked what you would like to backup, and as a personal preference I only tend to get the computer to backup my documents. Personally I don't see the point in it making full backups of the system, when I have a System Image stored seperately of the computer. The resulting choice means less time for the computer when it comes to running this procedure. Finally you are asked to choose the frequency of when you want the backup to take place. I have mine set everyday, and I chose 10pm at night. I very rarely turn the computer off, simply the screen when I'm away from it, and setting it late at night, means I'm not using the machine when it does the backup (not that that is an issue anyway). Its down to you what you would set it to, and the amount of data you are creating on a regular basis.
Myself I'm taking lots of photographs with my digital camera, and I figured that by setting the computer to backup everyday, then even if it were off for two or three days, I am highly unlikely to forget to leave the machine on for a 'once a week' backup, if that's what I might have set it to - if that makes sense?!
The initial backup will take quite a while, upto a few hours in some cases, certainly my own computer, however the daily backups thereafter are what we call incremental and only backup the differences so they take only a few minutes - so no hardship to have it set everyday. When you check in the Backup and Restore centre in Control Panel it will tell you how long it took, and typically for me, each daily backup was taking in the region of 2 to 8 minutes.
The main advantage of using this built in software is that you can set it up once, and forget it. In the past before I used this, I would once every so often copy my data to CDs or DVDs, and usually only when I'd come across an incident in work with a colleague who had lost some data. Then I would remember that its been about 5 months since I last made a backup and it would scare me into doing it, in case I lost the work. With this solution, I don't have to worry at all. It's done everyday, and I can forget about it!
Restoring the data, as I demonstrated is very easy, we simply choose the Restore My Files option, and choose what you want to restore. I'd recommend, every so often, that perhaps you do a sample restore of one or two files just to ensure it does work. Afterall a Backup is only as good as it's ability to Restore your work!
On the Microsoft site there is a useful set of pages, that have videos, showing how to use the Backup and Restore feature of Windows 7, click this link to take you there now! You may need to install Microsoft Silverlight, but simply follow the instructions given.
Those with Windows XP, click this link to see how you backup your files and folders.
The session ended with a discussion about the Windows Defrag utility, but time caught up with us, and although I described the mechanics of how it works and what it's purpose is, I will start off next week's class with a good look at that.
As a reminder to those in the class that asked about the course materials I recommend, these are the following books that I suggest you buy. Click on the appropriate links below. There are three available, one for each for each of the versions of Windows that are being used by people these days, but you only need to buy the one that's relevent to your computer, and not all three. (Unless you are feeling frivolous!)
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Windows Plain and Simple - or as I jokingly tell the class 'Windows for the Plain and Simple' ;-D |
So join us next week where we'll look at Defrag, and some of the other diagnostic tools in Windows.
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