Windows 7 Backup Feature

Only if you don't maintain your system. My OS is maintained weekly and exceptionally well to the point of there being no registry clutter or file and folder dis-organisation (see an of the big maintenance threads).

The image creation process takes a while yes but it doesn't leave my PC out of action. I can do everything I'd normally do with no disadvantage while the VHD image is being created.
 
There's no such thing as 'registry clutter' or the like, having more files and registry entries doesn't do a thing. Fragmentation, position of files on the disk and running applications and services affect performance.
 
Any computer that has been running for a while will have scores of registry entries that basically point to nothing. Something which is there, and not needed, is clutter :p

It is debatable, of course, whether that clutter has any impact on performance on a modern PC. Still, for the sake of a few moments with CCleaner why wouldn't you do it?
 
Khaaan! said:
Only if you don't maintain your system. My OS is maintained weekly and exceptionally well to the point of there being no registry clutter or file and folder dis-organisation (see an of the big maintenance threads).

The image creation process takes a while yes but it doesn't leave my PC out of action. I can do everything I'd normally do with no disadvantage while the VHD image is being created.
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Each to their own. I personally like the fact, if i've spent a lot of effort to get further in a game or made some important changes to a file, all i need to do is flick the switch on my external drive, and run my batch file and boom it's done. No waiting around or leaving distances of a month before everything is backed up. I used to do the same monthly backups, but then became frustrated after having to restore my machine and loosing a lot of progress of my games and 6weeks worth of very important email... Which prompted me to come up with something that i could run much more frequently that didn't involve anywhere near the wait time.. All in all it only took me an hour or so and most of that was finding out where my game saves were (some of which are pretty well hidden!)
 
Manual backups using the excellent robocopy or monthly backups using Windows 7 Backup aren't mutually exclusive. I do regular monthly image backups, weekly incremental backups of media [music, video, photos etc] and daily backups of documents. All of these are automated.

In between all that, I too have batch files I can kick off manually if I want to make sure something is backed up right away.
 
I don't use batch files simply because FreeFileSync does the job so quick and so effectively with on the spot changes if needed (selective sync for example). I simply have custom presets in FFS set up and just choose whichever one I want to run.

Example:

Preset 1: My Android phone's SD card is backed up to my Backup drive when connected to the dock, just click the sync button and it does a two way sync updating newer files and removing deleted files.

Preset 2: My Documents drive is backed up completely via a two way sync and again, a simple click of the Sync button runs this.

Backup and Restore is only used monthly to image the OS drive which is where I store apps/games and so on. All personal files and backups are on my documents drive and thus are backed up weekly or earlier depending on what big stuff has come about :)
 
I used it in anger last week to make a system image of my SSD before a firmware update. Made an 81GB backup to another SSD and it took minutes. Restored my system from the image. It worked like a dream. I will now be using it on a regular basis to take a system image. I also keep backups of all my important data.
 
Does windows 7 have a built in clone feature?

I use acronis every month or so to clone one drive to another. If anything goes wrong I just switch boot order in the bios then when in windows on my backup drive, clone back to my velociraptor and switch boot order again
 
Guest2 said:
Does windows 7 have a built in clone feature?

I use acronis every month or so to clone one drive to another. If anything goes wrong I just switch boot order in the bios then when in windows on my backup drive, clone back to my velociraptor and switch boot order again
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No.
 
So there you have it, Mr OP.. Lots of different solutions for you to ponder over. One things for sure, Windows 7 does make backing up a lot more simplified than before.
 
Ok renewing old thread since I found one on backups My backup started at midnight last night I'm backing up my C/programmes and c/documents and settings + all of my music vids and pics (my windows HD is 320 GB backing it up onto an external USB 1TB drive.)

Now at 3.30pm so 15 HOURS 30 mins later it's at 28% done :(

What's going wrong 15 hours to backup 160GB of data is wrong....
 
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