Microsoft Backup Software

Microsoft has incorporate a backup tool since Windows XP, although most users have never used it. It’s still available in Windows Vista and will surely be on Windows 7.

Microsoft’s backup tools are fair simple, however they are free and already installed when you install Windows XP Professional or Vista.

For Windows XP Home users there’s also a way to install the backup tool, it’s as simple as inserting your Windows XP Home CD in your CD drive and on the “Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP” screen select “Perform additional tasks”. Once there go to “Browse this CD” and double click the Value Add folder, then Msft and finally on Ntbackup. In there you’ll see a file called Ntbackup.msi, double click it to install the backup utility.

The procedure to start the backup utility is slightly different on Windows XP and Windows Vista. For Windows XP you should go to the start menu and click on “All Programs” then on “Accessories” and then point to “System tools” in there you’ll see the Backup icon.

When started for the first time, the welcome wizard will pop up and guide you step by step to set up your backup software.

In Windows Vista you can go to the start menu and then select Control Panel, in the Control Panel window go to System and maintenance and then to Back up your computer.

Both versions are very easy to use and will create a backup of your files to an external device, which can be a USB flash drive, a DVD-R, a CD-R, an external hard drive or an on-line backup service that uses standard protocols (so that it can be mounted as a network file system).

In Windows Vista it’s even possible to select if you want a full backup which will back up all your computer’s files including system and applications or an automatic backup which will only back up your user files like your documents and music.

To sum it all up, Microsoft thinks about their users’ data security and brings free tools to keep backups and to restore them, however it’s up to each user to decide which backup utility works best in each case and to use it regularly to avoid potential data loss.