Problems using the Back up and Restore (Windows 7) feature in Windows 11

Bree said:

That is completely true....

Defender became a full AV for Windows 8 and above. Since then the only real changes have been to the name given to it, and the extra layers on top of it like Windows 10/11's ransomware protection. See this article from 2013:

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Thanks for confirming that, I could not remember when Windows Defender became a full AV program. I assumed it was installed automatically when I upgraded from W7 (basic) to W11 (Home) in 2015 but apparently you had to download an AV (which I did not do).

FrankW said:

I assumed it was installed automatically when I upgraded from W7 (basic) to W11 (Home) in 2015 but apparently you had to download an AV (which I did not do).

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No, it was installed automatically when anybody installed or upgraded to Windows 10 or Windows 11. Possibly also Windows 8 but I know nothing about that.

I noticed your previous post about validating system images.
Acronis can definitely validate its images. I validate mine when they are made; it's an option that just extends the time taken by a few minutes but does not involve me having to do anything. I could choose a setting to re-validate all of them routinely but I do not bother.
Macrium Reflect also has a validation routine. I think it's rather onerous but it is there.
If I was starting off from scratch now I would choose Macrium Reflect because there is so much help available for it in these forums from other Macrium users [it's difficult to get them to shut up]. See
my ditty - File backup vs imaging, imaging utilities, backing up drivers [post #3] - TenForums

All the best,
Denis

Try3 said:

No, it was installed automatically when anybody installed or upgraded to Windows 10 or Windows 11. Possibly also Windows 8 but I know nothing about that.

I noticed your previous post about validating system images.
Acronis can definitely validate its images. I validate mine when they are made; it's an option that just extends the time taken by a few minutes but does not involve me having to do anything. I could choose a setting to re-validate all of them routinely but I do not bother.
Macrium Reflect also has a validation routine. I think it's rather onerous but it is there.
If I was starting off from scratch now I would choose Macrium Reflect because there is so much help available for it in these forums from other Macrium users [it's difficult to get them to shut up]. See
my ditty - File backup vs imaging, imaging utilities, backing up drivers [post #3] - TenForums

All the best,
Denis

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What about AOMEI Backupper Freeware 6.9.2, rated as the best free backup programs by many? Is this checking that you mention only for its own image files or can these programs check also W7 backup image files, do you know?
Frank

Frank,

Imaging utilities only validate their own images.
- There was a period when Acronis could also validate Windows backup & restore images but that stopped several years ago. And, since then, Windows has changed the format of its system images anyway.
- I suppose there might be some other exceptions from time to time but I'm not aware of any.

FrankW said:

... rated as the best free backup programs by many?

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Whilst my article provided links for several imaging utilities including that Aomei thing, I made no attempt to identify any of them as the "best" because there is hardly ever any objective "best" of anything. It's all horses for courses. To my mind, the most outstanding fact about those imaging utilities was the amount of help available in these forums for Macrium Reflect.

Denis

Try3 said:

Frank,

Imaging utilities only validate their own images.
- There was a period when Acronis could also validate Windows backup & restore images but that stopped several years ago. And, since then, Windows has changed the format of its system images anyway.
- I suppose there might be some other exceptions from time to time but I'm not aware of any.

Denis

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The question is moot as once you have that new BU software you may as well delete all old image files and make new backups. I was thinking of my personal files (not an image file format) that were backed up with Windows7, I want to keep those. What do you know about AOMEI?
Frank

Frank,

I might eventually transition across to using Macrium Reflect in which case I will need to keep
in order for my old images to have any potential use at all.
- I routinely weed out old system images.
- But I do keep ones that were significant states so, for example, I keep the final system image of a Windows 7 computer before I upgraded it to Windows 10 and I keep the final system image of each Windows 10 Version.
- After 2025, when I have upgraded all my remaining computers to Windows 11, I might weed out more of the Windows 10 system images.

FrankW said:

I was thinking of my personal files (not an image file format) that were backed up with Windows7, I want to keep those

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I cannot remember anything about Windows Backup file formats or restoration procedures.
I back up my own files as simple copies so I do not have any backup format / restoration issues to consider.
You might find guidance in Restore Files from Windows Backup - TenForumsTutorials or perhaps one of the others contributing to this thread can advise you. Added later - Bree's post #70 explains how to restore files from your files part of the backup.

FrankW said:

What do you know about AOMEI?

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Nothing.

All the best,
Denis

Frank,

Do notice, in my earlier link about imaging utilities, that there is a Macrium Reflect tutorial over on TenForums.
If you find Macrium's interface confusing, that tutorial can guide you through it quite well.
- I have used Macrium twice.
- The first time I found its interface was so cramped up that I couldn't see what I was doing.
- The second time I stepped through using that tutorial and it changed my mind about the utility completely.
After using the tutorial, I am now confident about setting up & using Macrium again should I ever decide to do so.

Try3 said:

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect - TenForumsTutorials - This includes making their boot disk & optionally adding a Macrium reflect option to your boot menu.

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All the best,
Denis

For a beginner, AOMEI free version gui is easier but it has limited flexibility. Macrium Reflect free version has a lot of features.

Polls on this forum show two thirds of users recommend Reflect. That is because users have found it to be very reliable but to be fair AOMEI is also reliable.

In the end, it does not really matter which you use for basic backups.

I agree that one poll on this forum showed that two thirds [of the total votes submitted by those users who bothered] used Reflect.

Denis

FrankW said:

I was thinking of my personal files (not an image file format) that were backed up with Windows7, I want to keep those.

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I take it that you are now talking about the files and folders backups that you made with Backup & Restore.

There are two quite separate functions in Backup & Restore, the System Image which can restore a replica of your working system in the event of a drive failure, and a files backup. It is the system imaging that was specifically deprecated, but as the two go hand-in-hand then files & folders should be regarded as deprecated too.

According to Microsoft there is no way to restore individual files from a Microsoft system image, it's restore the whole partition or nothing. In practice it is possible to retrieve individual files. Each partition is stored as a .vhd (in W7) or .vhdx (from W8 on) virtual disk image. These can be mounted as a virtual drive in Windows 10 or 11's File Explorer then explored like any other drive.

The files & folders backup has the disadvantage that (being designed in the days of floppy disks) it saves the files to a series of linked .zip files with a master catalogue. There is no easy way to manually find and extract files, you need a working PC with Backup & Restore installed. Even Windows 11 can still extract files from a files backup made by Windows 7.

I don't know if you have ever tried restoring from such a backup, but the last step is to choose the location to restore to. The default is the original location, but you can chose to restore to a new folder.

I suggest you restore all the files from any such files backups you wish to keep, restoring to a safe long term storage location such as an external HDD. I have kept just the one files backup from a Windows 7 machine, here I'm restoring it using Windows 11.

Bree
I agree "extracting" some non-windows files from a W7 backup is a very tedious job; zip files appear randomly created, but I always managed to find what I was looking for. BTW, I installed AOMEI Backupper basic and with very helpful (instantaneous) e-mail support I created an AOMEI Recovery USB drive and will make a full backup with AOMEI next Tuesday together with a W7 backup, either in separate directories or partitions on my external drive. My 4 TB external drive still got plenty of free space so I will leave my old W7 backups alone for the time being. AOMEI Basic has also a free backup to cloud option but I think 2 different backups should be enough for my very limited work.
Frank