You can save the backup image files on local hard disks, DVDR media, and network
shares in which the share is specified as a Universal Naming Convention (UNC)
path. By leveraging VSS, Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore backs up only
changed blocks during subsequent backups, but only if the backup target is a
hard drive. If you're backing up to DVD-R media, a complete backup is performed.
Another media-dependent difference concerns the compression of the backup image
files. Image files saved on a hard disk aren't compressed, whereas image files
saved to DVD-R are compressed.
For Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore images, Vista uses the Microsoft
Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format, which is the same format used for virtual machine
hard drives. You can mount a VHD backup image in Microsoft Virtual Server and
Microsoft Virtual PC, but you can't boot from a VHD backup image. Mounting a
VHD image in Virtual Server or Virtual PC will let you restore a select portion
of a complete PC backup. However, Microsoft designed Windows Complete PC Backup
and Restore for full system recovery, which you accomplish with the Windows
Recovery Environment (WinRE).
WinRE is an operating environment based on Windows Preinstallation Environment
(Windows PE), which replaced the recovery console functionality in Windows XP.
You can install WinRE on a hard disk partition in your system. To learn more
about this type of installation, see the blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/default.aspx.
Alternatively, you can run WinRE directly from the Windows Vista installation
DVD. To do so, boot from the installation DVD, make the appropriate language
selections, then choose the Repair your computer option. WinRE will guide
you through the appropriate recovery operation you're performing, which in this
case, is Windows Complete PC Restore. (There are many system repair and recovery
functions you can perform from WinRE.) With Windows Complete PC Restore, you
can use the complete PC backup, whether stored on disk or DVD, to bring a user's
system back to life after a catastrophic event.
You can also use a command-line tool, wbadmin.exe, to perform backup and recovery
operations. For example, you might use the following command to perform a full
backup of your system's C and D drives to a server share:
wbadmin start backup
-backuptarget:\\server\share
include:c:,d:
where \\server\share specifies the share's UNC path. (Although this
command appears on several lines here, you would enter it on one line in the
command-shell window.) You can get more information about wbadmin by typing
wbadmin /?
in a command-shell window. If you want to automate the complete PC backup process,
you can create a script that uses wbadmin and use Vista's Task Scheduler to
run that script.
Shadow Copy
If you've worked in a Microsoft server environment, you've probably had a chance
to use VSS. In Vista, VSS is part of the desktop OS, which provides for easy
and effective protection against accidentally deleted or overwritten files.
VSS is enabled by default and saves point-in-time copies of files. You can easily
restore a file or folder by right-clicking it in Windows Explorer and selecting
the Restore previous versions option. As Figure
2 shows, the Properties page appears. On the Previous Versions tab, you'll
find a selection of restorable versions of the file or folder. You can restore
a file or folder from not only shadow copies but also from file backups. Note
that you can open, copy, and restore shadow copies, but you can only restore
backup versions. There isn't much you will want or need to do to manage VSS,
but if you are curious, vssadmin.exe is the command-line tool for monitoring
VSS. Note that you need to have administrative rights to run vssadmin.exe.
System Restore
Between file backups, complete PC backups, and shadow copies, Vista has user
data pretty well protected. However, none of that will help users who can't
log on to their systems because of a bad driver or corrupted OS file. System
Restore can help users recover from such scenarios. Although System Restore
has been around for a while, Vista has improved it by again leveraging VSS to
make point-in-time incremental copies of the files required to perform a System
Restore. Vista's System Restore tool even includes an undo option in case the
desired results aren't obtained.
Restore points are automatically created every day and before significant events,
such as the installation of a new device driver. You can also manually create
a restore point in the System Protection tab of the System Properties dialog
box. This tab is also where you perform a System Restore.
Simply Powerful
Although Vista's backup features might lack familiarity and some of the granular
control of NTBackup, Microsoft has gone a long way toward achieving its goals
of making backup and recovery tools more usable to the general population. Administrators
and power users who are willing to learn about and embrace the new capabilities
for what they are will likely discover that just because the features are user-friendly
doesn't mean they're less effective in protecting workstation data and providing
overall system recoverability.