Creating and Using File History
You can use File
History to automate backups of personal files from libraries, the
desktop, contacts, and favorites. You must have appropriate permissions
to back up and restore files on a computer.
Configuring File History Backups
Windows 8 can automatically create personal data backups. Personal data backups are used to periodically back up pictures, music, videos,
email, documents, and other types of important files so you can restore
or use them on another computer if necessary. Specifically, the
Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos subfolders of the Users\Public
folder is copied as part of the backup data as are the Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Favorites, Pictures, Music, and Videos subfolders of the user’s profile.
As Figure 1 shows, File History is configured in Control Panel. When working with File History, keep the following in mind:
-
Personal data backups can be created only on removable media or
network locations. They can’t be created on a computer’s internal disk
drives. -
Personal data backups are created automatically when you enable the
File History feature. By default, File History saves copies of files
every hour. -
By default, saved versions of personal data are kept indefinitely so
long as they don’t exceed 5 percent of the disk space at the assigned
location.
With network locations, the personal data backup is created in a subfolder named in the following syntax: UserName@DomainOrComputer, such as [email protected] or WilliamS@CorpPC12.
This folder has a subfolder set with the user’s computer name, such as
CORPC12, which in turn contains Configuration and Data subfolders. With
removable media, a top-level folder called FileHistory is created first.
Enabling File History Backups and Configuring Drives
With USB flash drives or other removable media, you can enable
automated backups and create your first backup manually by following
these steps:
-
Insert a USB flash drive or connect other removable media to the computer. -
In Control Panel, tap or click Save Backup Copies Of Your Files With File History under the System And Security heading. -
Tap or click Turn On. Windows 8 turns on file history and creates the initial backup.
With network location, you can enable automated backups and create your first backup by following these steps:
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In Control Panel, tap or click Save Backup Copies Of Your Files With File History under the System And Security heading. -
Tap or click Select Drive, then tap or click Add Network Location.
If network discovery and file sharing is disabled, tap or click the
notification panel and then tap or click Turn On Network Discovery And
File Sharing. -
In the Folder box, enter the UNC path to the folder in which the personal data should be stored, such as \\CorpServer172\CorpData, and then tap or click OK. -
When you tap or click Turn On, Windows 8 turns on file history and creates the initial backup.
Using the options on the File History page, you can modify the
default backup configuration in several ways. Each user can have only
one file history drive at a time. You can change the File History drive
to a new network location and Windows will allow you to move the data
to a new network location automatically when you follow these steps:
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On the File History page, tap or click Select Drive, then tap or click Add Network Location. -
In the Folder text box, enter the UNC path to the folder in which the personal data should be stored, such as \\CorpServer96\UserData. This location can’t have existing File History data for the user. -
Tap or click OK twice. When prompted, tap or click Yes if you’d like
to move the user’s personal data to the new location. If the location
already has personal data for the user, the data won’t be moved, and
you’ll need to tap or click OK when prompted to confirm that you
understand this.
You can change the File History drive to removable media from a network location or to different removable media, follow these steps:
-
Insert a USB flash drive or connect other removable media to the computer. -
On the File History page, tap or click Change Drive. -
Tap or click the removable media to use and then tap or click OK. -
When prompted, tap or click Yes if you’d like to move the user’s
personal data to the new location. If the location already has personal
data for the user, the data won’t be moved, and you’ll need to tap or
click OK when prompted to confirm that you understand this.
Excluding Folders from File History Backups
By default, personal data backups created with the File History feature contain the Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos
subfolders of the Users\Public folder and the Contacts, Desktop,
Documents, Favorites, Pictures, Music, and Videos subfolders of the
user’s profile. You can exclude folders from backups by following these
steps:
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In Control Panel, tap or click Save Backup Copies Of Your Files With File History under the System And Security heading. -
Tap or click Exclude Folders. Any currently excluded folders are shown on the Exclude Folders page. -
If you want to exclude a folder, tap or click Add. Use the Select
Folder dialog box to select the folder to exclude and then tap or click
Select Folder. As an example, if you wanted to exclude Public
Documents, you’d expand Libraries and Documents, tap or click Public
Documents, and then tap or click Select Folder. -
If you want to include a folder that was previously excluded, select it in the Excluded list and then tap or click Remove.
Modifying Default Save Settings
File History saves copies of files every hour by default and those
saved versions are kept indefinitely so long as they don’t exceed 5
percent of the disk space at the assigned location. You can modify the
default save settings by following these steps:
-
In Control Panel, tap or click Save Backup Copies Of Your Files With File History under the System And Security heading. -
Tap or click Advanced Settings. The current default values are listed on the Advanced Settings page, shown in Figure 2. -
As necessary, use the Save Copies Of Files list to change when saved
copies of files are created. This creates saved versions that users can
go back to, as well as to use for recovery. You can reduce overhead
related to File History by setting a longer save interval, such as
Every 3 Hours or Every 6 Hours. Daily is the maximum duration.
-
As necessary, use the Size Of Offline Cache list to control the
maximum size of the file cache. Be sure to check the size of the
related drive and increase or decrease this value as appropriate for
the size of the drive and the available space. For example, if a drive
has 2 TB of space, you might want to set the maximum size of the
offline cache to 2 percent of disk space while if the drive has only
100 GB of space, you might want to set the maximum size of the offline
cache to 10 percent of disk space. -
As necessary, use the Keep Saved Versions list to specify how long
to keep saved versions. Choose a setting that makes sense for the way
the user works. If you choose Forever, saved versions are kept
indefinitely and will not be overwritten if the offline cache hits its
size limit. If you choose Until Space Is Need, saved versions are kept
until the size of the offline cache grows to its limit and then the
oldest versions are overwritten as necessary to accommodate new
versions. Any value in between these two settings keeps saved versions
for a set amount of time before they are removed. However, if the size
of the offline cache hits the limit, no new versions can be created
until space is made available (by old versions reaching their time
limit).
Note
On the Advanced Settings page, you can manually clean up file versions at any time. Tap or click Clean Up Versions. In the File
History Clean Up dialog box, select which versions to delete and then
tap or click Clean Up. For example, you can specify that you want to
clean up files older than six months or that you want to clean up all
but the latest version.
You can recover personal data files you’ve backed up with File History by following these steps:
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In Control Panel, tap or click Save Backup Copies Of Your Files With File History under the System And Security heading. -
Tap or click Restore Personal Files. In the File
History dialog box, use the Previous Version and Next Version buttons
to navigate through the snapshots until you find the version you want
to work with. You can navigate folder structures within the snapshots
just as you would folders on a hard drive. -
Snapshots are listed with a date and time stamp and a version number
(for example, Monday, May 6, 2013 5:11 PM | Version 5 of 12). When you
find a folder or file to restore, tap or click it, and then tap or
click Restore To Original Location. You can select multiple items to
restore as well.
Tip
You can restore files and folders to alternate locations as
well. After you select the items you want to restore, tap or click the
Options button in the upper-right corner of the File History dialog box and then tap or click Restore To. You can then select an alternate restore location.
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