Cleaning Up Old File Versions
If you decide to keep file versions Forever
and find that your external drive or network location is running low on
space, you can perform a cleanup of your file versions (this is not
limited to only if you select Forever).
1. From the Start screen right-click on the screen.
2. Click the All Apps button that appears on the lower-right corner of the screen.
3. Select Control Panel.
4. Click System and Security.
5. Click File History.
6. Click Advanced Settings.
7. Under the drop-down box for Keep Saved Versions click the Clean Up Versions link.
8. In the File History Cleanup dialog box click the drop-down arrow and select desired amount of time (see Figure 7).
Figure 7. File History Cleanup dialog box
9. Click Clean Up. If
no files meet the criteria selected you are notified. If there are
files you see a completed successfully notification.
Restoring File Versions
Now that you have a copy of your files, you
can be confident that if you accidentally delete a file or if your data
gets corrupted you can restore your files or even previous versions of
your files. Restoring a file is straightforward.
1. From the Start screen right-click on the screen.
2. Click the All Apps button that appears on the lower-right corner of the screen.
3. Select Control Panel.
4. Click System and Security.
5. Click File History.
6. Click the Restore Personal Files link.
7. The Home – File History dialog box opens (see Figure 8).
From here you can click the arrow at the bottom of the box to navigate
to previous or next file versions if they are available. Each version
is represented by the date the copy was made.
Figure 8. File History dialog box
8. Browse and select the file you want to restore.
9. Clicking on the
center round button restores the file to its original location. If a
file with the same name already exists in the original location you are
presented with a Replace or Skip Files dialog box (see Figure 9). Within this box you have three selections:
• Replace the File in Destination—Overwrites the file in the original location.
• Skip This File—Does not restore the file.
• Compare Info for Both Files—Opens
up a Conflict dialog box and allows you to choose which file(s) you
want to restore and whether you want to keep the file in the original
location. If you select both, the copied file has a number added to its
name.
Figure 9. Replace or Skip Files dialog box
10. After your selections are made, click Continue.
You do have some options when restoring a
file. If you right-click on the file you want to restore you see the
following options:
• Preview—Allows you
to look at the file first to make sure this is the version you need
restored (you can double-click the file to see a preview also then
click the back arrow to return).
• Restore—Restores the file to its original location (same as clicking on the center round button).
• Restore To—Allows
you to navigate to a different location to save the file. Once you
select a different location the restore does not overwrite the existing
file.
In each case once you perform the restore, the location that you restored the file to opens in a File Explorer window.
Another feature in Windows 8 that you can use
to make an offline copy of your files is native .iso burning. This
allows you to save files in .iso format as an image burned onto a
CD/DVD. Disc images of backups can be saved as .iso files.
To open Windows Disc Image Burner,
right-click any existing .iso file and choose Burn Disc Image. A simple
dialog opens, letting you choose your disc burner drive. To start
burning the disc image, click Burn.
