It turns out there is actually more than one feature, in different flavors and versions of Windows that provides this functionality. These are first generation notes…

We generally implement two backup strategies:

We back up hosted servers every night in a way that is quick and easy to restore the entire server, but harder to use for file recovery. This is a terrific advantage of our hosted infrastructure…one that small businesses can't generally afford to do themselves.

This is our primary backup mechanism. It backs up modified files every night and provides a 90-day restore window (as commonly configured). It will back up open files, but users should sign out at the end of the day, saving all open files, to insure complete backups.

We do not generally implement workstation backups.

Backing up workstations is hard…hard to manage, hard to verify and hard to pay for. Also, workstations 'fall down' all the time, frequently with unrecoverable disk drive errors. We have already seen it happen this week…

Our basic backup plan is for all users to save all files, of any value on the server where they are backed up nightly, and to skip workstation backups entirely (unless there are special circumstances).

Microsoft calls the new 'File History' feature 'backup'…and it is, in a workstation-sort-of-way. However, this is not a replacement for a comprehensive backup plan. It is primarily a convenience feature where users can restore files themselves without IT Support intervention. It is very convenient and can be a valuable part of a backup strategy…mostly for mobile PCs.

The new File History feature uses an external (USB) hard drive as the backup destination.

Restoring files is very easy using the Previous Versions tab of the file properties window.

This is the older feature introduced with Windows 7, based on VSS (snapshot) technology. It is appropriate for Windows Servers and is easy to configure, as long as you have enough free disk space.

• Enabled or Disabled
• Amount of Disk Space to Use
• Schedule of Snapshots