How to use Windows Backup and Restore Utility

Introduction

Since its first appearance in the Windows OS family in Windows 7, the Backup and Restore utility has been the go-to for managing the all-too-important backup and restore jobs Windows users need. This was a major improvement over previous backup and restore solutions offered by Windows and it has taken the user-friendly aspects of it a bit further. 

This article will detail how to use the different aspects of the Windows 10 carryover of the Backup and Restore utility, including File History, backing up files and the restore capabilities available in Windows 10. Since the older version of the utility is more of a legacy capability (discussed below) and other capabilities have been added since, this article will approach Windows 10’s backup and restore capabilities as a whole than focusing on the utility alone. 

The Backup and Restore Utility

This utility/tool was a needed process improvement to the Windows OS family in 2009. The Windows 7 presentation of this tool was so popular that a legacy version was built into Windows 10. To find this utility, simply search the term Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7) in your Windows 10 Cortana search bar. Your search result will appear at the top of the result list (assuming that you have an earlier version of Windows 10). 

Your version may not find this utility via a Cortana search, if so you can find it buried a bit in the backup section of Update and Security. We will get back to this point earlier. 

Backups

The most widely used function discussed in this article is backing up your files which makes it the best starting point. 

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To find backups in Windows 10, pull up the settings by clicking on the Windows start button and clicking on settings (Read more...)