Backup is basically storing your important data on any peripheral storage device so that even if your system gets corrupted due to virus attack or any other issue, one can retrieve the data. As opposed to other operating systems where manual backup collection is required for securely maintaining the reservoir of data, Windows 8 features of ‘File History’ make it somewhat automatically manageable. File history is almost identical to the previous versions of Operating System that included shadow copies. With different file versions in File History, Windows 8 provides you the option to back up your data and personal files at predefined intervals of time on external storage medium such as hard drive or USB being configured by you.
To start ‘File History’ option which is off by default, you are required to go to Start, click on Search and then search for this option. Select this option and turn it on.
After doing so, the system will automatically select the drive with maximum storage or to any other external drive attached to your system. Under default conditions, File History will take complete backup of your data and personal files after every 1 hour. Personal files include all folders. If required, you can also change the backup location depending upon your requirement.
‘Advanced Settings’ option of configuration settings is also available from where you can change the backup interval and duration for keeping the saved versions of a file. However, if you have to restore the files, you will have to click on RESTORE PERSONAL FILES in the option of File History in Control Panel. In order to restore the data, you are required to select the file or folder which is required and then hit the green restore button.
You can also recommend File History option to other group members if HOMEGROUP option is installed on your PC. This application of File History works best in networking situations. In order to attain the perfect solution for maintaining backup of data and personal files, one can combine this application with BITLOCKER which will further protect the backed up data.
Though Microsoft has attempted to make File History identical to apple’s time machine, yet time machine is more intelligent in terms of data backup as compared to File History.
Hence, we can say File History has a lot of advantages over the previous versions of Windows and is an easy to use application for taking backup of your data and information. You just keep this option on and forget about backup, file history will retrieve all the important data and take its backup periodically.
