Win 7 Backup Questions

[Comsat]

I need some advice on backing up my Win7 machine. I'm currently using (I use that term loosely) Win7's built in backup software. I like the fact that it's built-in and pretty user friendly. That said, unlike other backup software I've used it doesn't compare files and folders and update one backup it creates a new backup each and every time you run it. So every week when it runs it fails because my external drive can't fit two backups of my system. I've got a large library of music I want to keep backed up but I see no reason to create a new backup each time Win7 backup runs.

So here are my questions:
Can Win7 backup compare files? I'm I just missing a setting?
Should I be using something different to backup my libraries and just use Win7 backup to deal with system files and creating an image?

Thanks!

 

[tacohead]

Not really much help here but I have been using windows backup over the past few days. The first backup took about 4-5hours then I backed up the following day only having installed a few small things and alien vs predator, it still took well over an hour. I did search around a bit while my initial backup was happening and there do seem to be a fair few other people who have same problem as you although these were from around august last year.

I don't exactly have any specific settings that might be wrong as the backup scheme is very vague itself so I can't help you with that. I think it's just better to steer clear of windows back-up for now. I really don't know why they removed the option to have incremental, full and differential backups like xp.
Good luck.

 

[Comsat]

So I stumbled on SyncToy this weekend and I'm now using that to sync the files in my library to an external drive. It's wonderfully easy to set up and use and now I've set a scheduled task to sync those directories once a week. Oh...and it's pretty fast.

Now I just need to figure out MUST be included in Windows backup to keep me safe.

 

[tacohead]

Bit of reading while my backup was doing it's thing. Appears it's an issue with media player networking service .

You can read more on it here

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/50f3ff7a-2ae7-41c1-ac92-41edaed1e2f9


to sum it up: the short fix for now is to disable permanently or stop it
every time you boot up (media player networking service)

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/01/27/how-to-disable-windows-7-media-player-network-sharing-service-wmpnetwk/comment-page-1/


Apparently fix is to be implented with service pack one.

 

[Comsat]

Great find! However, I don't want to disable wmpnetwk since I'm using a 360 as an extender. One would hope MS will come up with a fix for this since it must effect the majority of Win7 users by default.

BTW: So far so good with SyncToy. It's a really powerful little rsync tool.

Bit of reading while my backup was doing it's thing. Appears it's an issue with media player networking service .

You can read more on it here

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/50f3ff7a-2ae7-41c1-ac92-41edaed1e2f9


to sum it up: the short fix for now is to disable permanently or stop it
every time you boot up (media player networking service)

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/01/27/how-to-disable-windows-7-media-player-network-sharing-service-wmpnetwk/comment-page-1/


Apparently fix is to be implented with service pack one.

 

[Comsat]

Best answer selected by comsat.