Windows 7: Windows Backup vs 3rd party Backup solution.

Paragon is very solid and reliable. Not especially fast ( speed is reasonable for a normal priority setting - but there is no high speed setting ).

You will find if you set Macrium on High priority - it outpaces everything else.

The big advantage of Paragon ( particularly the BR 10 Compact is the huge number of features - file and folder backup as well - you don't get any of that on any of the others ).

Paragon can also flip itself into it's own recovery environment to restore - still with any of these apps. - make sure you run off the cd and that it boots up and recognizes everything - just to be safe.

Also Paragon boot disc has a lot of great stuff - file transfer wizard , boot corrector - fixes bcd entries , and can be used to correct drive letters in the system registry, etc .

If you just want to make partition/disk images - no differentials, no file and folders backup, and no extras - the Macrium is much more efficient than Acronis.

Aye aye and ten four.

It doesn't work that way for me, and my full backup takes over 2 days!! I also have the WMP Network Sharing Service disabled, as someone else suggested.
In any event, I don't know how to change the schedule for the complete backups; I'd like to do an incremental daily, and a complete monthly, but only the incremental seems settable.

Zig

I'm trying to do a backup to external hard drive. Sometimes works o.k. Other times I get "There was a failure in creating a directory on the backup storage location. Access is denied".

Any iedas on how to correct?

I have just posted the following message to the Microsoft technical support forums; I believe it might be useful for this discussion as well:

Dear Divya,

I believe that your answer was (unintentionally) not fully responsive to Eckerlin's questions. I understand the differences between "image," "full" and "incremental" backups; please allow me to state some observations I have made, and please respond if they are correct or incorrect. I have been trying to make a (rather large) full backup on a less-than-weekly basis, accompanied by my daily incremental backups. I am using an external 2 TB USB drive.

1. When the "Back Up Now" button is pushed, the program makes a full backup, as defined in the user settings.
2. Incremental backups are then performed on a daily basis, or as otherwise scheduled by the user.
3. Another full backup is performed one week after the initial full backup, at the exact time that initial backup was run.

I understand how to set the schedule for the incremental backups in the program dialog, and this setting also appears to be available in the Windows Task Scheduler under the AutomaticBackup key; however, I'm unclear on how to modify or set the schedule for the (currently weekly) full backup. ? Is this setting hardcoded into the backup program, or is it accessible through the Windows Task Scheduler at a different place? I would like to set the full backup frequency to monthly, inasmuch as I do a "file backup" of my entire computer when I perform a full backup. I believe that the daily 3 AM incremental backups will suffice for most changes I might make during that interval, though I realize that periodic pruning may be necessary.

If possible, please respond to my bullet points individually with your comments, as well as directly answering my question as to full backup scheduling.

I don't intend to put you on the defensive by being so concrete, but I feel that some of the "party line" documentation for Windows Backup is in error, or otherwise inadequate. Of course, it's possible that there are bugs or other limitations in the program as currently written, to be addressed at a later date; if so, a third-party program might be more useful until such time.

Thank you in advance for your help,
Bill Zigrang