Win 7 System Images - incremental or not?

Using Win 7 Home Premium 64bit. Using Backup & Restore to do file level backups and system images to an external disk. I do not have a backup schedule -- I do them manually.

Are system images incremental? That is, does the backup software just add new and modified files to the system image after the first image has been created?

--Larry

Hi Larrymcg and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm afraid they are not. You probably need a paid for third party backup system for that. Most, if not all, of the free versions are not incremental.

You may be better off without incrementals anyway. They add a layer of complexity that you don't really need. Just make a full every week (or day if you must).

OK, not incremental. Thanks for that info. Agrees with what I had surmised.

Since the space used (as reported by the Backup & Restore "Manage Space" button) seems to be almost constant, I also conclude that only one system image is being kept.

Is there a way to have multiple (full) system images saved?

-Larry

PS: I tried really hard, for several months to get Acronis to work. Finally gave up. First program I ever paid for and had to throw it away!

Just out of curiosity - what was wrong with your Acronis?
I have to admit I really dig that little tool.

larrymcg said:

OK, not incremental. Thanks for that info. Agrees with what I had surmised.

Since the space used (as reported by the Backup & Restore "Manage Space" button) seems to be almost constant, I also conclude that only one system image is being kept.

Is there a way to have multiple (full) system images saved?

-Larry

PS: I tried really hard, for several months to get Acronis to work. Finally gave up. First program I ever paid for and had to throw it away!

Click to expand...

By default Windows Imaging will reserve 30% (I think) of your backup drive and store as many images in it as it can before deleting the oldest. The way I get around that is to limit the space management to one image. Before taking the next image manually I rename the existing WindowsSystemImage folder to something else (I stick a date at the end) Image backup will then create a new folder for you.

Please note however that you need to rename the image folder back to what it was before you can restore from it.

Kado, Thanks for that info. I'll give it a try. I'll also take a look to see if I can get Windows Imaging to use more than the 30% default. I think there is a tutorial that mentions it.
--Larry

You are welcome larrymcg. I think the tutorial you mentioned is similar to what I have described but I can't find it at present.

sordid, concerning my issues with ATI. I was using ATI Home 2010 (with Plus Pack) on a brand new Win 7 Home Premium 64bit system. That version of ATI is supposed to be happy in the 64bit OS world. Maybe it wasn't The list of issues is very long and none of them ever got resolved via the Acronis Forums even though there were zillions of messages with all kinds of suggestions. Here's some info:

Images would verify about half the time. Some images would verify one day but not the next. I tried using two different external disks and both new and old external disk boxes (I buy hard disks and put them in USB connected boxes; they are not the pre-packaged external disks).

Sometimes ATI couldn't find all the incrementals for an image. Sometimes the latest one would be missing. Sometimes an intermediate one would be missing. They were *always* on the backup disk (Win Explorer could see them) but ATI couldn't find all of them.

I tried several versions of the ATI recovery disks. Had lots of issues with mouse clicks being totally ignored (no matter how many times you tried). So I was never able to verify an image via the recovery disks.

Some folks claimed that I should create the backup images via an ATI recovery disk. I didn't do that because I really wanted to do the backups without having to boot into another operating system.

And lots of other issues too but those above are fatal as far as I'm concerned.

I reinstalled without success. I upgraded to newer versions with no success. After several months I gave up and started using Windows Backup & Restore.

--Larry

Larry, that sounds pretty unpleasant. Never ran into any of those issues myself - fortunately.
Thanks for elaborating. Will ask some of my friends I know use or used ATI as well.

After re-reading the tutorials:

If a backup schedule is turned ON, Backup will allocate up to 30% of the HDD free space for system images. There is conflicting info about whether it is 30% of the free space or 30% of the drive. But the tutorial clearly states free space. ( http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/628-backup-user-system-files-delete-backups.html )

If a backup schedule is turned OFF, only one system image is kept.

--Larry

This WiKi page says Win7 can do "full system incremental backups" several times. I guess it's wrong?
Backup and Restore Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes it is wrong. The image backup is not incremental but the File and folder backup is.

Thanks kado897 for clarifying. I tried several times in Win7 System Backup and could not find a way to do incremental image backup.

You are welcome hw360 and welcome to seven forums.

If you elect to make backup images on a schedule - then you can choose to Let Windows Manage space used, or keep only the latest image.

If you choose the first option - you will be able to select various dates to restore the image from - subject to the maximum allocated space ( 30% of the backup drive by default )

They will be incremental.

Exceeding the allocated space means older images should be deleted - or you can increase the allocated space - up to you.

If you have no need for vhd format backup images - you would be better using another app. - there are some great free ones - Macrium and Paragon free versions are very popular.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/

Hope it helps

I just tried it again on Microsoft Virtual PC.
C: Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit, 9GB.
E: Empty 100GB.

In Backup and Restore, I set:
Backup Destination E:
What do you want to back up? Let Windows choose (Backup Summary: All users, System Image)

I click 'Back up now' button.
After awhile, backup finished. I click 'Back up now' button, again.
Windows 7 deleted the first image backup in WindowsImageBackup, and created a brand new one.

So I concluded that Windows 7 CANNOT do a incremental image backup. Right?

I have no idea what effect running it in a vm would have - I am not using windows system image myself right now due to it's other obvious limitations.

Was there any difference between the two, e.g. removing some files, then adding some different ones - before making the second image?

Did you boot to system recovery options and see what windows sys img restore offered?

Did it offer 1 or 2 choices of image to restore ?

Did you check system protection was set for ON for that drive - did you also check to how much of that was used ( Current Usage ) after making the second image?

It is important to note that if there is no schedule specified for the backups, then only one image is kept no matter what the space situation is. If the backups have a schedule, then more than one image will be kept subject to the max 30% usage rule.

Absolutely right, Larry - says so right there in my previous post.

If you elect to make backup images on a schedule

Click to expand...

Wasn't clear to me what happens if you have:

a) Elected to do the schedule and let windows manage

then

b) Create a manual one anyway.