FilesNotToBackup registry key

[betwixt]

Hi there,

I've searched a bit here and there on the net regarding excluding certain folders and its contents from Windows Backup, since I would like to use Windows Backup to make a system backup without any user files, and use a seperate utility for backing up the user files.

So I found out about this "FilesNotToBackup" string in the registry, and according to what I read, I can put full paths in there to exclude with the wildcard *.* /s. Which I did.

But I found out it's not working, so it still includes the folders I added to that registry key to the system backup image. I noticed the system image in the "WindowsImageBackup" folder is the same size as the space used on my OS disk.

Am I doing something wrong here? I did a reboot first..
Thanks in advance.
Dennis

 

[marsmimar]

Hello Dennis and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'll state right up front that I'm not an expert in anything. However, I did find a couple of things that might help you. In the first link a poster said:

Go to:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup
then add a new "multi-string value".
I named the value something useful ("Shared Music") then set
its value to the folder/files I wanted to exclude
("D:\Users\Public\Music\*.* /s").
(The "/s" on the end means "and all subdirectories".)

Were these the same parameters you used?

How do I exclude certain files and folders from Backup Restore / - Microsoft Answers

Excluding Files from Shadow Copies (Windows)

In the alternative it might be better to look into some 3rd party programs like Macrium, EaseUS Todo, Paragon, etc that seem to offer more flexibility than Windows 7 native backup.

 

[betwixt]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I used exactly the same parameters. So that's checked. Any other idea's? And what's the difference between FilesNotToBackUp and FilesNotToSnapshot?