Just Curious About Backing Up

[bigmck]

When I did my Win 7 install I went through the process of backing up my files. I see that Win 7 put all my old files in the Windows.Old file. I just briefly went through the folder and it appears everything is there. If a person were willing to take the chance, would they even need to backup their files? It appears you could just copy from the Windows.Old file to the proper directory in Win 7 and paste. Is that possible?

 

[Jonathan_King]

The Windows.old does not save your settings, just a bunch of folders. If all you want to save is your music, docs, pictures, etc, that would work.
Using Easy Transfer saves settings as well.

 

[Tews]

Use disc cleanup to delete the windows.old folder when you are finished...

 

[gregrocker]

I believe settings are found in windows.old at user>appdata when protected files are unhidden.

However, I have not yet unhidden windows.old files so there may indeed be no way to get into that folder. Try it through Control Panel>Folder options>View

I would not trust windows.old as my only backup. I would make a backup and then go the cleaner install route of booting from installer and using Custom>Advanced drive tools to wipe and format.

 

[Etihtsarom]

I think the OP is right, however, on upgrade installs or even clean installs in which the old drive isn't wiped, the OS will put everything into the Windows.old folder. User data can be retrieved from there, but I don't know about application data, though it would seem kinda intuitive that it is the same. Of course, that's just not good practice to go this route.