Vista backup problem -
No Problem Are you a user of Vista Home or Vista
Home Premium? There is high rumored story that is making rounds. The
story is about Windows Vista backup feature in the above mentioned two
editions. User will not be able to take backups properly & it
would affect the process of recovery. And utimately user need to
upgrade their Vista to higher and most expensive edition of Vista, in
order to make full use of backup and recovery feature. This
allegation was found to be completely false, later.
Why
this false allegation came into picture? Is it the master plan of
someone to stop vista from being getting popular? Or is this allegation
came due to the confusing terms? Here, now we are going to look into
the matter. Groups in Windows Vista Editions:
Basically, there are two groups of Windows Vista editions. The
high end vista edition group includes the Business, Enterprise and the
Ultimate. The lower end includes Home Basic and Home Premium. What
makes the difference in backup is the volume shadow copy feature.
About Volume Shadow Copy: According to
Microsoft, Volume Shadow Copy creates automatically copies of files on
which you work. This copy can be used later to retrieve the document,
in case, it is deleted accidentally. Shadow copy option is turned on
automatically in Vista. Vista creates copies based on a scheduled basis
of files which have undergone changes. Because only incremental changes
are recorded in shadow copy option, the disk space used will be minimal.
Windows Vista PC backup & Volume Shadow Copy (VSC):
VSC first got introduced in Windows Server 2003. As said
above, each time, a shadow copy gets created when Windows takes a
snap-shot of the system. With Vista, Volume Shadow Copy has been
integrated into system Restore, such that, the System Restore now makes
use of VSC for maintaining snapshot images. This enables System Restore
to create complete backups, not just system files of Windows Vista.
Here is the actual confusion… The Volume
Shadow Copy has not been listed in the Microsoft’s page of key
features. Instead, the “Windows Complete Backup and Restore” feature is
listed in this page. This of course, relies on the Volume Shadow Copy
feature in order to function. There is confusion behind a Microsoft
plan and decision, which splits and makes Windows Complete Backup to be
a separate product. Complex issue: This
issue is really complex, though it appears simple from its outer skin,
according to PCPitStop. The basic “backup” will be built into Windows
Home Basic and Premium and it allows one to create backups that one can
store on hard drive, CD or DVD. The creation of backup will be looked
into by the operating system. The users of Home Basic and Home Premium
editions are not aware of Volume shadow Copy feature, as it is not
mentioned in feature list, or in any other documents. The
duty of backing up essential data is the prime responsibility of the
user. There are many tools available to create backups and to restore
back them, whenever some problem occurs. Microsoft also, working in
this key area, and tries to give its best as far as possible. Now, it
is up to the user to decide which tool to use for backups and
restoration procedures. | 
