The missing pieces from the Windows 8.1 preview

[bekdik]

This one is the most concerning to me

The legacy Windows 7 Backup program, which allows you to capture an image backup of your system, is gone. The associated executable file and DLL (Sdclt.exe and Sdcpl.dll, respectively) are gone, as is the Windows Backup service. The opportunity to restore a backup created using that tool is still there, but you can’t create a new image backup of your device running the Windows 8.1 Preview.

Yeah, I know most people don't back up, but if the basic tools are missing, how can one expect them to? Widows 8 forces you to save everything in the My Documents folder if you want the file copy tool to make a backup.

But then I guess if one's only use for a computing device is Twitter and Facebook backup isn't needed ...

 

[Messugga]

This one is the most concerning to me



Yeah, I know most people don't back up, but if the basic tools are missing, how can one expect them to? Widows 8 forces you to save everything in the My Documents folder if you want the file copy tool to make a backup.

But then I guess if one's only use for a computing device is Twitter and Facebook backup isn't needed ...

Just use Acronis True Image or something similar. Works well enough. Perhaps they're thinking of replacing the tool with a more up-to-date version that simply wasn't ready in time for the 8.1 preview?

 

[bekdik]

Just use Acronis True Image or something similar. Works well enough. Perhaps they're thinking of replacing the tool with a more up-to-date version that simply wasn't ready in time for the 8.1 preview?

I had issues with Acronis & win 8. If Acronis is running and the machine is rebooted, then you end up with being locked out from the machine until the backup has completed, maybe 2 hours or more, unless you switch the machine off, as there is no way of getting access once you see the "Operations are in Progress, Please wait." message on your screen. I followed this up with an Acronis senior support person and they were not able to solve it.

Now I don't know about you, but i'm pretty averse to switching machines off in order to gain access.

 

[Roadrunner]

The idea could also be that they want to nudge people to make backups to the cloud with the likes of SkyDrive and Office 365, although we might not have quite reached the point where the majority of users would want or be able to afford to do that.

 

[agentrfr]

This one is the most concerning to me



Yeah, I know most people don't back up, but if the basic tools are missing, how can one expect them to? Widows 8 forces you to save everything in the My Documents folder if you want the file copy tool to make a backup.

But then I guess if one's only use for a computing device is Twitter and Facebook backup isn't needed ...

Clonezilla >>>>>>>>>> windows backup. Microsoft have realized this, and stopped supporting a painfully slow program. (Arctosis TI is okay, I guess.)

Decent network admins will mount all employee documents to a network drive and RAID that, so the need for a user side backup program is almost non-existant.

 

[bekdik]

The idea could also be that they want to nudge people to make backups to the cloud with the likes of SkyDrive and Office 365, although we might not have quite reached the point where the majority of users would want or be able to afford to do that.

True, but this does not do an image backup, which means that the machine needs to be rebuilt rather than restored, a much more troublesome process as at least one set of software will be mislaid and at least one app won't be re-installed!

 

[bekdik]

Clonezilla >>>>>>>>>> windows backup. Microsoft have realized this, and stopped supporting a painfully slow program. (Arctosis TI is okay, I guess.)

Decent network admins will mount all employee documents to a network drive and RAID that, so the need for a user side backup program is almost non-existant.

Decent network admins will most likely have a server solution