File History and restore to another PC

Anonymous
2013-04-08T08:46:59+00:00

I would like to use the File History feature of Windows 8 and so far it has been working fine.  However, I have come across a scenario and need input on practicality for the following:

  1. File History working well and keeping 3 month of file versions on external USB drive

2.  System crashes and new HDD required

  1. New Windows 8 system loaded on to HDD and all is up and running

4.  Time to use File History for restore.... BUT

From what I understand you cannot "point" the new Windows 8 machine to use the external drive with previous File History.  You will need to do a manual copy and paste from the external USB (by selecting the appropriate file in the File History directory on the USB drive). 

The problem is, File History appends the date and time stamp, thus the file name changes.  For example, MYDOC.DOC become MYDOC.DOC ((2013_04_04 18_27_46 UTC).

How do you remove the parenthesis from the file name when copying the file back to its original location or is File History not a "system restore" type utility.  Whilst the parenthesis will not stop applications working (like WORD, OUTLOOK etc), it looks horrible and creates these long file names that is unwanted.

Thoughts/suggestions/comments?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2013-08-27T05:44:44+00:00

I just had to try to do this, and I was able to (on a new Win8 machine) point at the previous backup by clicking Drives and then selecting my backup drive (a network share in my case). Then I was able to check "I want to use a previous backup on this File History drive" and it displayed my existing backups on that drive. Finally, I was able to do the regular (if not very intuitive) restore files by clicking the settings icon in the upper right of File History.

Hope that helps,

Glenn Gailey

Was this answer helpful?

50+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

61 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2013-06-13T18:07:43+00:00

    This is ridiculous. Microsoft completely redid the Back-up feature on Windows 8 but then failed to test if you can actually restore the damn files to a new hard drive????? I just upgraded to a new ssd  and installed a fresh copy of windows 8 figuring I could use file history to restore my old files. It refuses to see the back ups and restore. I have to manually locate and copy paste all the files and now they have all have these huge date/time stamps added to the file names. Even if my original hard drive had failed and I used the file history as a back up it would have failed. 

    Now I have to go back to my old hard drive and manually copy paste everything so I don't have huge file names.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2013-04-22T23:09:04+00:00

    This is a very good explanation of the problem.  If a patch / Windows Update could be made that allowed restoring a "previous version" of a file from File History of a file that doesn't exist on the internal drive.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2013-04-22T22:22:53+00:00

    It i not the extension we want to hide, File History does not change the extension, but renaming the file. For example if we have a file called "Capture.PNG" on the Desktop, it will be saved to File History with a Timestamp like: "Capture (2013_03_18 10_31_19 UTC).PNG". Also File History is saving the file changes, so there can be more versions saved from Capture.PNG with different timestamps. 

    I had used File History to back up my personal stuff from my Notebook to my External HDD. Now I bought a new desktop pc and want to copy all the newes files from the External Drive to the desktop pc. Is there any way to do this? I cannot copy all the latest files manually from the drive, it would take ages.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2013-04-19T03:14:44+00:00

    I am having this issue as well with "restoring" the files to another machine.  I tried the steps you mentioned, but they don't seem to help.  I'd rather not have to manually delete all of the dates.  I also notice an issue with the files all being read only, something else blocking a simple copy and paste.

    I tried setting up the new computer to use the same USB drive, and it seemed to work, but the utility won't allow restoring of a file that doesn't exist in "My Documents" for example.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments