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

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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

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-08-21T22:17:13+00:00

    Hi All,

    I have been able to recreate from a 6 month old image. I then restore BUT used file restore to get my latest files. However it seems that it put back files I have purposefully deleted over the last 6 months. I did it by simply clicking the green button for all the folders it shows. Thoughts?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-19T00:00:57+00:00

    I know this was posted a while ago but I followed your steps, but when I try to select the backup it says that the file is being used in another process. Thanks

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-13T20:37:39+00:00

    Great, step by step.  It allow me to restore the backup to a new Windows 10 installation.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-03-21T21:28:06+00:00

    Thanks, Worked for me once I STOPPED using the drive and then closed it all and then acted like I wanted to setup File Transfer again on that drive and it showed me the new file and old file it was using.  I selected the old and it warned if I start here that the files may not be up to date.  Well since my computer is fresh the files are newer, but not there!  So I said YES to use the older History and then restored everything!  Worked great.  Thanks for your help.

    PS, from now on I will also use BACK UP, and FILE HISTORY.

    Glad I read your post!!!!

    A+++++++++++++

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