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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:
2. System crashes and new HDD required
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?
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.
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
Update: If you have an Office 365 subscription and a decent internet connection, OneDrive now comes with 1 TB of free space and works quite well for backing up documents and photos. It still struggles with long filenames (or invalid characters), big files and email backup but it's workable.
You also get free backup software with personal cloud devices, which are good for saving audio and video. I didn't have much luck with the cheap Western Digital My Cloud solution, but the Synology solution looks good so far. Windows 8 and later (or Win 7 Pro) can also store system images on these devices.
Go to File History. Make sure the file history is NOT turned on for the current Windows 8 or 8.1 installation. Then in the top left select "Select drive". You will be presented with your External Drive. Select this drive. There will be the message "This File History drive was previously used". You also will see the file history version from the backup of you previous Windows installation. If you started file history on the new (current) installation, you will also see that version with a more current date-time stamp. Select the previous version . There will be the message "Do you wan tot use this drive for File History again?" Select yes.
It will return to the maim file history screen. File history will now be turned on.
Select "Restore personal files"
You will see all the previous incremental backups from your previous Windows 8 installation. Just select what you would like to restore and then click the "Green" restore button.
Works like a charm. Thanks!
Go to File History. Make sure the file history is NOT turned on for the current Windows 8 or 8.1 installation. Then in the top left select "Select drive". You will be presented with your External Drive. Select this drive. There will be the message "This File History drive was previously used". You also will see the file history version from the backup of you previous Windows installation. If you started file history on the new (current) installation, you will also see that version with a more current date-time stamp. Select the previous version . There will be the message "Do you wan tot use this drive for File History again?" Select yes.
It will return to the maim file history screen. File history will now be turned on.
Select "Restore personal files"
You will see all the previous incremental backups from your previous Windows 8 installation. Just select what you would like to restore and then click the "Green" restore button.
I just got a new computer. File history recognized this, found the file history, and started to restore it to my new computer. After several hours, it stopped at 43%. Up to that point, for every file it restored, it created five new copies!!! Rather than manually delete thousands of files, I deleted all restored files, hoping to start the restore again. The above procedure did not work for me. After I selected the drive as described, nothing happens from that point on. It looks like I'll be manually copying and pasting from my old computer to the new one. I hate when seemingly great technology doesn't work, and usually it doesn't.
Have had same problems after restoring from backup after PC failure.
I have found a solution to this which isn't - as far as I can see - mentioned above.
Downloaded (free) ReNamer from http://www.den4b.com/?x=downloads&product=renamer
Simple to write own rules so since my files had all got the string "(2015_blah blah UTC) added, just did a Remove rule to get rid of "(2015*)" and it restored a couple of thousand files at a time without problems
