Building better backups
REINSTALLING IS, OR SHOULD BE, A LAST RESORT – AND IF YOU EVER COME TO THE POINT WHERE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO REINSTALL WINDOWS AND DON’T HAVE COPIES OF YOUR FILES, IT MIGHT BE TOO LATE.
A hardware failure, a cryptographic malware attack, whatever the case may be, you don’t want to be left stranded. We’ve talked about using Windows’ File History tools elsewhere, which is a good way to keep regular copies of your personal files, but Windows also includes a more thorough backup procedure in the form of Backup and Restore (Windows 7). Now, we can’t be entirely sure how long this is going to last, given its archaic name, but for now, it works, and we’d wager that Microsoft will supply a tool to restore its backups even if the facility gets removed from future versions of the operating system. If you have a backup on an external drive, you can reinstall Windows from scratch and restore it using the same tool – aim to make one every week or so, so you don’t lose too much time. EaseUS Todo Backup 11 Free ( www.easeus.com) is a decent option for automating backups; make sure, if you do this, that you don’t leave your backup drive permanently connected to your machine, because a hardware failure passed down the line is a double whammy of disappointment.
Do not discount the power of system restore points, either. While they’re not kind to storage – we’d put them on your mechanical long-term storage drive, rather than an SSD, if you have the choice – making a system restore point regularly is good practice. Taking the overkill position of making one before installing anything even slightly questionable is an even better thing to do, although we don’t really expect you to do that. Make sure you clean up when you’re sure your machine is running fine, because a huge hoard of system restore points does nobody any good.