File backup and restore in Windows 7

Most system administrators have used a one-click restore. Indeed, one-click backup and restore can help administrators recover the problematic operating system in the shortest amount of time. It is also possible to set multiple restore points to the operating system. However, at that time, one-click backup and restore operations were complicated, and it was necessary to restart the operating system. And the function is still relatively simple, can not run directly in the Windows operating system environment. Today, the Windows 7 operating system has brought us this surprise, and it is easy to backup and restore the partition contents on its platform.

First, open the partition backup settings.

In Windows 7, this partition backup file is called a restore point. This restore point is some copy of the files and folders in the operating system at some point. When a user inadvertently changes or deletes a file or folder that cannot be changed, the system administrator can restore the file that was mistakenly modified and accidentally deleted by the previously created restore point.

By default, the Windows 7 operating system only enables this system protection for the partition where the operating system is located. If you need to enable this feature for other partitions or hard drives on your system, the system administrator needs to manually start it. Right-click on the "Computer" icon on the desktop and click on "Properties" to discuss a dialog box for the control panel home page. On the left side of this window, there is an option for "System Protection". Click on this system protection, the following dialog box will pop up.

In this dialog, we can see that by default, it only enables system protection for the system disk. If the system administrator needs to enable the system protection function of other partitions, you can select the relevant partition and then select the configuration to set the relevant parameters of the restore point.

By default, it has three settings for restoring system settings and previous versions of files, restoring only previous versions of files, and shutting down system maintenance. The system administrator can choose according to the actual situation. It should be noted here that by default, the Windows 7 operating system creates a restore point every day. To do this, you need to limit the amount of hard disk space occupied by the restore point. So as not to take up a lot of hard disk space because of too many restore points. When you configure whether to enable system protection, you can set the amount of disk space usage at the same time. When the restore point file exceeds this maximum capacity limit, the system automatically deletes the old restore point to make room for the new restore point. By default, this capacity is not limited, which is very dangerous. Especially for the partition where the operating system is located, be sure to set the maximum capacity. Prevent adverse effects on the operational performance of operating system partitions due to their low remaining capacity.

However, when I tested this feature, I found some unexpected situations and did not know whether it was a vulnerability in its operating system. If you do not enable System Restore, we can still create restore points manually. As shown in the figure above, if the protection function of a partition is not enabled, you can still create a system restore point by pressing the “Create” button. Only the system does not automatically create a restore point at this time, but requires the user to create it manually. In addition, the author looked at some windows and found that the Windows 7 operating system is not very thorough for Chinese. For some new features, there is basically no localization. As shown in the above figure, it is obvious that there are traces of English.

Second, use the restore point to restore files.

As shown above, if the system creates a restore point, the system administrator can view all of its restore points through the folder properties. When restoring a partition file, you need to pay attention to the following aspects.

1. The level of restore point restore. We can use restore points to restore files at the partition level, folder level, and file level, respectively. For example, in the system partition or folder, right click to view its properties, you can see the dialog box of the above properties. Then select the “Previous Version" tab to list all the restore points. However, the author believes that Microsoft experts did not translate the name of this page when translating. They are translated literally in English. The author personally believes that it is more appropriate to take the name as a restore point than to use the previous version. Since files can be restored at multiple levels, they are finally restored at a low level when needed. For example, there are two files A and B in the newly created folder. The user accidentally deleted the content of the file A (if the content may be selected and then the space is accidentally pressed). At this point, the system administrator or user is best to recover at the file level when restoring files. That is, select file A, then right-click on the attribute and select the appropriate restore point to restore. This can avoid the adverse effects of the restore job on the creation of other files. In short, when restoring, the system administrator should choose the right level.

2. If the file that needs to be restored is not clear, the system engineer or user can open the restored file by clicking the “Open” button on the above tab. All files contained in the current restore point file are displayed. This information helps users determine which files need to be restored. You can avoid adversely affecting existing files because of incorrectly restored files. If this information does not help the user decide, then there are other ways. Copy the files or folders in the restore point to another location by using the copy button above. Then the user can slowly go over the post and see if they need to restore the file. After the confirmation is completed, copy this file directly to overwrite the original file or folder. Then delete the copied restore file to avoid wasting disk space. If you have no questions about the files you need to restore, you can restore the files directly using the Restore button. At this point, the author has two points to remind everyone. Sometimes this restore button may become grayed out due to permissions or some other reason. At this point, the user can still copy the files in the restore point to other places by copying and other buttons. I think the file before the restore will be overwritten and this operation cannot be returned. So before you restore the file, you need to pay attention to whether the restore point is accurate.

In addition, according to the author's test, sometimes this restore operation is not very effective. After the restoration, it remains as it is. I don't know if the author is wrong or is it a system vulnerability. However, its copy and open functions are very effective. Files contained in previous restore points can be saved to other locations. In addition, after opening the file of the restore point by opening the function, you can perform some operations on some of the files. If there are multiple files or folders in a restore point, the user opens any file and modifies it. However, when saving, the system will prompt “The media is protected by write”, and then remind the user to change a location to save. This measure is very useful to protect the restore point file from subsequent operations. In addition, users can directly copy the files that need to be restored from this place. This eliminates the need to restore the entire folder. And you can also print files directly in this window, and so on. These features increase the value of the restore point file.

Third, the effect of restoration.

So what is the reduction effect of using this restore point? The following test of the author, the follow-up can let you further understand the restoration effect of the Windwos7 restore point.

Test 1: Create a new folder under a partition and create a restore point. Then create a text document in this folder and just type something. Then create a restore point. At this point, this folder has two restore points. There is only one folder in the first restore point file, and there is no other information. In addition to the folder in the second restore point, there is a new text document. At this point, the author uses the first restore point to restore (there is no new text document this file), after the restore found that the new text document still exists. Then modify the contents of the text document and use the second restore point to restore. Open the original text document and find that the content has been restored. Through this test, it can be found that when restoring, it must be a file that exists in the restore point file and the restored folder. As in this test, there is no new text document in the first restore point file, and the restored file has a new text document. This new text document still exists after the restore. However, if there is a file in the restore point file and the file does not exist in the target folder, the deleted file will be restored normally after the restore. Therefore, if this restore point function is used, the newly created content after the restore point will not be overwritten. It only affects files that existed before the restore point was created. This is very different from the one-click restore feature.

Test 2: The effect of the rename of the folder and file name on the restore point file. After changing the name of the folder created above from "New Folder" to "Test Folder", I found that the previously created restore point was not visible in the renamed folder property. Then I select the "Restore previous version" option on the partition, then select the partition restore point, click Open, you can still see the restore point of the new folder. After the folder is renamed, the original restore point still exists. It just lost contact between the two. The author is puzzled by this. To do this, if you want to restore the folder name after it has been changed, you must do it under its parent folder or partition. At the same time, the system administrator must also know the name of the folder before it is renamed. Otherwise, you cannot use the restore point established by the original name to restore the renamed folder.