The new Windows Backup app and the restore course of connected to recent Windows 11 big fall updates confirms emotions I’ve held for a very long time: I simply can’t stand Microsoft’s strategy towards backing up my recordsdata within the cloud.

Windows 11’s fall 2023 replace provides a brand new Windows Backup app, which may be accessed from the Start menu. Launch it, and Windows guarantees to again up your folders, apps, settings, and credentials.

That’s easy sufficient. Provided that you’ve got sufficient out there OneDrive storage, Windows will copy these recordsdata into the cloud. If you purchase a brand new PC, the “out of the box” expertise (OOBE) guarantees to revive that backup on a brand new PC, primarily transferring your work or play atmosphere to upgraded {hardware}. That’s the way it’s imagined to work, anyway.

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s course of assumes that your PC consists totally of Microsoft apps downloaded from the Microsoft Store — and even then, doesn’t work because it ought to.

Further studying: The best Windows backup software, free and paid

How to make use of the Windows 11 Windows Backup app

To be secure, I up to date my unique (which I’ll name the backup PC) PC to the present Windows 11 model, after which requested for the most recent updates by way of Windows Update. I chosen two different PCs to revive (which I’ll confer with because the “target” PCs) and up to date them, too. I then used the “Reset my PC” perform inside Windows to wipe them clear, eliminating all private recordsdata, apps, and settings. I used the choice to revive Windows utilizing the native copy already on the machine.

On the backup PC, I opened the Windows Backup app. To its credit score, the Windows Backup app is neatly designed. You can open it from the Start menu, by typing in “backup” and opening the prompt app.

Once the app launches, you’ll be confronted with a small field along with your PC’s title in it, and the final time that this PC was backed up, if ever. You’ll even have 4 drop-down menus: Folders, Apps, Settings, and Credentials.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Under every, you’ll be requested to make some selections. Folders, for instance, checks to be sure to wish to backup your PC’s desktop, plus the Photos and Documents folder; Settings asks in the event you again up your Personalization settings; and so forth. The first time I examined this, I allowed Windows to make backups of every little thing. When I opened the Backup app a second time, all the choices remained toggled on, with no choice to show them off. Also weirdly, I nonetheless don’t have the choice to robotically again up my movies within the cloud — despite the fact that Microsoft’s support page tells me that I can.

Once you make your options, you possibly can click on the “Back up” field on the backside of the app, and Windows will go to work. Make certain that you just’re related to the Internet, and logged into OneDrive. (Although I didn’t particularly strive, I wouldn’t count on that you just’d be capable to substitute a third-party service like Dropbox as an alternative.)

After a couple of minutes, you need to discover that the Backup has robotically constructed a “backup” of your PC. The app appears to replace this backup robotically, however in the event you’re contemplating migrating to or including a brand new PC, it is likely to be value double-checking that the method has begun and/or accomplished.

Microsoft doesn’t formally name out the brand new “Restore” course of inside Windows. It’s simply designed to be a part of the Windows 11 setup expertise, as you step by way of the method: deciding on a language, keyboard format, agreeing to the license phrases, after which deciding on a community and coming into your Microsoft account data. Restoring a backup is carried out halfway by way of the method. Windows gives you the choice of choosing the latest backup because the default, but additionally lets you scroll by way of a listing of older backups or these from different machines. As you progress by way of the remainder of the setup course of — deciding on your privateness settings, selecting your profile (leisure, gaming, productiveness and so forth) — the OOBE restore course of works within the background. Eventually, you’ll be requested to attend as the ultimate steps are accomplished behind the scenes.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Don’t count on an excessive amount of. When Windows emerged from its setup course of on my goal PC (a contemporary Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro) it actually didn’t look something like my outdated PC, which was sitting proper close by. And among the omissions have been surprisingly fundamental.

For one, I take advantage of Windows Spotlight to vary and personalize my PC’s desktop background. Windows 11, for some cause, didn’t perceive this, opening a command immediate and biking by way of varied efforts to presumably configure Spotlight earlier than giving up. I used two goal PCs: the Galaxy Book2 Pro — and, only for enjoyable — an older Microsoft Surface Laptop Go, and neither might course of the Spotlight desire.

I break up time between Edge, Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi. I’ve pinned Opera to my taskbar, and Windows preserved that change.

The downside is that you just’d count on Windows would simply do extra. We’ve had package managers like Chocolatey for greater than a decade, which may be configured to obtain and set up varied functions within the background. If Microsoft does this, it doesn’t say. For one factor, my listing of Start menu apps was poorly rendered, with what seemed like some type of a standing message beneath every app, however obscured.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Some apps seemed like they have been downloaded as a part of the set up course of, however many weren’t. As you may count on, apps appeared as placeholders, and wanted to be clicked on to be downloaded and put in — and that solely labored in the event that they have been within the Microsoft Store. For the query players are asking: no, Steam wasn’t put in, and any video games that you just had downloaded with Steam (or Epic, or GOG, et cetera) weren’t both.

What I was shocked by, nevertheless, was {that a} sport, Warhammer III, that I had downloaded from the Microsoft Store on my backup PC neither downloaded and even supplied to obtain on the goal PC. Instead, it informed me that I must purchase it from the Microsoft Store.

It all felt a bit like when your first-grader volunteers to assist and also you spend as a lot time cleansing up after them than really doing the work.

What I hate about Windows backup (with a small “b”)

What I more and more dislike about Microsoft’s backup technique is the truth that it merely desires to again up every little thing to the cloud: my recordsdata, paperwork, movies, and so forth — but additionally any benchmark software program, utilities, and so forth that I carelessly depart mendacity round. For years, I might merely go browsing with my private account and really feel pretty safe in the truth that I might simply drag a folder of benchmarks to a brand new laptop computer, block it from backing up the desktop, and go from there. (I discovered way back to not muddle my desktop with piles of recordsdata, however I do use it as a touchdown pad for issues I’m attempting out.)

It appears, although, that Microsoft has turn out to be extraordinarily aggressive in the way it backs up knowledge. I’ll open up a laptop computer and surprise why it’s so sluggish, then uncover that Microsoft is attempting to sync a file that was carelessly left on the desktop on one other machine.

I’ve one other bone to choose, too: placeholders. Microsoft desires to make sure I’ve shortcuts to each file I’ve ever uploaded, and to point out them each time I open, say, the Pictures folder.

If I snap a screenshot, do I actually wish to should pore by way of years of archived pictures and different screenshots simply to seek out the one I need? I’d choose my recordsdata (on this case, my paperwork and pictures) to again as much as OneDrive, however with out the necessity to navigate by way of all of the visible cruft of recordsdata which might be already saved to the cloud. If I wish to discover a file, I can go to the OneDrive folder. That’s why I choose treating every new laptop computer as its personal entity, and minimizing OneDrive’s backup as a lot as attainable.

The level is that I would love Windows Backup and Restore to helpfully obtain and set up the apps that I do need. Instead, Microsoft appears decided to sync and obtain recordsdata that I don’t need. Since Backup and Restore doesn’t appear to resolve my downside, again I’ll go to managing PCs on a person foundation, fairly than a cohesive complete.