How to Backup Your Computer (Windows Vista)

Backing up your computer is incredibly important and very simple to set up. Unfortunately, the majority of users don’t bother to back up their computers, putting family photos, important documents and music collections at risk. It is possible to backup to CDs or DVDs, but it’s preferable to use an external hard drive, which is more durable and reliable. While backing up your computer sounds like an involved and complicated process, Windows Vista makes it a snap.

What you’ll need:

• External Hard Drive used exclusively for backup (Learn How to choose a backup hard drive here).
• 15 minutes to set up the backup process.

The first thing you’ll need to do is open the Control Panel from the Start Menu.

Next click on the Backup and Restore Center.

After the Backup and Restore Center is open you will see the options listed below.

You should click on the Back up files button, after which you will see more options.

With the “On a hard disk, CD, or DVD:” button chosen, click on the arrow to choose your backup drive. After selecting your backup location click Next at the bottom of the window.

Now you need to tell windows what hard drives you want to backup. Unless you have a specific reason to not back up a hard drive you should make sure that all boxes are selected and click Next.

Now you’ll need to tell Windows Vista what files should be included in the backup. You do this by selecting specific file types shown in the image above. If you want to know more about a category just place your mouse over the Description and more information will show up in the Category details box to the right. When you are ready click Next to move to the next step.

This is where you decide how often and when you should back up your computer. You can choose Daily, Weekly or Monthly and tell the computer what day and time to perform the backup.  You should choose to backup your computer on a daily basis, more often if you are able to, to make sure that you have the most recent files. The first backup will take a while but each daily backup will only backup new or changed files. Choose a day and time for the backup when you know your computer will be turned on and you won’t need to use so that the backup can proceed uninterrupted.

Now that you’ve chosen when to backup click on Save settings and start backup to create your first backup.

Windows will begin backing up your files, displaying a screen that looks like image above, and will notify you when you are done. From there, Windows will perform your backup procedure as often as you have chosen to ensure that you always have a current copy of your important files backed up.

To change your backup settings in the future, simply follow the directions above to get to the Backup and Restore Center and choose Change settings instead of Back up files.