How to protect user files in Windows 8 with File History

**RedZot** · 27-08-2012

Windows 8 is finally dated to be released in the month of October, but in the meanwhile Microsoft offers new details on its function. The company explained how its new backup system, "File History", change can be used to avoid accidental loss of personal information. In this guide you will learn how to set this tool to restore previous versions of files deleted accidentally or wrongly.

If you are familiar with Mac platforms, possibly you have heard of TimeMachine, which is one of the applications that Apple offers its users to back up its computers. Unlike other tools to perform system backups, Time Machine can even restore a single file, which is a very interesting feature and now similar kind of features are also been incorporated in Windows 8.

The File History feature of the new Windows 8 operating system offers you a simple system restore to previous versions for any file. In particular cases when using a network folder, you can simply use a USB to access "File History" settings and then activate this option.

1. In this case, the first thing to do is to create a folder that we will share in the network, either on our server or on any computer that is connected. Then open "File History" and, once established, just right click on it to set the people you want to share the resource.

2. Select "Specific People" and in the new window you will see a window which will pop-up where you can add users. Choose read/write for "Everyone" so that everyone can access it, click the "Add" button to add more people to the list and finally modify permission to read and write in the folder so that any changes can be done and performed.

3. Now go back to Windows 8 and open the control panel. Click on "System and Security" and here we will find the setting for "File History", where we have to add the new directory we created.

4. In the left-hand menu, select "Change drive" to add the location of the new shared folder created.

5. In the new window when you click "Add network location", it will open a menu for you to select the directory created with the name "File History". Make sure it is selected before pressing "Ok" at the bottom of the window.

6. Activate the "File History" by clicking the "Turn On" button. Now you have this feature configured and running.

**RedZot** · 28-08-2012

How to Restore your files

1. In the following example, we have created a file with the name "My Plans To Take Over The World". Let's erase it "accidental" to see how it gets restored with "File History".

2. Once we have completely deleted that file, create two text files with the names "New File 1" and "New File 2", then we will try some illustrative ideas afterward.

3. After deleting the file, the time comes when you need to recover it. In that case, you should do it from clikcing on the button "File History" which you can find in the toolbar above the Ribbon interface in your own Windows Explorer window.

4. A new window "File History" will open and show you the deleted files which is present, but if you look at the bottom, you can see two arrows, forward and backward, with which you can go backwards in time to see what was there previously in the directory. As you can see, in this version, "My Plans To Take Over The World" is the file we deleted. Just select it and click the arrow to move it back.

5. There's our file, ready to be used again, which you can see in the below image.