NTBackup.exe (from Windows XP)

[System Administrator]

Windows Vista Home Premium.

I have found a couple of articles on how to use NTBackup on Vista and
have been successful in doing Full backups on specified folders.
However, Differential backups don't seem to work. I need to perform
both types on a user's new Vista laptop. Upon installing NTBackup on
the user's laptop, I did a Full backup on selected folders. As a
test, I then attempted a Differential backup on the same folders.
What I obtained was another Full backup. Is this a known issue with
NTBackup on Vista? I would hazard a guess that the "Backup" file
attribute flag is not being reset upon performing a Full backup.
Thanks!
--
System Administrator
Sprotte + Watson Architecture and Planning
Vista, CA

[Mary]

You really should not use NTBackup at all. Use the Backup included with Vista
or a third party utility instead. Most of the NTbackup articles are
instructions for transferring XP backups to the vista computer, not to use
them for future bu's. I bet if you tried to restore any of those backups,
they would fail.

[Tom Lake]

"MICHAEL" <u158627_7@dslr.net> wrote in message
news:Oa#1MB4VIHA.4684@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Ntbackup can be made to work just fine in Vista.
> http://www.petri.co.il/installing_wi...dows_vista.htm

I can't get it to work. All I get is an error stating that the Backup
Utility cannot
connect to the Removable Storage Service. I'm looking at the list of
Services and
RSS *is* started.

Tom Lake

[wevowva]

I've run tests that vary widely. You would expect all archive attribute flags to be set to off after a running a full backup. However, after running a full backup of my c:, a subsequent differential backup yields a .bkf file of over 5 Gigs. After trying globally to manually set all file archive flags off (takes some time), I got an even larger .bkf making a diff backup.

Vista seems to block ntbackup.exe and even administrators from changing the flag in the system32, Windows and other security protected folders. Hence, my strategy is to limit the files I'm backing up to user documents (media files, "my docs," .ini settings files, etc.) and some files within the program folders.

NT backup will never be able to restore the Vista operating system on a crashed hard drive back to a form where it functions properly anyway (registry, accounts, security, profiles, etc.). Upon a catastrophe, A vanilla reinstall of Vista will be needed, then re installation of all programs, security and network settings made and finally restore of NT backup files. After spending all that time, seems like I should have bought a reliable imaging based backup system to begin with ;)