5. Getting Started with NTBackup Part II

NTBackup permits user-defined selections of files and folders to be included (or excluded) inside a batch job. You may not find this disclosure particularly significant at first blush, but if you have already used Windows Vista (in its current beta form) this simple capability is missing (at least, for now - who knows what changes later releases will bring?)

Note: NTBackup's list of targeted files and folders is stored as ordinary Unicode-formatted text, so you can modify the .BKS backup list file by hand using any text editor such as notepad.exe.

NTBackup handles differences in hardware configurations between source and destination computers and maintains mission-critical registry entries. This makes it possible to backup one XP installation entirely and then move only certain selected portions over to a fresh installation. Unless you have some compelling reason to do so (as described in the next paragraph), there's really no need to perform a full-disk backup on your notebook on a regular basis. That often takes more time and storage space than it's worth, and for a while after you receive your notebook, you can rely on its recovery CDs to restore it to like-new factory settings. Your restored system will then be ready for partial backups of your personal data. In a nutshell, this explains why selective backup can be so handy.

There are some conditions that do justify performing a full backup. One of them can be to restore factory settings plus whatever new software or operating system updates you install, once a notebook gets into your hands. That way, in the wake of a catastrophic drive failure, you can spare some time including your most frequently used applications as part of your NTBackup archive, moving you closer to the state of things before the drive failure occurred.

In general, any time the amount of effort required to re-install updates or applications exceeds the effort required to restore a full backup, you're better off creating a full backup as your newest baseline for restoring your system. Another such condition occurs as and when you install Windows Service Packs. These frequently involve registry or file system changes that introduce incompatibilities between newer backup files and formats and older versions of the operating system. In many recent versions of Windows, the system has changed enough with some Service Packs to make full backup a definite backup best practice.