Files needed to recover Windows 10

[jrjewett]

I’m running Retrospect Professional 9.5 under Windows 10.  After reading a number of documents on the Retrospect Website, I still have questions about which files must be backed up to ensure that Windows 10 could be recovered after a hard crash of the hard disk.

 

The Retrospect 9.5 for Windows user guide says simply: “it is first necessary to have a complete Retrospect backup of that computer’s boot volume”.  To reduce backup size (and time required), I’m wondering: 

 

(1) Do I need to use the “All Files” selector, or will “All Files Except Cache Files” be OK?

 

(2) Do I need to backup temporary files, or would it be OK to add and exception for the Windows Special Folders selector “TEMP Folders”?

 

(3) How is “TEMP Folders” defined?

[Scillonian]

Q1: The 'All Files Except Cache Files' should be OK. (I've used a modified version of this selector and restored Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 with this.)

 

Q2: In theory temporary files should not be needed to restore Windows. However some older applications can incorrectly store critical files in the Windows Temp folders.

 

Q3: Not sure. I would guess any folder named TEMP or [possibly] TMP.

 

Are you planning to use Retrospect's own Disaster Recovery for the restore or Windows Recovery Media to reinstall Windows 10 then use Restrospect to do a live restore?

[jrjewett]

>jrjewett says:  Thanks for this.  There's nothing better than experience!

 

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Scillonian said:  Q3: Not sure. I would guess any folder named TEMP or [possibly] TMP.

 

jrjewett says:  You can see how they designed most of the selectors, but the Windows Special Folders selectors aren't defined in the Configure > Selectors yyyyy.  However, your reply inspired me to look further.  If you xxxxx, you can see what the results of the selector would be on any particular target volume.  For instance, on my C: drive, it see it has selected only C:\Temp and C:\Windows\Temp. So, even if you can't see how it's designed, you can see its effect.  That's a good enough answer to Q3 for me.

 

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Scillonian said:  Are you planning to use Retrospect's own Disaster Recovery for the restore or Windows Recovery Media to reinstall Windows 10 then use Restrospect to do a live restore?

jrjewett says: I always hope I NEVER have to do it(!), but, if need be, I would hope to do it directly with Retrospect.  In any case, I'm prepared for the latter, too.