Built-in Backup Features in Microsoft Windows

Windows XP comes with backup features built-in, but it compares very poorly to third-party backup software. Most users find it is not worth the effort.

Windows Vista, in the Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions, comes with far better backup features than XP, but it is not as feature rich as the leading third-party software. For example in Vista, you can create a complete "image" copy of the hard disk, but you cannot retrieve individual files from within the backup image. You have to restore the whole lot. Vista does have a backup utility which allows you to backup individual files, but it is very limited. In a review of Vista by PCworld.com, the backup utility of Vista was listed as one of the 5 things they hated about Vista.