Backup - win7 recovery or win 8 history

Lots of great stuff on this site. Thanks for the detailed tutorial aids!

I have Win8 PRO, one PC with 5 users profiles.

Before I change to using either of the above WIN tools, I'd like to know if "they" backup ALL users at once and if the backup can be done unattended, meaning the PC is obviously ON, has a scheduled backup task to run, but ALL users are logged OFF?

The two 3rd party utilities I've tried only backup if you are logged on and only backup each user individually, so there are 5 different tasks!

I've jumped straight from XP where I could backup ALL in one go. I s'pose there are "tighter" file restrictions with 8

Cheers,

BilBeen

Hello BilBeen, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Since you want to have everything backed up, you might consider creating a system image.

You could either set up Windows Backup to include a system image, and have them created automatically on a schedule,.....
OR use a free 3rd party program like Macrium Reflect to create an image with.
Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi there
Just image the OS disk -- this will automatically backup the user profiles etc etc. Don't forget also the small system partition as well if it exists.

Taking a system image is a good idea in any case as this will also have all the installed applications etc in the backup. Keep users DATA though on separate Partition(s) or Disk(s). This can then be backed up separately.

I'd tend to go for a decent commercial solution especially if you are backing up other users as well. Acronis can be run in the Background without anybody being logged on as a scheduled task too. It's not that expensive and the time saved makes it a very well worthwhile investment. Some of the FREE programs have problems when backing up to different sets of media or if the TARGET media becomes full. Acronis will just prompt for another disk / DVD / tape if the initial target becomes full.

Acronis will also allow restore of Files and directories from a backup IMAGE too which can be useful at times.

Cheers
jimbo