Want to restore your data? Buy the upgrade.
by Volker Weber
This used to be a joke, now it's a feature:
Even though the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista are backing up all files including user data files, users can't access the backups of their own data. Want proof that the backups are there? Use Microsoft's Windows Anytime Upgrade feature to upgrade from Home to Ultimate. When we did that, the Previous Versions tab appeared and revealed changes to data files that were made before the upgrade occurred.
[via Gizmodo]
Comments
Interesting comments on both sites. It appears to come down to the fact that the home editions of Vista don't contain this feature according to spec, but MS doesn't bother to disable the process that makes the backup -- they just disable the menu options. It does seem kinda slimy for them to take up disk and CPU making inaccessible backups, but then again the feature isn't advertised to even be there in the first place.
What I always find funny about the MS defenders in those kind of discussions is their "it doesn't matter because it doesn't" attitude. It must be incredible to have that much knowledge and patience at one's disposal.
Interesting. I'm running Vista ultimate, and didn't know about the feature. Why would I. I don't read manuals. Anyway, it turns out the feature isn't turned on by default on any but the C: drive. So it wasn't working for my data anyway. I've now turned it on, and nothing has changed. So I presume it requires a reboot. More later.
ROFL
Looks like he has not come back from the reboot, right? :-)
Well, I've finally re-booted, and the feature works - very nicely. A really useful Mini computer feature finally makes it to the PC, and in a better implementation (shadow copy). Will wonders never cease.
