Windows Vista pisses on users again
Not that I would ever want to gloat about what a deviant piece of crap Windows is but it appears that some of the most important dentures, such as the ability to actually recover your files from their backup app are not available unless you buy the much more expensive version.
What’s that word… oh yeah: greedy!
The Vista Backups That You Can’t Have…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.
Previous Versions has other problematic behaviors. Vista grabs 15 percent of each drive to archive the combination of user data and system files, with just a cryptic command line interface to change the number. There is no way to selectively add or remove a file or folder from the backup; someone could easily find an old version of a file that you thought you had removed for good. Unfortunately, it’s a package deal; you must take it all or nothing at all. Disabling Previous Versions removes user data backups, but it also disables System Restore and deletes all restore points.
Vista users may have to live with these design tradeoffs, but Microsoft’s decision to intentionally hide backups of user data is just plain wrong. If Vista keeps backups of user data, the user is entitled to see, use, and remove them. Users shouldn’t need an expensive upgrade to Vista Ultimate just to rescue their data backups.