I need a simple backup plan for windows 11 but i can't easily find the proper plan

Question

Hi,

I need a simple backup for windows 11 (personal computer + work) but Microsoft have many different plans for that... I just need to backup all my programs, files, desktop, WPS office tabs, everything. Azure or other services? Show me a simple way please.

Regards,

Erkan Erdem

Answer 1

Hello

Sure, I can guide you through a simple backup plan for your Windows 11 PC. This plan uses the built-in “Backup and Restore” feature of Windows 11, which can create a system image of your computer to an external USB drive. Here are the steps:

1. Get an External Drive: Connect an external hard drive or USB drive to your computer.

Open Control Panel: Search for Control Panel in the Start menu and open the app.

Navigate to System and Security: Click on System and Security.

Open Backup and Restore: Click the “Backup and Restore” setting.

Start System Image Backup: Click the “System Image Backup” option from the bottom-left corner.

Select Backup Destination: Select the “On a hard disk” option. Use the “On a hard disk” drop-down menu and select the destination for your Windows 11 full backup.

Start the Backup: Click the Next button.

This backup approach is suitable to roll back to a previous version if you encounter problems after upgrading to a new version of Windows or restoring the system after replacing the hard drive, or if there is a critical failure.

For an additional layer of protection, consider using cloud storage services like OneDrive.

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Answer 2

Hello @Erkan Erdem Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A platform. Happy to answer your question.

If your personal computer and other client machines are running on one of the Azure supported windows client operating systems as listed below, then the azure backup solution called MARS agent back up is the option for you to schedule the backups to azure.

Important Points to Note:

1. As azure backup is a multi-tenant cloud-based service, it only allows you to schedule the back up with a limited number of times. (Three times a day.)
2. Since backup is a point in time copy of the data, it runs on a scheduled time, and we need the internet connectivity from the client machine as the backups will be uploaded to azure backup vaults over a internet,
3. Please note this is a file/folder level backup along with the feasibility to schedule system level backups to azure, backups can be locally configured for running automatically on scheduled times on its own. However, restore methods requires the user to connect to azure saved backup recovery points with an encryption key. Hence a complete control can be shared with the users once the backup is configured

Retention times:

For detailed overview and how to install/configure and schedule backups using MARS on windows(Only) client machines follow below links

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-about-mars https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/install-mars-agent https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-windows-with-mars-agent https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-restore-windows-server

Hope this answers your question. Do let us know if you have any questions or need further assistance in this matter.

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