A warning about file history in Windows 10

Do NOT trust it.

It silently fails all of the time for no reason whatsoever. Check your event logs and you have to drill down to Applications and Services logs, Microsoft, Windows, File History - engine, File History Backup log and sooner or later you will see Event ID 200.

This is the only indication that your backups have failed.

I have fixed this fault 4 times this year already. I've tried using file history on another Windows 10 machine. Same problems. Incredibly unreliable and no warning that it's not happening. Fortunately I have a more robust backup solution for important files.

I would love to understand the mindset of those at Microsoft who think that:
A backup solution should be incredibly unreliable and require an obscure set of files deleting regularly and regular complete reconfiguration.
Not notifying users that their backups are failing.

I'm known for not exactly being a Win10 fan, but this is symptomatic of a reservation I've had with Windows for a very long time, and certainly way before Win10. It goes back at least to W95, if not Win 3.x.

Which is .... I've several times been given reason to at best be sceotical about, if not outright distrust, the "belks and whistles" MS have long thrown in, if not bolted on, for "free".

As a result, my preference is to hunt about for external tools that best suit my needs, be it free AV tools, defrag software, or perhaps most important of all, backup. I'm currently in the process of reviewing my backup processes and provisions, but it has long been based on external software, and indeed hardware dating back to grand a time 150MB tape drive, then DAT, SLT and all sorts of optical variants for "archive".

I guess it all depends on what individuals use their PCs for, but as my living was based on it, losing data was an extremely unattractive prospect, as indeed was soending ages rebuilding OS installations after a crash, while potentially having tight deadlines I couldn't miss.

I'd never, ever consider relying on anything MS built-in for something as criticsl as backup.

But that's me ... bitten a few times, so shy as hell about it now.

I guess most users don't backup and wouldn't notice (until it is too late - by which time it is ..er too late)

I use EaseUS To Do backup for incremental backups, I do like Microsoft, yes yes tar me and cover me in feathers in you must. But not for backups!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badass

I would love to understand the mindset of those at Microsoft who think that:
A backup solution should be incredibly unreliable and require an obscure set of files deleting regularly and regular complete reconfiguration.
Not notifying users that their backups are failing.

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What makes you think there's any such person?

If you can fix it by deleting files (config or catalogue files I guess) then there's a good chance it's a bug. If it is a bug then it's possible that whatever is stopping the backup happening is also affecting the user notification.

I use it myself and I know that it definitely can send notifications in situations where a backup isn't possible, such as if the backup drive can't be found.

For me there's only one entry in the mentioned log after several months, an Event 202 warning.

It looks like a fairly rare issue you're encountering a google search doesn't bring up many hits for the last year:
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=File+his...+200&tbs=qdr:y

Have you compared the before and after states of the files you're deleting, and send those copies to Microsoft along with a bug report?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saracen

I'm known for not exactly being a Win10 fan, but this is symptomatic of a reservation I've had with Windows for a very long time, and certainly way before Win10. It goes back at least to W95, if not Win 3.x.

Which is .... I've several times been given reason to at best be sceotical about, if not outright distrust, the "belks and whistles" MS have long thrown in, if not bolted on, for "free".

As a result, my preference is to hunt about for external tools that best suit my needs, be it free AV tools, defrag software, or perhaps most important of all, backup. I'm currently in the process of reviewing my backup processes and provisions, but it has long been based on external software, and indeed hardware dating back to grand a time 150MB tape drive, then DAT, SLT and all sorts of optical variants for "archive".

I guess it all depends on what individuals use their PCs for, but as my living was based on it, losing data was an extremely unattractive prospect, as indeed was soending ages rebuilding OS installations after a crash, while potentially having tight deadlines I couldn't miss.

I'd never, ever consider relying on anything MS built-in for something as criticsl as backup.

But that's me ... bitten a few times, so shy as hell about it now.

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I share your attitude. Hence why I didn't lose much (just some game progress where a save was overwritten)


Microsoft AV is great.............It catches 2/3rds of threats!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badass

....

Microsoft AV is great.............It catches 2/3rds of threats!

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For some reason, and I can't imagine why, my sarcasm detector just went berserk. I think you melted it.

:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badass

I share your attitude. Hence why I didn't lose much (just some game progress where a save was overwritten)


Microsoft AV is great.............It catches 2/3rds of threats!

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60% of the time it works 100% of the time....

To be fair, it's done this since introduction in, Windows 7 or 8, whatever it was. I've found it more successful in Windows 10.

Most background things in Windows fail "silently", you have to monitor your event log to pick up on things going screwy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dashers

To be fair, it's done this since introduction in, Windows 7 or 8, whatever it was. I've found it more successful in Windows 10.

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Or another way: To be fair, file history is rubbish, however it is less rubbish than earlier versions.

Quote:

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Most background things in Windows fail "silently", you have to monitor your event log to pick up on things going screwy.

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Which is fine for certain things. You don't want notification fatigue. However for any backup like solution, that is completely stupid.


Remember, there are two types of backups, those that are completely automatic, and those that are not done.

With that in mind, what are the odds of anyone checking the event logs for backup failures regularly?

I was going to set up file history after formatting my laptop ( i've been using it for a year) I looked on the server and found 250gb of music when my laptops only got about 15gb on that hasn't changed for about a year. It had duplicated the music 10 times for no reason at all.
Going to use Macrium from now on!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saracen

I'd never, ever consider relying on anything MS built-in for something as criticsl as backup.

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Which is odd, as in hundreds of restore scenarios, MS Backup has never once failed me. Be it from NT4.0 all the way to Windows 10.

I guess if you never try it, you can never trust it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badass

Microsoft AV is great.............It catches 2/3rds of threats!

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Honestly.. for me Security Essentials works just right. It does *not* complain and automatically delete cr*cks/k*yg*ns/supposedly "suspicios" batch files I made myself to do something and it does *not* bombard me with blatantly obvious false positives in general. Garbage like Avira and a couple others do that. All. The. Time.
The things where it *does* alarm me are in 95% of my cases legitimate threats and stuff I don't want.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bambooz

Honestly.. for me Security Essentials works just right. It does *not* complain and automatically delete cr*cks/k*yg*ns/supposedly "suspicios" batch files I made myself to do something and it does *not* bombard me with blatantly obvious false positives in general. Garbage like Avira and a couple others do that. All. The. Time.
The things where it *does* alarm me are in 95% of my cases legitimate threats and stuff I don't want.

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Indeed. and in 2/3rds of cases it does not do anything about genuine malware either! Bonus!