(This is part III of the series Windows XP Backup Utility – Everything You Need to Know)
As mentioned in step 8 in the previous article in this series, clicking the Advanced button offers additional options for creating a backup using the Windows Backup Utility. The options for choosing a backup type are available from either the simple wizard interface or the advanced one, as well as from the Backup tab (after you’ve clicked Start Backup).
The five types of backups available are normal, copy, incremental, differential, and daily. Depending on the backup type you choose, you can also opt to append the
data to the previous backup or overwrite the existing data. To decide what type of backup you should choose, read the following descriptions:
• Normal: You’ll generally choose this option the first time you create a backup file. This type of backup is the default. Your selected files are copied and marked as backed up.
• Incremental: With this type of backup, only files created or changed since the last normal or incremental backup are copied and marked as backed up.
• Differential: With this option, only the files that have changed since the last normal or incremental backup are copied, but they are not marked as backed up.
• Copy: All selected files are copied but not marked as being backed up. This is useful if you want to back up files between normal or incremental backups but don’t want to affect those normal or incremental backups.
• Daily: All selected files that have been modified the day the daily backup is scheduled or run
are copied. The backed-up files are not marked as backed up and thus do not affect other backups.
Combining backups and restoring from multiple backups and multiple backup tapes can get a little complicated. You have to fully understand exactly what each backup does and how it is used to restore a computer.