Backup to a specific folder with Windows Backup

Question

When setting up Windows Backup I get the following screen:

As you can see, there is no option to backup to a specific folder on any of these drives. Is there a way to force the backups to go in a specific folder on my chosen drive?

Update: I just created a Backup partition on my external so I could maintain separation. I would prefer a simple folder since it is more flexible but it'll do.

Solution 1

Forcing into a nested folder isn't possible with the default UI.

The only option is to move the folder after you create the backup. All the information is self - contained in the folder.

In fact, this is Microsoft's recommendation for backups to a network file share. Backup will only allow one Backup image to exist per file share. Renaming the folders after the fact allows you to keep multiple versions of an image per file share. There was a blog post about scripting this using wbadmin, which is the command line of Backup on the Windows Storage blog a while back. This is also what I do with my machines.

Solution 2

You can do this by

• selecting "Save on a network"
• providing the link like this for example: \\YourPcName\Backup (do this through the Browse option)
• making sure the Backup folder is shared Read/Write

Note that you do need a password for your Windows account because you need to provide it before it will work.

Solution 3

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the Windows backup tool puts the backed up images into a folder simply named 'backup' on the destination hard drive automatically. Would this not work for you?

As for forcing a specific folder I don't think there is an option.

Comments

[Canadian Luke]

Is your F: volume NTFS?

[Radu]

both volumes are NTFS.