Originally Posted by
slawecki
i do not like MS backup as they frequently do not transfer from on MSOS to the next. this was a problem when 95,98,2000, and xp came out pretty close together. if you were just transferring from one to another, no problem, but if you wanted to get some archived data from say 4 years back, you would have to find a machine with the older OS on it.
This has not been my experience, but then I have not tried going from one OS to another for a long time.
If this is a concern, I'd point out that many of the other backup utilities mentioned here are probably worse off in this feature. To make them operable over the span of several years and across several different OS versions, you'd have to commit to obtaining every new release/version that comes along. And you'd have to take the leap of faith that the backup file formats do not change from one release to another. In my experience, most of the lesser known versions, such as OEM versions that come with external HDs, often packaged as "bonus software", have a one-release lifecycle, and after that the vendor and the software are nowhere to be found.