Windows 7 / Getting Started

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File and Folder Backup Structure

The Backup tool in Windows XP creates a single file with a .bkf extension when you perform a backup. Backups in Windows Vista and Windows 7 provide a more flexible and reliable file structure.

When a user chooses to perform a backup to an external hard disk, Windows 7 automatically creates a folder in the root of the hard disk using the computer name. Within that folder, backups are saved in this format: "Backup Set <year-month-day> <time>". For example, if your computer name is Computer, your backup location is E, and you backed up on January 22, 2007, at 16:32:00, that backup would be located in "E:\Computer\Backup Set 2007-01-22 163200".

The folder structure is created when the user first performs a backup. Automatic incremental backups that occur afterward store additional copies of changed files within subfolders. However, the name of the Backup Set folder is never updated, so the date indicated by the folder name will be older than the dates of the files contained within the folder. A new Backup Set folder is created only when the user performs a full backup.

Within each Backup Set folder, Backup creates a series of Backup Files folders that are named using the date on which the incremental backup was performed. Additionally, Backup creates a Catalogs folder within the root Backup Set folder. Backup folder structure for a computer named WIN7 that is configured to save backups to the E drive. The File And Folder backup is stored in the WIN7 folder, whereas the System Image backup is stored in the WIndowsImageBackup folder. File permissions on all folders and files are restricted to administrators, who have full control, and to the user who configured the backup, who has read-only permissions by default.

Note When restoring files, Windows 7 looks for a folder with the current computer's name in the root of the backup media. If you need to restore files created on a different Windows 7 computer, you can either rename the folder to the current computer's name or perform an Advanced Restore and select the Files From A Backup Made On A Different Computer option on the What Do You Want To Restore page of the Restore Files (Advanced) Wizard.

Within each of the backup folders is a series of compressed (.zip) files named "Backup files xxx.zip", where xxx is an incremental number to make each filename unique. For example, a backup folder might contain the following files:

• Backup files 1.zip
• Backup files 2.zip
• Backup files 138.zip

Note Because the .zip files used for backups are compressed and stored in fewer files, they take up less space on the backup media. Overall, backups take about half the space of the original files. Compression levels vary widely, though. Text and Extensible Markup Language (XML) files are typically compressed to less than one-tenth the original space. Backups of video, music, and picture files take up the same space as the original files because the files are already compressed.

These are standard ZIP files that you can open by using the ZIP decompression capabilities in Windows or by using other ZIP file tools. Because Windows can search .zip files, you can quickly find a backup of a specific file by searching the backup folders and then extracting that file from the compressed folder without directly accessing the Backup And Restore tool. This makes restoring files possible even if you need to use a different operating system.

The Catalogs folder contains a file named GlobalCatalog.wbcat. This file uses a proprietary format and contains an index of the individual files that have been backed up and the ZIP file within which the backup is contained, which Windows 7 uses to locate a file quickly for restoration. The Catalogs folder also contains a list of file permissions for each backed-up file. Therefore, permissions will be intact if you restore files using the Backup And Restore tool. However, if you restore a file from the compressed folder directly, the file will inherit the permissions of the parent folder rather than keeping the file permissions of the original file.