Two items were not restored from Full System backup
I upgraded my graphics driver, and it messed up a particular feature I depend on, so I decided to roll back to my latest True Image 2015 full system backup, as I had disabled the built in Windows 7 snapshot system restore.
Restoring was quick and painless, but a couple of items were never restored:
1) My 4GB Outlook .pst file
2) My Chrome settings.
Fortunately, both were easy to restore, since my Outlook mail is all online, and I keep my Chrome settings synced as well..
Still, should not a "full" system backup actually be able to restore everything? Or if not, warn the user which files it was not able to back up?
What antivirus are you using?
Btw, I'm Will's housemate.
Btw, I'm Will's housemate.
Maybe you should go back and finish your house work.
To the op. Check to see if .pst files are being excluded on the acronis backup list. There are a list of file types that are excluded from backing and I would also look to the same issues with Chrome.
storageman: you are right, for some reason, Acronis had automatically added
c:\Users\_myname_\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data
to the list of exclusions.. There must be a reason for this..? Considered temp files perhaps.
It does not explain the missing Outlook .pst. Maybe I forgot to close it one of the backup nights, so it was locked, but surely not every night, so the incremental backup should have picked it up..?
I will run a full backup with it Outlook closed, and see if I can find the backed up .pst in the .tib archive.
EDIT - correction: Outlook file is .ost, not .pst
I did another full backup, and I can get Chrome user data backed up now, but it refuses to back up the Outlook .ost file, for some unknown reason. Outlook is closed and the file is not locked, and not included in any exclusions. Oh well, since it can be restored from online server, it's not a big deal, just surprising.
TI 2015 uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy service. VSS has it's own exclusions set in the registry. See HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot.
you may also find it helpful to run a repairost.exe process. Google it, you'll find instructions. I would scan first.
How big is your pst and ost files? One may be simply archive.
Chrome may not be backed up because of synchronization. That's just a rough guess.
Like I wrote, Chrome was not backed up due to Acronis having added Chrome's User Data folder to exclusion list automatically. I don't know why. I removed it, and now Chrome is being backed up.
Thanks for the information about VSS. That's good to know - lots of files I then don't have to add to the exclusion list myself, which I thought I had to.
And -- there was the answer: $UserProfile$\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\*.ost is listed in FilesNotToSnapshot.
It's not listed in FilesNotToBackup. What's the difference between 'Snapshot' and 'Backup'.. I wonder? And why doesn't Microsoft want the Outlook .ost file to be "snapshotted"..
From.. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb891959%28v=v…
"VSS supports the FilesNotToSnapshot registry key. Applications and services can use this key to specify files to be deleted from newly created shadow copies."..
I am guessing it's included there because the Shadow Copy service is not able to guarantee a reliable .ost copy if Outlook is open and changing the .ost file while it's being backed up.
EDIT: The Chrome User Data folder may be excluded by default for the same reason .ost files are. If Chrome is changing the User Data while being backed up, the backup may not be consistent.
the .ost only applies to exchange and only certain connection states from my brief glance at the documentation. It doesn't apply here.