So, before I upgraded to Win7 on my production rig, I took the opportunity to try out the "Full PC Backup" for giggles just in case things went tits up. Aside from the restore not working (it said it had a disk problem) and the fact that you can only restore to a partition the same size as the one you backed up from (it's supposed to be =>, but it didn't work out that way), I did find out some cool things about the Complete backup that you might find interesting...
First off, while you have to be admin to perform a Complete PC Backup, you no longer get the option of requiring a password to "protect" the backup. That was cool when you were concerned with people with physical access getting to your data. The directory created (based on HOSTNAME of unit backed up) will have local Administrators group Full, and local Backup Operators Full, but all you have to do (obviously) is pop the usb drive into a different machine that you have local admin access to and you immediately get full access. You don't even have to change permissions... I don't consider that a big deal, and is actually easier, since if you are admin on the box, it doesn't matter what drives you put in from an OS permissions standpoint (not EFS, obviously).
The "cool" part is that the Complete PC Backup is actually a .VHD disk file. Sure, there is catalog information accompanying the backup, but if you need data off of the backup, you can just stick the USB source in a drive somewhere and mount the VHD to access it like a drive letter, again without worrying about file permissions. You can do this in VPC or VMWare, or even easier, use something like WinImage to just mount the thing and grab your data. /mosh
It would have been very cool for MSFT to have built in the functionality of actually BOOTING the vhd in VPC (or VMWare) but alas, that dog does not hunt. While not ideal, it would require substantial driver reloading (and reactivation) anyway, but it still would be nice to be able to boot into your Complete Backup. Just as well that you can just attach the .vhd directly in VMWare/VPC and go from there though.
That's it.. just thought I'd post up the bits about not expecting any security on your backups, and how you can now just directly mount the vhd backup file to get data without worrying about permissions. I'm sure some with think that is a bad thing, but I've always treated backups like any other "physical access" asset, which is, if I have my hands on it, it's mine anyway (so encrypt, etc).
First off, while you have to be admin to perform a Complete PC Backup, you no longer get the option of requiring a password to "protect" the backup. That was cool when you were concerned with people with physical access getting to your data. The directory created (based on HOSTNAME of unit backed up) will have local Administrators group Full, and local Backup Operators Full, but all you have to do (obviously) is pop the usb drive into a different machine that you have local admin access to and you immediately get full access. You don't even have to change permissions... I don't consider that a big deal, and is actually easier, since if you are admin on the box, it doesn't matter what drives you put in from an OS permissions standpoint (not EFS, obviously).
The "cool" part is that the Complete PC Backup is actually a .VHD disk file. Sure, there is catalog information accompanying the backup, but if you need data off of the backup, you can just stick the USB source in a drive somewhere and mount the VHD to access it like a drive letter, again without worrying about file permissions. You can do this in VPC or VMWare, or even easier, use something like WinImage to just mount the thing and grab your data. /mosh
It would have been very cool for MSFT to have built in the functionality of actually BOOTING the vhd in VPC (or VMWare) but alas, that dog does not hunt. While not ideal, it would require substantial driver reloading (and reactivation) anyway, but it still would be nice to be able to boot into your Complete Backup. Just as well that you can just attach the .vhd directly in VMWare/VPC and go from there though.
That's it.. just thought I'd post up the bits about not expecting any security on your backups, and how you can now just directly mount the vhd backup file to get data without worrying about permissions. I'm sure some with think that is a bad thing, but I've always treated backups like any other "physical access" asset, which is, if I have my hands on it, it's mine anyway (so encrypt, etc).
Have a good one!
T
____________________
Timothy (Thor) Mullen, Ph.D.
thor (at) hammerofgod (dot) com [email concealed]
www.hammerofgod.com
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