I made a machine for my mother who is not computer savvy.
For that purpose I googled "Time Machine equivalent for windows" and found Genie Time line and really wasted my money on that...
My mother messed up something and she couldnt restore the system to it's previous state even I after remote accessing her system wasnt able to make the darn thing work as advertised...
It only plainly backed up data... but wasnt able to restore the system using that data... it only tried to copy paste the data which is stupid...
Isnt there a solution where instead of going through clunky menu settings you are just presented with complete system snapshots by date, chose a date and let everything else happen on its own?
22 Answers
I know 'software recommendations' are tough to do on here - but this is from one Mac user to another, struggling with the reality that Windows has absolutely nothing like Time Machine. Alternatives are clunky at best & need advance preparation in case of disaster. You can't just rely on Cmd/Opt/R to get you out of jail free.
I use Acronis on the PCs; I've never seen anything substantially different or better. It's reasonably reliable, though has been known to choke on its own backups, albeit very rarely, meaning you have to start over. It has a mechanism by which you can also restore to dissimilar hardware, should you want to upgrade the machine.
Note, though that it is not Time Machine. It doesn't have that simple granular recovery from any point in the past & it doesn't have anything like the interface or in-built coherence in the OS - there's no equivalent of "Enter Time Machine". It's 'just a backup'. You can pick single files out of it or do a total recovery, similar to Time Machine, but you have to dig manually for the files. You can't just start in the right place in the running OS & ask it to go find dates with changes in that folder.
Make sure you always have a USB boot stick for disaster recovery [you can generate one in the app] - there's no Recovery partition[1] or Internet Recovery on a PC.
I doubt you can do this remotely if you are ever at the point the PC won't boot reliably on its own, you're going to need hands-on. No 'recovery' like Macs, you have to faff with UEFI/BIOS to get it to boot from a stick.
Once you get into 'recovery' this way, booted from the stick, you then have a very 80's-looking interface from which you can choose your recovery source & date/time. It's not slick, but it does work.
For belt & braces I periodically clone the PC's drive to a spare NTFS[2] partition on the Mac using Paragon Hard Disk Manager [which can save in a format that Backblaze will automatically backup, as it won't do 'windows/bootcamp partitions'], which then gets backed up off-site to Backblaze.
If you do end up in a total disaster recovery scenario, restoring this can be very much faster than Acronis, which kind of builds a new system brick by brick, & then just use Acronis for 'files changed since then'.
I have had a boot drive fail totally on one PC & been back up & running within an hour using this method. Both machines are in the same building, though, which makes it easier for me.
This, of course, is now relying on two separate paid apps & one online paid service, so it's not exactly the cheapest solution - but I've never lost a file yet.
Acronis also do an online backup solution, possibly saving on the cost of Backblaze, but I'm happy with my existing setup, so I've never investigated how it might work.
[1]Some PC manufacturers include a 'recovery partition' for disaster recovery - however, this is the equivalent of 'nuke & pave' - it will destroy everything & return the machine to as new, all user data gone.
[2]Ah… NTFS partition read/write needs another paid app - Paragon NTFS.
1Unfortunately NO. Many solutions are there for windows but not as brilliant as Apple's.
You can use File History
