Windows Vista can automatically schedule file backups that back up your most important documents. It does not, however, give you a wizard to schedule Complete PC backups.

Complete PC backups store your entire hard disk (well, your system volume), so if your hard drive dies at some point, you can do a quick restore and be up and running again in minutes. That’s better than file backups in many ways, because all your applications will be restored, and none of your files or settings will be lost.

It’s so useful, you should schedule automatic Complete PC backups to an external hard disk. Just follow these steps:
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I discovered this trick while looking in my referrer logs. Steve Clayton clues us in that clicking the scroll wheel shows full-screen tiles of all your windows. I like it even better than Alt-Tab. Now, if they would just make it work with multiple monitors…

Your hard drive has died, or your computer has been taken over by spyware or viruses. If you’ve made a Complete PC backup, you can be up and running in less than an hour.
To restore a Complete PC backup, follow these steps:
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Vista comes with a handful of fairly useless gadgets, such as an analog clock (um, there’s a digital clock on the taskbar) and an RSS feed that only shows two or three words from each headline. The good news: you can download more free gadgets from the Windows Live Gallery.
Here’s a filtered list of sidebar gadgets for you to browse. That link’s a little flakey, so if nothing comes up, try refreshing it a few times.
Well, the availability of gadgets is pretty bleak now, but here’s a few I like:

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Update: A real tool is available to do this, and it works in 64-bit Vista, so use that instead.

Microsoft is working on a tool to simplify restoring files from backups you made with Windows XP, but it’s not ready yet. In the meantime, plan on scrapping your old backups–as soon as you get Vista running, do a Complete PC backup, and then schedule nightly backups.

If you really need to restore files from a .BKF file, this thread provides guidance. I’ll copy the steps here for reference: (more…)

New to Windows Vista is the Reliability Monitor, which tracks your system stability over time and gives you quick access to different problems. This should be your first stop if you’re trying to determine whether a recent hardware or software upgrade might be causing problems, because it visually displays historical failures and major changes such as upgrades and installs. Check out the (in)stability of my primary computer above. Mine’s probably worse than average because I’m using a laptop (laptops are way more complicated than desktops) and I use a lot of development and specialized applications.
To open the Reliability Monitor, follow these steps:

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If a program crashes or you have a Stop error (aka., a blue screen) in Windows XP, XP prompts you to send an error report. It works a little different in Vista.

Vista will store your problem reports and manages them in the background. It’ll regularly check with Microsoft to see if an update that fixes your problem has been released, and notify you. So, you really don’t need to do anything to take advantage of Problem Reports And Solutions.

However, you can view problem reports and manually check for solutions by following these steps:

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