How well does backup & restore work?

[mj0]

I'm currently on a Lumia 635 and will be getting a Lumia 830 in a couple of days (in theory tomorrow but won't be able to pick it up until next monday). I've been using the 635 for a bit over three months now and have it all set up - my mail accounts, my apps, my settings. Coming from iOS I'm used to having everything restored when moving from one iPhone to another, does Windows Phone backup also work this way? I've enabled backup in settings but under "manage backups" I can see it only used a bit less than 10MB - that can't be right, can it?

I really don't want to set everything up again from scratch - ideal scenario for me would be to make a final backup of my 635 as soon as the 830 arrives, then take out the ?SD-Card, put it into the 830, power it on and restore that phone to the exact state my 635 was in.

Is that possible with Microsoft's built-in backup solution or does it require third party software?

 

[worldspy99]

Really well! Just set up my Lumia 521 in about 45 minutes and it is mirroring my Lumia 810. You will need to re-layout all your tiles. So best to take a few screenshots before you do backup and restore. I look at my old screenshot and then create an identical one. The restore will bring back your original background image. Pretty cool, IMO. Better than Android for sure....

 

[Senordingdong2K]

There is a new option in the back up settings that now allows you to back up your tiles, home screen etc...
Takes minutes.

 

[mj0]

Where is that setting? I can only choose between apps+settings, text messages and photos+videos. Neither of these mentions home screen or tiles.

 

[eusty]

I just does!! The restore process is actually rather good, but it uses Onedrive rather than SD cards.

One thing to remember is to check the firmware versions are the same or similar. If not it will restore but some 'new' features will be incorrect.
I found this out when restoring a pfd backup to a non-pfd phone. The pfd had folders on the homescreen so it just made multiple tiles on the non-pfd version as they weren't available.

 

[the-wrangler]

Agreed - I found this out last time as well. Best to update the phone back to the version you had, then restore it all only at the OS version you left off at. That way everything should be restored as you left off for the most part

 

[anon(123856)]

It's always worked great for me as well. I haven't experienced any issues.

 

[Senordingdong2K]

Where is that setting? I can only choose between apps+settings, text messages and photos+videos. Neither of these mentions home screen or tiles.

Just checked, it no longer lists as its own section. It had been subsumed by the apps+settings section so it is as automatic as everything else.

 

[mj0]

FYI, it worked like a charm.

 

[wpfan2be]

I will be doing the same going from a 635 to a 640. Any chance you could post the steps you took? How to correctly move the SD card from the phone? etc. All my apps, photos, etc. are on the SD card. Did you have any issues with the new phone recognizing anything in the SD?
Thanks for your help...

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

I will be doing the same going from a 635 to a 640. Any chance you could post the steps you took? How to correctly move the SD card from the phone? etc. All my apps, photos, etc. are on the SD card. Did you have any issues with the new phone recognizing anything in the SD?
Thanks for your help...

Steps to change a sd card........
To save the most of your apps you need to move them al to your Phone........
In wp you cant swapp sd cards in the hope that all your apps wil run.
Mediafiles like music, video and photos are no problem but not with apps

BUT..............yes alway's a BUT.
In your case you going to use a brandnew handy, so forget that what i told you about the sd card before.
You are starting a clean slate here.

If you want to keep your old phone, just move al your apps to the phone so you dont have any apps left on your sd.
Your new phone doesnt reconize your old apps on the sdcart ( safetyfeature against piracy ).

First thing first, back up your old phone ( settings/backup ) in to onedrive.
Just to be shure backup all your photo's and other media or documents to your pc ( better safe then sorry ).
No you can shut down your old phone and remove the sd card.

Now you can place the sd cart in your new phone and start it up.
At first boot you must set your main account ( the same one as your old phone ) after that you get the option
to place back/restore your backup from the cloud.
After that, al your apps, settings and accounts are automatically restored on your phone,
except those apps who are pulled from the store, those are considert to be lost.

WP doesnt realy create a backup from al your app's, it just reinstalled them from the store.
Thats why it cant restore apps who are pulled from the store.

Sometimes it can take quite a while before it's all done, depending on how many apps you have.
And remember, you can sometimes lose some game progress etc......not all apps load there results in to the cloud.

Microsoft backup is good, but its still not perfect ( far from it ).

 

[STALKER-SVK]

when I moved from HTC 8s to L 640, restore feature restored even my custom ringtones and desktop tiles layout (someone mentioned that desktop layout will not be restored)

 

[Joe920]

It's ok but you lose a lot of app info if you're not careful:
http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8-1/320621-apps-dont-support-backup-restore.html

 

[mj0]

I don't recall taking any extra steps. I didn't have any apps installed on the SD-Card anyway and all I'd lost was my playlists (or, more precisely: the playlists were still there but they were empty). Apparantly those are saved separately from the music and I ended up resyncing my entire music anew in order to repopulate my playlists.

 

[wpfan2be]

so one question, what happens to the apps currently in the SD card from the old phone. Based on your post they are not good once the SD card goes in the new phone. I guess they have to be removed manually? if so, how can they be removed?

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

Nothing, they are be rewritten.
A better option is to backup al your files and media to your pc and format the card.
Than let the new phone reinitialize the card, after that you can put al your stuff back ( photos, music etc etc ).

 

[wpfan2be]

Ok. So it worked amazingly great! I tried to copy as many apps back to the phone as I could, which I now think was not necessary, I'll explain later. After using as much space in the phone as I could, I ran a backup. Selected to "Remove SD Card" and power off the phone. I removed sim and SD, inserted in the new phone and powered on. It went thru the setup as expected, and at some point it said it had found the SD card and there were apps on it from another phone if I wanted to remove them. I selected yes. I also selected all apps, etc to go to the SD card. When the restore ran, all apps, even the ones I spent the time moving to the phone were restored to the SD card. All photos, videos, etc were also in the SD as expected, and all apps retained their data.

So after a while, the phone was fully operational and up and running. Thanks to everyone for your help...