Anyway to make a full backup of the device to my PC?

[Madam ImAdam]

Instead of, or perhaps in addition to, using the cloud, can I back up the device to the PC? I am interested in accessing or restoring an older backup to my phone, and by using the Onedrive method, there is only one backup available, and it's the most recent one saved yesterday. Not what I am looking for.

This thread at answers.microsoft.com is not encouraging.

What do the long term WP users here think about having the cloud as the only backup method?

 

[anon(7900571)]

I do the same , transfer music , images/videos on PC. My contacts , emails and other phone settings are backed up on onedrive. With windows phone 8.1 dev have option to use onedrive as a backup medium to store app files such as saved game files , scores , etc. it is not as perfect as iTunes backup or iCloud backup but I am quiet happy with the backup option available.

 

[Madam ImAdam]

Yes, I am able to backup selective content from my phone to the OneDrive, which works fair enough. Last month, I was able to successfully restore from "the" (there is only one) backup to my device over the cellular network while in the field at a jobsite.

But, say if I want to restore my phone to the exact state it was in, in March or February of this year, or last year for that matter, how could I do that? On my PC, I use Macrium, and can do this very easily. On my iPhone5 in Windows7, I also could do this by locating the folders that contained all of the synced backups since I bought the phone, and by copying them to dated folders I created, I could choose any one I wanted at anytime.

 

[anon(7900571)]

Yes, I am able to backup selective content from my phone to the OneDrive, which works fair enough. Last month, I was able to successfully restore from "the" (there is only one) backup to my device over the cellular network while in the field at a jobsite.

But, say if I want to restore my phone to the exact state it was in, in March or February of this year, or last year for that matter, how could I do that? On my PC, I use Macrium, and can do this very easily. On my iPhone5 in Windows7, I also could do this by locating the folders that contained all of the synced backups since I bought the phone, and by copying them to dated folders I created, I could choose any one I wanted at anytime.

Macrium creates a image copy of the disk. This is not possible in windows phone at moment.


Sent from my iPad using WPCentral Forums

 

[DavidinCT]

I do the same , transfer music , images/videos on PC. My contacts , emails and other phone settings are backed up on onedrive. With windows phone 8.1 dev have option to use onedrive as a backup medium to store app files such as saved game files , scores , etc. it is not as perfect as iTunes backup or iCloud backup but I am quiet happy with the backup option available.

Application backup on 8.1 is almost worthless. This feature can ONLY be enabled if a dev updates their application or game with this feature. Wish MS enabled for every app and if a dev didn't want the feature they would be forced to update their app. 95% of the games on Windows Phone have not been updated from release or at least one update after it was released, No one is going to update their apps to support backup, too much effort for a little result for the company.

For what the OP was looking for, a full phone backup was possible on Windows Phone 7.X with Zune but, for some dumb reason, they don't offer this feature on Windows Phone 8 and there is no "true" way to a full/clone backup.

At least the 8.1 backup has some nice options if devs start using it... but, it will need to go a long way before it's actually useful for games...or most apps

 

[xandros9]

You can't do it, something I kinda miss at times, having used iTunes backup and Palm Desktop before.

But I have no problems with it personally, I'm not sure I like not having tangible access, but cloud backup has served me well, semi-superseded by cloud syncing however,

 

[tritiums]

WP's desktop apps really needs a full backup capability, like Blackberry's. One thing I really liked about my old Blackberry was the ability to create an unlimited number of complete backups on my PC, allowing me to restore to any point in time. WP's backup system is archaic at best.