What does backup actually restore?

[Chintan Gohel]

Hi guys,

I've been on these forums for a couple of months now since WM 10512. One thing I've noticed is many will direct you not to restore from a backup as that can make things harder when installing new builds.

My question is, what does the backup actually restore?

• If I wanted my messages back, I sync my outlook and they come back
• Contacts also come back whether I choose to restore from backup or not
• I copy photos, music and files from the pc; I've never used onedrive photo upload which is madness trying to upload 4-6GB in a day
• Start screen layout was restored only once and it never worked again
  Apps are in my history, I just simply select the ones I want to start with and they download

So what else does the backup and restore do? I upgraded to 10549 without using any restore and things are working just fine.

In fact, the only thing that goes missing for good is call history. But does backup and restore cover that actually?

What I'm trying to say is, does backup and restore actually help? Important stuff like contacts and messages come back whether you do a restore or not. Photos can always be copied back from the pc.

Backup is important for messages, contacts and apps. But the restore part I don't know

Chintan
Lumia 1020
Kenya

 

[Nicholas Ek]

It restores participating apps' data & settings. E.g. on my phone, Facebook Beta's backup size is 38 MB.
Not all apps back up their data.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

It doesn't work for whatsapp and the rest I don't care.

I use UC browser, it doesn't restore anything there

It doesn't restore settings because if it could, I wouldn't have to rearrange action center, camera settings, wifi settings, wifi passwords, pin password, start screen layout, 6tag settings, instagram settings, proshot settings, data sense settings, whatsapp settings, battery saver settings, which apps to disable in background, message settings, outlook settings and on and on

Basically all settings are reset regardless of if you do a restore or not

I always uninstall facebook, msn apps, news, travel, food and drink. But after going to 8.1, they always come back. Why can't backup remember that I don't want those apps and therefore not install them in the first place? I have to uninstall them every time.

I don't want to receive notifications from 6tag or whatsapp or gmail or most other apps. Yet they are enabled by default everytime you go to 8.1 and then WM10. If you do a restore, you still have change all those hundreds of settings one at a time.

Which begs the question, is the restore useful in its current state? This might be the one area that no one has really asked Microsoft to do something about.

The backup and restore I would love to see and in working condition

1. Restore action center arrangement
2. Restore call history
3. Restore permission settings for apps
4. Restore apps installed and remove apps that had been uninstalled when the backup had been done
5. Remember screen layout
6. Give options on what to restore or not to restore
7. Give visible and easy options to restore when you want to, not at the beginning after reset
8. Remember other settings like glance, navigation vibration etc
9. Restore app settings, eg, for 6tag - disable live tile; or whatsapp - which notification settings to enable or disable
10. Restore here maps settings - I don't like having to set measurements to km every time
11. Remember and restore my language settings - why do I have download each and every time UK English keyboard and remove US?

Is this list crazy? Probably
Is it unrealistic? Maybe
Is it useful? Would be for many
Can it be done? I need support

What do you think?

 

[Nicholas Ek]

About the keyboards - every hard reset installs the keyboards that came with the brand-new device, while the settings for the others are downloaded from the backup but not installed (i.e. they show up on the list but no suggestions, corrections, etc.) (at least how it has always worked for me).
6tag migrates settings just fine for me, don't know why it isn't working for you.
Each app has to specifically participate in the back-up, e.g WhatsApp doesn't. At all. Same for Glance, et al.
Point #4 - that's how it works for me (?)... the only app that kept coming back was Facebook (non-beta), but uninstalling apps is a breeze and a reset is not something you'd do every day so I don't really see a problem here.
Screen layout is preserved entirely, so are also action center toggles.
Regarding #6 and #7, the way back-up is implemented now, it is impossible, but I agree that it should be handled better.
Permission settings - uhm... given that you only need to enable them once, and considering that you might not want to enable some of them on a new device even though you are restoring a backup, I am not sure that is a good idea.
Maps - if you are using Here Maps, I think your settings are supposed to be synced with your Here account. If you're using the built-in Maps app, I don't know why your units are switched (though I do know that they are universal, tied to the Microsoft account. - e.g. roaming between my laptop, my tablet, and my phone).

Not much attention is given to it because the majority of people only restore on a new device or upon a rare hard reset, i.e. always starting anew, so I don't know what priority improving back-up has for Microsoft.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

I think I'll try on of these days a downgrade to 8.1 and see what comes back with backup/restore and what doesn't. But I'm quite sure most doesn't

 

[greedo_greedy]

Does anyone know if GTA San Andreas game progress is backed up?

 

[Maurizio Troso]

backup / restore in builds is far for perfect, as for Win8.1 upgrades

 

[Sedp23]

Backups of the device never worked for me on 10 at all. When I try it it saves a 0mb file that I can't restore to

 

[Nicholas Ek]

Backups of the device never worked for me on 10 at all. When I try it it saves a 0mb file that I can't restore to

Check if you are logged in through the OneDrive app.

 

[Sedp23]

Check if you are logged in through the OneDrive app.

I'm always logged in in every time I try to back up, I get a zero MB File saved. When I try to restore nothing is there.

 

[Nicholas Ek]

Uhh... This is weird. What happens if you disable backups, reboot, re-enable backups again?

 

[Sedp23]

Uhh... This is weird. What happens if you disable backups, reboot, re-enable backups again?

Just did that And the same result

 

[Nicholas Ek]

What is the last back-up that shows up online on OneDrive?

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Si did the upgrade to 10572

Didn't do any restore. But I synced my messages. Contacts sync by themselves. Installed apps manually. Laid out my start screen, lock screen, ringtone and spent an hour changing settings here and there. I hope that in the future, backup/restore would remember my settings and minimise the amount of effort I need to put into personalising my phone

 

[Sedp23]

What is the last back-up that shows up online on OneDrive?

Nothing in there

 

[Nicholas Ek]

An old backup should at least have been there... This sounds like your phone was never registered with the service. Hmm. Try contacting Microsoft directly (email or Twitter).

 

[Sedp23]

An old backup should at least have been there... This sounds like your phone was never registered with the service. Hmm. Try contacting Microsoft directly (email or Twitter).

It backs up fine in 8.1. I've had some backups there on 8.1 before I deleted them when I first started the preview builds