Moving File History to new drive

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I have a new PC with Win10 installed. I had File History on and began to run out of space, so I decided to move it to another drive. However, when I choose “Select Drive”, only the current drive I’m now using for File History appears as an option. I have six drives, but I can only see the one. According to the web, The Missing Manual, and a Microsoft web source, I should be able to select another drive and have Win10 move my File History to it and move on.

What am I missing?

Thanks.

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On my system, File History only shows the current FH drive and any empty attached or network drives as available. This may be an undocumented limitation of FH.

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Where are these six drives? If they are partitions then it won’t show them. I think that it doesn’t show internal drives either. If they are network drives, you can add them on the ‘Add network location’ link – it doesn’t show those automatically. It should show any external ones which are connected via USB.

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Yeah, but FH is a real time access of a history of your files, so it would not make sense to have it remote. I think it defaulted to my biggest drive when I set it up. I also need to either move it or delete and rebuild it.

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Yeah, but FH is a real time access of a history of your files, so it would not make sense to have it remote. I think it defaulted to my biggest drive when I set it up. I also need to either move it or delete and rebuild it.

I assume you hadn’t seen my previous post. What do you mean by remote? I had my FH on a NAS drive (network drive) and was able to save and restore without any problems. I only switched to a desktop drive because of issues with the NAS drive.

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I have three physical drives and 6 logical drives. I’m currently using an internal drive for my File History. One of my drives is in a SATA Dock connected USB. But, nothing in the documentation that I’ve read indicates that the FH must be an external drive, including Microsoft’s own web page.

As I recall, I could select any drive I wanted when I first set it up. In fact, I’m sure of it. All drives were visible.

I’ll be happy to delete all file history off of this drive and start over if I can. How do I do that? I’ve stopped file history since I’m running out of space.

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The SATA dock would probably look like an external drive to Windows. Haven’t checked in for WIN10 but for 8.x, the File History drive definitely had to be external or network.

If you have mapped a network drive, it will show up.

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OK, I may be assuming it doesn’t show internal drives as this is deprecated by all who recommend backups (of any type). As you say it should show any drive that’s available, so I don’t know why it isn’t. I’ll try with my wife’s backup drive tomorrow to see if it shows that when it’s attached.

Just tried it (she wasn’t using it) and when I clicked on select a drive it appeared in the list. So that’s what should happen.

Are you aware there’s a setting under advanced settings, which allows you to specify how long to keep saved versions. One of these is ‘until space is needed’.

As far as I’m aware, you can switch FH off, and then just delete the folder where the FH is stored – including the configuration and data folders, then start again, but I’ve not tried that, so there are no guarantees!

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No, FH does not have to have the whole disc available. When I set mine up, I could select any drive on my system, physical or logical. The drive it’s on was not empty. Few people have empty drives lying around.

I changed the drive setting to “Until space was needed” and it was under 32GB on a 500GB drive and the consumed storage still seemed to be plummeting. I don’t know how that works, but with this much of misinformation, I wouldn’t trust it.

If we can’t solve this, how do I get rid of the FH? I’d like to be able to move it or delete it and recreate it, but if I have to, I’ll remove it.

Thanks.

WSC

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No, FH does not have to have the whole disc available. If we can’t solve this, how do I get rid of the FH? I’d like to be able to move it or delete it and recreate it, but if I have to, I’ll remove it.

I thought it offered all available storage, but on just checking, only my internal non-OS SATA drive is shown (plus external USB drives if plugged in). My W10 is installed on a HDD, but I also have an SSD with XP on it (and other partitions) – so why won’t it use that?

Possibilities include: the SATA drive is a single partition, or W10 declines to use any drive (and associated partitions) on which it finds an OS?

As for getting rid of it: well, as Access_mdb stated above, just turn off FH (it seems you have to turn it off to change the drive) and delete the folder. I don’t think you can copy the files elsewhere, and then expect W10 to pick up the moved location and add to it. So start again, and after its running use the ‘more options’ button to see which folders are being copied – there may be ones there you don’t care about. If there are important files in the current history, copy them elsewhere before you delete the folder (but they won’t be seen by FH).

HTH, Martin

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Well, external drives that are in use and have files on them don’t show up on my system either. As I said earlier only the current FH drive and an empty network drive show on my system. I am wondering if another factor is how much space is available on your attached drives, though one of my attached USB 3.0 drives has a lot of space on it and it doesn’t show up either. Does anyone know if FH needs to have the whole disc and therefore won’t show any with files already on it?

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Today I tried the option “change drive” and the FH app crashed as it has before. I wonder why? Also, that sequence of options does not recur when I bring up the Backup Options again.

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mgerhold: I haven’t tried to delete the file, but i didn’t want to create a system problem. Maybe once the files are gone, W10 will think I’m starting from scratch and allow me to chose any drive again when setting up FH. Has anyone tried this?

Or better yet, figured out why the move option isn’t working?

Thanks to all!

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mgerhold: I haven’t tried to delete the file, but i didn’t want to create a system problem. Maybe once the files are gone, W10 will think I’m starting from scratch and allow me to chose any drive again when setting up FH. Has anyone tried this?

Or better yet, figured out why the move option isn’t working?

Oh, I think I’ve tried everything! Turned off fh, cleared all the files, but still only one drive showing – I think it showed more when I first used it. Now I understand that it won’t allow one to use the system drive, but I also have an SSD with XP and a data partition on it, and they don’t show up. Thinking this might be because it saw an OS on the SSD, I tried various ways of trying to connect to a share (both folders & complete drives), as per this link and that, but W10 was having none of it.

Thinking that maybe my user profile was hosed (I mess about a lot), I created a new profile, and all 3 internal partitions became visible! I have turned on fh, then turned it off again, but for the ‘test’ account all partitions (apart from drive with W10) show up. I have no idea what is going on. I can only hope its a bug which will get fixed in due course.

Good luck, Martin

PS Other people seem to be getting multiple copies of unchanged files, so perhaps that is where your space is going – have a look.

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PS Other people seem to be getting multiple copies of unchanged files, so perhaps that is where your space is going – have a look.

I had this problem too. I fixed it by switching off sharing in the Homegroup – Control PanelAll Control Panel ItemsHomeGroup – click on “change what you’re sharing with….”
and change everything to not shared.

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Has anyone tried to just contact Windows 10 Support? It seems to me that they may be able to help, or perhaps they know it’s broken (in terms of changing drives for FH) and are working on a patch. I’m in the position that I have a very old (several years old) 500 gb external hard drive on which my FH reside. It still has about 150 gb free, which may tie me over for a while, but I still worry about failure of the current FH drive. I sure would like to move or rebuild FH on another external hard drive (not a network drive).

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I’m not sharing any files, just my printer. Good feedback though. I’m trying to figure out how to relocate my FH file.

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I didn’t have any files shared; only my printer. I just want to relocate my FH and that’s proving to be a stumper. But thanks for the idea.

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So no one out there has a solution to this? Has anyone tried deleting the File History file to see if that resets Win10 so I can select another drive?

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So no one out there has a solution to this? Has anyone tried deleting the File History file to see if that resets Win10 so I can select another drive?

I’m a bit confused – you have been told more than once that you can turn off FH and simply delete the folders. I have already stated that I have done so, but it didn’t fix the list of offered drives. I have also stated that creating a new user fixed the problem (for the new user). You need to try some of that and let us/me know how you get one before I can be of any further help.

Martin

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Just noticed in one of your previous posts that trying to change drives caused FH to ‘crash as before’, though I couldn’t see any reference to crashes in your previous posts. I suggest you use sfc /scannow and/or dism commands to see if you have a file problem. I’m no expert on these, but there’s plenty of threads which refer to them and how to use them. It might be unwise to delete the FH folders hoping this will fix the issue if the issue is caused by something else.

As I stated in a previous post, when adding a drive it shows up as an option, so it’s not a problem caused by a setting in FH as far as I can see.

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If you are concerned about deleting the folders, just rename the top one – has the same effect and you can reverse it very easily.

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access-mdb: I’ll try the system tests when I get a chance, but i feel confident that’s not it. I can’t reproduce the crash, but it did happen a couple of times. It’s not happened again in a while.

According to MS, I should be able to see all of my drives and move my FH wherever I want. I’ve not added a drive to see if it shows up in FH, but even if it does, that’s not helpful nor is it consistent with how FH is supposed to work. Either its an issue on my system (which seems doubtful since others in this thread see the same thing) or MS needs to fix it with a patch. I take it you can’t see all of your drives either?

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I can see any drive I add on this PC (my old one). Unfortunately a power outage took out the PSU on my main computer (now being fixed by its builder) so I can’t test on that (win 10 also). On this old PC, the only disk I can’t see is the one I’m backing up. As it’s one drive with two partitions, I can’t see either (which I think is normal). I think you need to try the system commands, then we can suggest further things if that doesn’t fix anything.

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Ok. I set up the new account and I could create a new FH on any drive as before. I had no ability that I could find to select the folders I wanted to include, only exclude, so that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I didn’t realize that it would only work when I’m logged in as this new account. If so, then this really won’t help me out.

I don’t want useless user accounts. I only have the one for me and I would prefer to delete it if I can. I hope there’s a way to delete it.

I hope that Microsoft will fix this, but I’m not optimistic. Anyway, my system commands are fine, which is not surprising since everyone could reproduce my problem.

Other thoughts?

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Martin: True. I think you said you were running XP and not Win10, but good suggestions. SFC came back clean. If I create a second user, recreate my FH, and then delete the new account, what happens to the new FH setup? I’m assuming it’s not user specific. And I’m going to rename the FH file i currently have before I begin just to be safe.

Stay tuned.

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Martin: True. I think you said you were running XP and not Win10, but good suggestions. If I create a second user, recreate my FH, and then delete the new account, what happens to the new FH setup? I’m assuming it’s not user specific.

I am dual-booting, and any comments of mine about FH are W10.

Secondly, the FH folder layout is completely user-specific – it creates a top level folder under the user name, and then data folders for each drive being covered under that (with the user folders within that – somewhat tautological). See screen shot:
43833-fh2

I’m not sure why you would want to delete the new account once set up, as that will probably be the only one in which FH functions properly – but if you did, I think the FH folders would just get orphaned. My observation that FH works for a new user is not a way to get it working for any current users – you would have to bite the bullet and use the new account (with all the setting-up that might entail).

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Since I can’t seem to move the FH, I decided to just reduce what I was including in it to limit the FH file size and leave it where it is. I turned the FH on and removed all but a couple of drives for it to cover. I then clicked on back up now. The FH box ran for a minute and then crashed. Each time I bring it up now, it crashes.

Oh, and the file size was listed on this display box was 5.5GB and Explorer indicates 200GB; i’m guessing that it will need to remove some of the files that I no longer want cover.

I never deleted the FH file, but I did rename it and changed it back, so I’m puzzled as to what’s going on or what to do next. Why is it crashing?

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I rebooted and was able to get the FH page to load and stay visible. It had defaulted back to all of the folders and drives that were there before, so I again deleted the ones I didn’t want supported and exited. The stated FH file size is now 81GB, 283GB via Explorer. I brought the FH window up again and my selections are still correctly there. So far so good.

Won’t FH delete the files that shouldn’t be backed up since I removed them from the backup list?

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Won’t FH delete the files that shouldn’t be backed up since I removed them from the backup list?

I don’t think so – it is not a synching service, more of a copy and forget. It might get rid of unwanted (=old) files when reaching the storage limits, but until they are reached, why would you want it to remove anything? I don’t understand the disparity in reported disc usage.

Re defining folders you do/don’t want backed up, for some bizarre reason this must be done via the ‘modern’ (ie ‘toy’) interface reached via settings>backup&Recovery, the ‘advanced’ interface reached from Control panel is less capable.

All the crashing suggests to me you might want to consider using the new profile (or wait until MS fixes this ‘bug’, which it may never do).

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While I’ve been struggling trying to solve my situation, FH is cranking out the files. My FH file size is 365GB now, and the files that it’s self-selected to back up returned again after I removed them. I really need a way to peek inside the FH folder to see what is consuming so much storage. I’ve got a piece of freeware that will let me mount and see inside a System Restore file. Is there one for FH that anyone knows of? How can I tell what’s in this file?

I got a brain storm and listed the folders that I didn’t want covered under “exclude these folders” option to see if that helps. I’m down to 82.5GB of open space on this drive. I guess I can clear out the previous versions and start again. I have FH set on “until space is needed” but I don’t know how low it will go before that activates. Anyone know?

Martin: I get to the FH through the modern interface by typing FH into the start menu and the same backup menu appears that would if I went through Settings. Is this what you mean?

If I can’t solve this, I’ll just turn off FH for now, but I really want it to work.

And my free storage space continues to spiral downwards….. The total size stored in FH should be around 130GB based on the drive and the folder I have selected for file history. What else does FH backup maybe by default?

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While I’ve been struggling trying to solve my situation, FH is cranking out the files. My FH file size is 365GB now, and the files that it’s self-selected to back up returned again after I removed them. I really need a way to peek inside the FH folder to see what is consuming so much storage. I’ve got a piece of freeware that will let me mount and see inside a System Restore file. Is there one for FH that anyone knows of? How can I tell what’s in this file?

You can just open the FH folder with explorer and dive right in (see my screen-shot above). Use any file space program to see where the big bits are – try Treesize.

Martin: I get to the FH through the modern interface by typing FH into the start menu and the same backup menu appears that would if I went through Settings. Is this what you mean?

I don’t use any MS fancy ‘type something and I’ll see what I can find’ doodads – and when I do type ‘FH’ into the search box (turned on for this one instance) it starts to search the web – and when I tell it to search ‘my stuff’ it comes with a lot of dross, but not FH. You & I can get to the same place via:

Start>Settings>Update&Security>Backup>More-Options

which (when FH isn’t messed up, as it is for my normal profile) shows a list of folders it is monitoring. Scroll down, select one you don’t want and click ‘remove’ (or similar). When I could get this to work for my messed-up profile, FH always included some folders I didn’t want backed up, and I could never see where it got the list from – some past activity on my part that I no longer recall? You should be able to reconcile this list of folders with what you find in the FH folder itself using Explorer.

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The file size consumption has stabilized a bit and FH reports that the file is 159GB, which would be about right based on the files I’ve now (apparently successfully) targeted. The actual size is more than 2 1/2 times that, so I guess that my new issue is how to clear out this file and start over.

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I didn’t realize that I could open these folders; I can see what’s in there!! I assumed it was protected or hexadecimal or something. Anyway, when I looked inside the FH folder, I discovered two subfolders below a folder with my username, both with my PC name, the second with a “(2)” or “PCName(2).” The first is dated 5 weeks ago. The (2) is time stamped yesterday. The first is 196GB and (2) is 214 GB. Both have pretty much what I expected them to have there.

I moved the first, older subfolder to another drive to preserve and see if FH would work correctly. So far, so good….

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All you need to see the FH files is File Explorer, they are just files, each one has a date and time string added to it. So you can look at the properties of the files and folders in the normal way. Have you been looking at the FH app? In File Explorer navigate to a folder in you normal file system and click history in the Home tab (near the end). You can see how many iterations there have been for that folder. Doing the same for the file will open a preview (I think – I don’t currently have it running on this PC – only on my main one which is still kaput).

Just remember FH isn’t an imaging program, it saves files each time they’re changed, so it’s a versioning backup – you can restore any version of a file from whenever (dependent on how long you keep them). As I said before there is a known bug with sharing in a homegroup.

oops I didn’t see that you had already had this info – sorry.

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1. Access-mdb: “Just remember FH isn’t an imaging program, it saves files each time they’re changed, so it’s a versioning backup – you can restore any version of a file from whenever (dependent on how long you keep them).”
If this is true, then why am I asked to specify the frequency of my backup? (“Save copies of files: Every hour”) FH would backup whenever I make a change, right, if it were all about versioning.

2. This morning, post reboot, I can’t get the FH options screen to load if I try to access it via the settings screen; it crashes. It used to crash once and then load properly the second time. I wonder if that’s because the other backup folder was moved? The screen I can get to indicates that FH is on and running, and I can get to it via the Control Panel approach.

3. I’ve also looked up a couple of files that I change several times a day within the FH to see if there are versions present. These files are not there at all! They’re completely absent!!! FH did just add another large folder (Pictures) to the tune of 179G that I wanted excluded. I put that folder in the exclusion list again: it was already there as F:usernamePictures. I added it again as F:_Pictures which is the same folder. Anyway, why are these really important files not being backed up? Any ideas?

4. And what’s in the $OF folder? They seem to be random files from across my drives. Not sure why they’re here. It’s not very big, but has stuff in there from various folders.

Martin: I have used a junction before when moving Apple product backups off of my boot drive where iTunes loves to put them and consume mass quantities of C drive space, especially annoying when your main drive is an SSD. The junction worked well, but I may leave this alone for now until I’m confident that FH is working.

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I may have some answers (but not to all your issues): I wondered why my FH kept including a folder on D: (a separate non-W10 drive) every time I started it. Something led me here and from that I explored the FH settings identified in one response there, which are stored in:

C:UsersAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsFileHistoryConfiguration

I feel sure i’ve looked there before, but forgot about it. Looking inside one of the two config files with Notepad showed that FH was using libraries to decide what to cover. Now, I don’t use libraries, and they seem hidden by default in W10, but I obviously played with them some time in the past. So I turned on libraries: Explorer>file>change folder options>view – right at the bottom one can turn library view on. This revealed that I had included the offending D: folder in one of the libraries (which had long GUID-type names). So I removed the D: drive from the offending library (one has to use the library manager tools in Explorer), turned off library view, turned FH off (this is for my normal account for which FH is bust, as yours), deleted the whole contents of the FH folder detailed above and restarted FH: lo and behold, all 3 expected backup ‘drives’ appeared.

This seems to have (so far) fixed the crashes I occasionally got when trying to set the backed-up folders. I’m not saying that libraries have anything to do with your issues, but do believe that clearing out the config files did the trick. In your circumstances, with apparently GB of unexpected FH backups, I would also clear the FH folders while it is off. This can’t do any harm unless any files in there are unique, and only you would know that. If you are happpy that your main file repositories are OK then any current FH data is duplication – which is, of course, the point, but you want a well-behaved FH set.

Let us know how you get on. Martin

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By default it backs up important files, viz. “the Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos folders. It also includes the Roaming folder where many programs store application data, your OneDrive folder, and other folders.”

I don’t think libraries are hidden by default in 10, though as I upgraded from 8.1 (after 8 and 7) it may have just been because I have always used them.

Are you aware that there is a link to the event viewer with a filter for FH in advanced settings? You can use this and see what error messages might be there. Can’t guarantee that they will help, but you never know.

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I’ve also just noted that of the ~ 100 subfolders of photos that I have, FH has only backup up about 75% of them. Not sure why that is.

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WSC3, I can answer Q1 – FH checks every hour and if it finds a changed file backs it up. How often it checks is up to you (default hourly).

I’m afraid I can’t answer your other questions other than it looks like you have a corrupted file or two in your system that need fixing.

I too don’t know why the $OF folder. A quick search comes up with a possible answer.

On my system, it’s the other way round as I would expect. Perhaps the issue you’re having with crashes etc may have something to do with it.

I’ve just turned FH on on my old system, I’ll have a play and see what comes of it.

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Out of nowhere, my other drive magically appeared in the drive listing, so I’m now in the process of moving my FH to that drive!! I did get a number of errors at the start of the move: “Can’t copy M:FileHistoryusernamepcnamedata$OFrandom numberfilename. The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.” I stepped around a bunch of them before it took off and finished the copy. That process has completed, but the old file is still there on the other drive. Can I just delete it?

I looked in Config files and as best I can read them, they match what I would expect. And I didn’t find any surprises in my library folders, which I don’t use either. I did opt to exclude one which didn’t happen; that’s why my storage use is so high. The rest of my 100 photography folders seem have copied over, but I’m still missing the key docs I update during the day. I guess that this is my biggest problem now; why are these files missing? And, a couple of other files that exist in FH have not been updated in a week even though the originals have been.

What a wild trip. Thanks for the help.

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In Windows 10: Via Settings” select “Backup Using File History”; then select “More Options”. Scroll Down: You will see the option “Backup to a Different Drive” (as per screen shot). You can then choose a different drive to which to save File History data.

43872-Screen-Shot-03-13-16-at-12.00-PM

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pestesmst: Yeah, I did that, but all my other drives disappeared from the screen that allowed me to select another drive. Then, magically the one I wanted suddenly appeared. I moved to that drive, but FH is still not working. Now, it’s not backing up hourly as it’s supposed to and the docs I update the most are absent from the FH backup. It’s weird.

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The other thing is that the FH does not seem to be running hourly as it’s supposed to be. I instituted a “Back up now” yesterday and the files I use and update frequently now seem to have copies in FH, but I’ve had my PC up all day and the last backup was at 8:15 this morning. It’s not running hourly for sure. And the folder I have in the exclusion list still has files in FH. I want FH to remove those. Wonder what’s going on?

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The other thing is that the FH does not seem to be running hourly as it’s supposed to be. I instituted a “Back up now” yesterday and the files I use and update frequently now seem to have copies in FH, but I’ve had my PC up all day and the last backup was at 8:15 this morning. It’s not running hourly for sure. And the folder I have in the exclusion list still has files in FH. I want FH to remove those. Wonder what’s going on?

When you say the files you update have copies in FH, but its not running hourly: are you expecting a fresh copy every hour of the same file(s)? AIUI, it will only create a backup if the file has changed since the last backup. I am not sure if it waits for the PC to be idle before running (but would hope not).

I’m still not sure why you are expecting it to work ‘normally’, since it was clearly broken and you have apparently done nothing to fix it. Until you delete those config files and start again, I don’t think its behaviour will be predictable. I shall just check what mine is doing…

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My next FH backup timestamp was 1:21, so the “every hour” is about every four hours, for whatever reason. However, a quick check of files I’ve updated today shows that they are now being captured by FH! It appears that it may be working, but not hourly. Odd, but no longer a game changer.

The files are still in FH that are specifically excluded (library “Pictures”). I’d like to see FH remove those from its database.

WSC

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access-mdb: According to the log, FH has run every hour since this morning. I checked the FH folder before I left at noon and there were no additional changed files in FH, despite the updates I had made to files working on them. But, there are no errors in the log that I can see.

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Thanks mngerhold for confirming that entry shows FH is working as expected.

WSC3 – FH won’t delete excluded folders in the FH repository, as mngerhold says, you can only do that using clean up versions. But that seems to be all or nothing, so you will lose older versions of what your files. If you’re not worried about that then go ahead.

When I get my main PC back I can have a play with this PC and FH, but not until!

With regard to the ‘missing’ backups, have you looked at the ‘History’ link or are you looking at the files in File Explorer? It may be that they will be in the former – for example, I’ve found that after moving a file in my normal directories, it doesn’t move in the repository (database as you call it, but appears in the history link. It seems to be able to handle that sort of thing very well – perhaps they’re not missing after all.

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access-mdb: I’m looking at FH in Explorer. Where are the history links and how do we read them? I see file types *.jsonlz4 in a subfolder under $0F. Those dates are six months ago….

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access-mdb: Wait, these are FF bookmarks?

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@WSC3: I am sorry, you have me beat!

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Martin: I’m expecting the FH page to report that FH has run every hour. Yesterday, the timestamp on the Backup Page for FH was like 8:30 in the morning late in the afternoon. It hadn’t kicked in all day.
I do not expect a fresh copy of all my files every hour; I’d run out of space very fast! I check specific files that I’ve updated in the past few hours and a fresh copy of those file was not found in the FH. The last copy was from the day before.

I just sat down and it’s 10:37. The timestamp on FH now is 9:18 this morning. I’ll update some files and see if it backs them up around 11:20. I do see that two files I updated at 7:30 were backed up, so I’m hopeful.

If you have a suggestion for how to fix it, I’m all ears!

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Can you look in the event viewer (right click on Windows logo at bottom left). Navigate to Apps and services/Microsoft/Windows/File History – Core/WHC. That tells me each time it had attempted to do a backup – well at least it has an entry every hour (sometimes two). I assume that this is the backup attempt – do you have anything similar? Or anyone else who uses FH for that matter?

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Can you look in the event viewer (right click on Windows logo at bottom left). Navigate to Apps and services/Microsoft/Windows/File History – Core/WHC. That tells me each time it had attempted to do a backup – well at least it has an entry every hour (sometimes two). I assume that this is the backup attempt – do you have anything similar? Or anyone else who uses FH for that matter?

I have set mine to backup every 10 minutes (as a test!), and see two entries after each interval: the first with hc_stateid of 1023, which seems to confirm when the previous backup occurred (it shows the ProtectedUpToTime), followed seconds later by hc_stateid of 767, which seems to be the new backup. This all appears to be working as expected, the times matching those shown under FH in Control Pane, and those appended to my test file in the FH folder.

I think I’ll reset it to once an hour now!

WSC3: Have you tried the ‘clean up versions’ option under advanced to purge files from excluded folders?

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Ooops. I just realized this had moved to a new page.

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According to the Event Log, the back ups are occuring every hour, but files that were changed several times are not being covered. One in particular was last backed up this morning at 10:41, but has been updated three or four times since then…..I wonder why this is?

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WSC3 – you don’t look at the FH files in explorer – go to where they are in your file system (e.g. C:userdocumentsfile.doc or whatever). Then click on the history link in the home tab. You shouldn’t really be looking at these files in explorer. See the attached file.
43882-history

You then get something like
43883-history2

Note that my directory has been updated 6 times. The current one was when I restarted FH two days ago – I’ve not changed anything in that particular directory.

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P.S. I noticed that today’s issue of Windows Secrets is on File History…..

http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/moving-file-history-backups-to-a-new-pc/?NL=WIN-01&Issue=WIN-01_20160315_WIN-01_529_CPY1&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1&utm_rid=CPNET000001627465&utm_campaign=1286&utm_medium=email&elq2=689014fdc6544da19fc3a659528ce711

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Thanks Access-mdb. I didn’t know this existed. More below.
As I’ve been thinking through all that’s transpired, I wanted to list my expectations and observations of FH so far in this lengthy learning process. Please let me know if I’m off base:

1. I would assume that every time FH runs, it will scan all relevant folders and create a backup copy of any file that has changed since a previous version was created. This has certainly not happened, but it **may** be improving.

2. The Event log indicates that FH is indeed running hourly as expected, but new versions of changed files are not always found as indicated in # 1.

3. The FH Backup Options Overview lists the last backup time/date which often does not agree with what the Event Log indicates as the last FH run. This is odd.

4. The History selection in Explorer doesn’t indicate the date that the listed copies were created. I can’t get to a details view of the files either. There is only one listed. The version history isn’t here. I’m not sure how this view is helpful.

5. The Previous Versions tab on the properties of a given file does give both the date and a list of all versions that exist, so I guess this view is more useful. Again, on files that were updated 6 or 8 times a day, only 1 or 2 versions exist. I would expect an hourly backup to catch all the changes. I’m puzzled as to why it doesn’t save all.

Thoughts or comments?

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Thanks Access-mdb. I didn’t know this existed. More below.
As I’ve been thinking through all that’s transpired, I wanted to list my expectations and observations of FH so far in this lengthy learning process. Please let me know if I’m off base:

1. I would assume that every time FH runs, it will scan all relevant folders and create a backup copy of any file that has changed since a previous version was created. This has certainly not happened, but it **may** be improving.

Your assumption is correct – I’ve never found that it hasn’t backed a file up, but then I’ve never looked at every single directory/file.

2. The Event log indicates that FH is indeed running hourly as expected, but new versions of changed files are not always found as indicated in # 1.

But how have you been looking for them, via the History link or via File Explorer?

3. The FH Backup Options Overview lists the last backup time/date which often does not agree with what the Event Log indicates as the last FH run. This is odd.

Mine does, or at least it has done so with the last backup.

4. The History selection in Explorer doesn’t indicate the date that the listed copies were created. I can’t get to a details view of the files either. There is only one listed. The version history isn’t here. I’m not sure how this view is helpful.

Can you do a screen shot of your history link – as my screen shot does show the details.

5. The Previous Versions tab on the properties of a given file does give both the date and a list of all versions that exist, so I guess this view is more useful. Again, on files that were updated 6 or 8 times a day, only 1 or 2 versions exist. I would expect an hourly backup to catch all the changes. I’m puzzled as to why it doesn’t save all.

I believe the Previous versions tab takes files from either FH or the last restore point. I have one file which is updated every few minutes – it’s downloading data from my automatic weather system (AWS). Each hour FH runs it shows the time of the updated file as just before that run.

So as far as I’m concerned, it’s doing just what it says on the tin. Seeing what you see might help me see what’s going on….

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“But how have you been looking for them, via the History link or via File Explorer?”
Both. Either. I only see one version in the History display. There is never more than one copy displayed here, which, in my opinion, limits its usefulness.

“Can you do a screen shot of your history link – as my screen shot does show the details.”
I finally got it to show the details, but there’s only a single copy of my file there, apparently the latest one. In the FH folder, I can see all the versions that are preserved and the date/time stamp.

Previous Version tab apparently does pull from either place, but is that a bad thing? It shows me all of the versions available, which makes it the best “view”, right?

Thanks!

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I had file error on my FH drive, but it corrected easily. I compared folder sizes (with DiskPie, an old utility) and discovered that the photography folder sizes in my FH folder are EXACTLY twice the size that they are on the source drive. Why would that be? I’ve done no updates, and only a tiny number of adds. And, my files folder is 3x the size in FH as it is on the source drive.

Upon further examination of my photos, I discovered that FH has duplicated many (maybe all?) of my photos even though none have changed. They are side by side (in Explorer) with the update time/date stamp on the file name, but both files have the same file time/date stamp. I can see similar stuff in the Explorer History view.

Should I delete all previous versions and start over that way?

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Should I delete all previous versions and start over that way?

People have been having this sort of trouble since W8, and I haven’t seen a clear solution. However, I would re-iterate what I have suggested earlier, which is to turn off FH, clear out the config files, delete/move all existing FH data and start again. This has worked for me.

Good luck, Martin

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Martin,

Just to be clear. I’m on the drive I want to be on. So, clear out and begin fresh, I would do exactly what?

1. Turn off FH
2. Delete the entire FH folder?
3. Turn on FH and there will be no errors. It will assume that this is a first time, fresh run of FH. It will prompt me for the drive and folders, etc……

When I tried moving FH manually, I turned off FH, moved the FH file, and when I turned on FH there was a big error that the FH file was not found. I was offered no option to start over fresh.

I’m now on the right drive, but would love a fresh start. I think it would help.

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Just to be clear. I’m on the drive I want to be on. So, clear out and begin fresh, I would do exactly what?

1. Turn off FH
2. Delete the entire FH folder?
3. Turn on FH and there will be no errors. It will assume that this is a first time, fresh run of FH. It will prompt me for the drive and folders, etc……

Yes, but between steps 2 & 3 I would delete the config files we talked about. I think they can get messed up, and its better to start with a clean sheet. I would delete the old FH folder, because you don’t want to inherit any complications from that either. From what access-mdb reports, FH may manage to locate the old data, and you don’t want it to (just more possible complications). This assumes there is nothing in the old FH that has got lost from your source folders.

One other thing: before step 3, reboot so Windows really lets go – you don’t want it helpfully spotting you have just turned FH off then on, and trying to shortcut things for you. This will probably make no difference, but will do no harm.

I have done exactly this, and it worked for me. Keep us posted!

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I’ve just renamed the filehistory folder after switching FH off. I then went to FH on the control panel and it said that it didn’t recognise the drive. I then clicked on ‘Select another drive’ I the drive where the old FH files was on was there.

I selected it and it said it had found the files I had previously saved and did I want to move them to the new folder. The options were yes/no/cancel. If you’re going to start afresh (I don’t want to do that just yet), then just click on No and you should get a fresh FH folder.

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The config files are in the FH folder under the Windows folder? Maybe that’s why I got the error messages before; it was looking there and expecting to find the FH folder…

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The config files are in the FH folder under the Windows folder? Maybe that’s why I got the error messages before; it was looking there and expecting to find the FH folder…

They are in C:UsersAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsFileHistoryConfiguration

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Yeah, it’s just crazy. I’ve found old files in my Downloads folder that haven’t been updated in years now have been backed up to FH 20 times: 20 times for a file that was really old to begin with and has never been touched. My FH folder sizes are 4 or 5 times as large as the requisite original folder. I really thought that once I got the FH folder relocated on the right drive, this would all straighten out.

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FH still would not recognize local drives. I even did some Google searches, but to no avail. One source suggested that I create a FileHistory folder on my desired drive and share it, which I did. Still, no show. Then, I tried the network option and located my computer name. I clicked that and two folders were available, Users and FileHistory. I selected FH and was off and running. (Appears as \ComputerNameFileHistory)

I first made sure that I’d selected the folders to exclude, but for some reason, the Pictures library/folder didn’t take. FH started filling that folder so I stopped FH and added it again to the ignore. I had to access via Control Panel. The other access crashes and I think it does that as long as FH is running. Once FH stopped backing up, I could get this screen to load. Then I added the drive I wanted to back up and removed the ones from “Back Up These Folders” that I don’t, but I’m guessing they won’t hold; they didn’t before.

One thing I learned is that once files end up in FH, you can’t get them out by adding the folder name to the ignore list. They sit there forever.

I clicked “Back up now” and the access screen crashes and FH begins its work. We’ll see what I get.

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Done. First, it used to be that when you deleted a (even big) file, the O/S just deleted from the FAT table. It was quick. Now, it took 45 minutes to delete my FH folder. Why is that?

In trying to restart FH, I get a message that “No usable drive was found. We recommend that you use an external drive…. yada, yada, yada.”

Greaaaaat.

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Why do you think starting FH again from scratch will fix your (presumably) corrupted FH system files. The fact that you’re having crashes, and it doesn’t seem to be working normally is indicative of this.

And why do you think that by adding a folder to the ignore list will get that folder deleted from FH – you have to go to FH in control panel, click on advanced settings and then Clean up versions to delete those files? You have already been told about this.

This is my last post on this thread – unless you attach a screenshot of your FH page as I asked for a few posts ago – then we might be able to see why yours isn’t working as expected.

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Access-mdb:

Thanks for your response.

“Why do you think starting FH again from scratch will fix your (presumably) corrupted FH system files.”
I ran the SFC which came back clean, indicating that there were no issues with my system files. At this point, I thought that we all agreed that if my FH system files are not bad, then the issue must have occurred with my difficult move from one drive to another.

“The fact that you’re having crashes, and it doesn’t seem to be working normally is indicative of this.”
I’m not sure that FH is working abnormally. I just reset it yesterday, so we’re early in the testing. But it does raise the question, if your FH is in the midst of a big backup at the scheduled time, can you load your “Backup Options Page?” Mine will not load until FH is finished its cranking. Is that a defect or normative (for a Microsoft product)? I dunno.

“And why do you think that by adding a folder to the ignore list will get that folder deleted from FH – you have to go to FH in control panel, click on advanced settings and then Clean up versions to delete those files? You have already been told about this.”
I did a quick sweep of the five pages of great help I’ve gotten here and I can’t find if anyone tested that running Clean Up Versions will delete single versions in folder that I don’t want included. If so, please let me know. I can test this myself, but I don’t want to change too many variables while things are going so well now that I’ve made a fresh start with FH.

“This is my last post on this thread – unless you attach a screenshot of your FH page as I asked for a few posts ago – then we might be able to see why yours isn’t working as expected.”
I’ll attach that below. If this isn’t the view you want, let me know.

Update:
The size of the FH folder that appears on the Backup Options pages = the size of the folder in Explorer. That’s a first in a long time. It’s also about the size I’d expect it to be based on what’s being backed up. It seems to be backing up each hour, but I’m not positive. Still, a good sign. (I did limit what I included in the backup list until I see how it’s working.)

Doing a quick Explorer eyeball-ometric indicates that files are being versioned correctly within the FH folder.

The History View in Explorer is attached. The date here is 7:41 this morning and it’s now 10:30. The Backup Options page indicates that the last backup was at 9:42, which makes sense for hourly. Why does this page show 7:41? Does that indicate the last time a file on this page was versioned or the last time FH ran?

Let me know if I missed anything you asked for. And thanks again. And I hope this image uploads correctly.

43936-File-History-Screen-143936-File-History-Screen-1

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WSC3, thanks for the screenshot (looks like two the same?). It’s as I expect – the time at the top is the time the backup ran for that folder when backing up a file. this is conformed by the fact that the newest file was updated not long before FH ran. It won’t give you a new page if you don’t update any files in that folder.

When you click on clean up it tells you what it will delete – that’s where it says it will delete files from folders you’ve marked as ignore.

I’ve never had FH crash on me. YMMV.

As you say, it appears to be working as expected. Which, I suspect, it always was.

There is (was?) a known issue about files being saved even though they hadn’t changed. This was caused by sharing in Homegroup (as I posted earlier). I no longer use Homegroup and I’ve never had the problem again.

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I thought that I would offer an update on my saga with FH. I found out a week ago that the primary drive that I wanted covered under FH was suddenly not listed in the “Backup these folders” list. I added it back. I then found that FH is making endless backups of files that haven’t changed any. They are stable and haven’t been touched in months. (I can see the copies both in History as well as looking in the FH folder.) Other files which change a number of times a day will only have a copy or two backed up. It’s not being ignored, but the copies are not there that you’d expect with hourly runs.

I’ll leave it for now and see what happens, but it’s certainly not working correctly.

Thanks.

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