Computer Maintenance Support in Edinburgh, Glasgow & Central Scotland

PC Backups

If you are having computer issues or server crashes and you don’t have adequate backups of your files, you might lose important documents and end up spending a lot of time trying to rebuild your system. This can be very expensive! Even with backups of all your data, it can take some time to rebuild a system back to its original state. Proper preparation is important.

If you have a server, your backup choices are more flexible, as your files will be stored in one location, making them easier to backup. If you don’t, you may have to back up each computer separately.

Data backup can be as simple as occasional copies of your system and/or data to a CD or DVD, or automated backups to external hard discs or tape drive. Remote or online backup copies your data via the internet to a server located elsewhere (potentially anywhere in the world).

If have a personal computer with Windows 7/Vista, you can use the Backup and Restore feature (look for it in Control Panel). This can be set to back up automatically to an external drive; use two to keep two separate backups, and store one of them away from your PC.

Windows 2000 and XP Professional support a backup utility, NTBackup.exe. There are many commercial suites available for consumers based on their needs and urgency of their data’s importance.

Small Business Server 2003 and later include an automated backup wizard. For Windows 2008 servers, you will need to install a third-party backup tool, such as BackupAssist.

For small businesses with a server, we recommend using external hard discs to backup. For archiving, tapes can also be used.

For homes or home businesses, we recommend an external hard disc (or two if the budget allows) which can be set up for automatic backing up.

One big advantage of tapes over external hard drives is their archiving abilities, but they can be slow, and tape drives are expensive. They are also not supported by Microsoft’s built-in backup program for Server 2008 onwards. External discs are fast and relatively cheap, but can run out of memory space, and they cannot be easily transported offsite.

Online/remote backups are by their nature offsite, and therefore, safe from local disasters; but they can work to be out expensive in the long run, where security and ownership of data might be a problem, meaning if you don’t have a fast upstream internet connection and have lots of data, timing can be a problem.

Safe Mode Guide

Sometimes it’s a good idea to run things like virus and spyware scans in safe mode.

To boot your machine into safe mode, see Microsoft’s articles depending on your Windows version:

The following link should provide you with further support from Microsoft:

Windows Support

If you’re experiencing problems with your computer, it’s important to perform a virus or spyware scan. By rebooting the computer in safe mode, this will allow you to run certain necessary tasks without consequences of corrupting your system.

To Do List

Ensure Windows Updates are set to update automatically. If you’re not sure, visit Microsoft for more details. Microsoft generally roll out new updates for Windows once a week. Also, you should ensure that you have a firewall in place before connecting to the internet – see our firewalls section for more information.

Anti virus software often run automatic updates and apply them as soon as they come available. If the virus definitions do become more than a week old, the software will usually prompt you to update. You can configure your antivirus software to automatically run a full scan at a convenient time.

You can also run Windows Disk Cleanup Manager – select Start / Run… and type CLEANMGR, then press Enter. Follow the prompts to remove any temporary files. If you don’t see the Run… menu, you can simply press the Windows key & the R key simultaneously. This should be done once a month, or if your machine seems to be running slowly. If the problem persists, please call Tabard IT for a quote on a general cleanup, more RAM memory or a larger hard drive.

To improve overall performance and startup times, you should avoid placing large files on the desktop, running unnecessary software or setting high resolution pictures for your wallpaper.

Email archiving can improve the performance of Outlook, and should be automatically prompted every once in a while. If you would like to perform this more frequently, then go into Outlook and select Tools / Options / Other / Auto Archive. From here you can change the frequency and location of the archive.

Finally, you should run some sort of adware/malware detection program about once a week. There are several available, often free for personal use. Ad-Aware, Spybot and Microsoft Anti Spyware aka Windows Defender are three – see our malware section for more information.