I've been using Windows 10 for the past months and a couple of days ago I decided to install Arch again, so that I could develop my OBS plugin natively for Linux. Unlike most other times when I decided to switch I made a backup so that I could return to Windows 10 exactly the way it was, because I had my dark theme and icons all setup and I didn't want to go through the hassle of doing that all over again.
This was the first time that I used the Windows backup feature and it definitely will be the last time. I've used Windows for years and never needed that feature, but the one time I decided I want to use it it horrendously fails on me.
I went on and made a backup and the first super cool feature is the fact that it won't let you choose what you want to backup. I only needed my main drive with the OS on it backed up, but Windows decided it would be necessary to also backup my other drive which I use for storage. I could've probably unplugged it but I was too lazy.
After the process finished I installed Arch and after my development work was done and I wanted to play some games which do not run through wine I wanted to give that backup a try and guess what? It didn't work.
I went on and did some research and apparently the feature is "deprecated". Microsoft decided that a service that has been integrated into Windows for years isn't worth it anymore and ditched it, but instead of removing it they still let you create a backup (So you'll feel a false sense of safety or whatever) and when you try and load the backup again it'll simply fail.
Fan-fucking-tastic. I found an thread on the official Microsoft site with IT administrators complaining and got some more info. Apparently all backups created with Windows 10 v1709 (aka. Fall creators update) will not work anymore, any older version should work.
Let me spell that out for you: A multi billion dollar company decided to ditch a feature but instead of removing it they just broke it. And now they don't want to admit it and cover it up. I still could recover my files but it was an insane amount of work for a process that should take a couple clicks (Man am I glad am not that IT guy that has dozens of back up images that are virtually useless).
I ended up installing Windows 10, mounted my old backup drive (which still works for some reason), used a third party tool to create a backup of that mounted backup and then used that tool to create a bootable usb drive which allowed me to load that new backup onto my hard drive. I used Macrium Reflect which is free for personal use and allows you to create a bootable usb with a minimal windows installation and the tool itself.
So yeah if you're on Windows 10 v1709, don't use the backup system and don't entrust a windows service with your data (I should've known better).
Great job M$, I'll be on my way to Linux in the next weeks again.