Microsoft recommends 15-year-old tool for Windows 10 and 11

However, there are newer backup solutions. The recommendation is all the more surprising since Microsoft officially abandoned this utility with Windows 10 version 1709, more than seven years ago.

Microsoft recommends an outdated tool

The official Microsoft documentation is explicit: it advises users to “look for a third-party solution from another publisher” for full disk backups. The tool is only maintained to allow users of older versions of Windows to restore their systems to newer versions.

Recent Windows tools have limitations. System Restore can only backup certain files, settings, and installed applications. File History only stores files on external or network drives, while System Protection only creates restore points, despite its evocative name and its presence in the Control Panel.

This is a situation that shows a fairly broad problem with Windows: many elements inherited from previous versions are still present. While Microsoft generally attempts to hide these outdated components, like the Control Panel, for more modern (but not necessarily better) interfaces, exceptions like this surprisingly persist.

This is a mixed message from Microsoft since third-party backup solutions are essential for users. Hence the need for the Redmond firm to update its support document to prevent that “Backup and Restore” is no longer developed and its reliability on modern versions of the OS is uncertain.