Are you wondering how to use Windows 10 File History restore to a new computer? You can find the details of the method in this article. Also, you can find another simpler way to restore your files to a new computer.
"My computer is broken, but I have a backup of its file history. How can I transfer the data from there to my new computer? I can't just copy it because all the file names have the date of the latest version attached."
- Question from Superuser
Windows has a great utility: File History. It provides you with near real-time backup and versioning capabilities. Near real-time backups mean that even in case of a catastrophic failure, you will not lose more than 10 minutes of work time. File History can back up new or changed files every 10 minutes. Versioning provides access to versions of important data files that may have existed for years. You can easily restore data files from 15 minutes ago, two weeks ago, or a year ago (last June).
But when you have replaced your computer with a new one, you surely want to know how to use File History to restore files to your new computer. In this article, I will guide you step by step on the right way to restore files using File History on new Windows 10.
Since we are talking about restoring existing data from one Windows 10 to a new computer, I assume that you have already backed up your data files to an external USB drive using File History. Before we start, we need to do some preparations:
🧱 Plug your USB with backup into the new computer. 🧱 Sign in to the same Microsoft account on the new Windows 10 computer as before.
🎀 Note: If you are not already running File History in the new Windows 10, you open File History from Control Panel to the screen above. If you have run it, then go directly to the next step.
Important Tips🎉: There is no option in the File History dialog to restore files to a different location. If you backed up files from Z:\Data on the old computer and you don't have a Z: drive on the new computer, you will get an error. If this happens, you can click the "Restore to" button and select another location. Another option is to connect an external drive, at least temporarily, and assign a Z: drive number to it.
When you use File History to restore files, you may encounter some problems. Such as File History Drive Is Disconnected, File History Service Is Not Accessible, etc. These problems can prevent you from successfully recovering your files to a new computer. Also, the file history has very few features. Here I would like to introduce you a simpler way to help you do this.
AOMEI Backupper is a full-featured backup and restore software designed for all Windows PCs, including Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP. The software has clean pages and is easy to use. It has very comprehensive backup and restore features. You can backup and restore files, systems, partitions and disks on your computer. You can refer to the following steps to see how to use it to restore your files to a new computer.
This article tells you how to use Windows 10 File History to restore to new computer. File History doesn't always meet your needs in real time. It only backs up files in specific folders, such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos and Desktop. But the free backup software provided for you in the article can help you backup any folder of files. You can also use it to backup your computer before upgrading, clone your disks, create bootable disks, etc.