Windows 10 File History Restore to New Computer - Comes with An Alternative

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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.

How to Restore from File History to New Computer on 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.

1. When Windows recognizes the USB drive, click Start and type Control Panel. In Control Panel, select File History.
2. You will then see the following screen, click on "Configure File History settings" to continue.

🎀 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.

3. Do not click the Turn on button yet. Check the checkbox I want to use a previous back-up on this File History drive.

4. Select your existing backup in the box below and click the Turn on button.

5. The File History may run automatically, but if not, you can click Run now.

6. File History will then run using the default set of folders to be backed up. If the option to use a previous back-up was previously selected, this backup will be integrated into the existing File History set instead of creating a new configuration.
7. Then if you want to use Windows 10 File History to restore to new computer, click on Restore personal files.

8. The File History will open and show the latest backup in the group, which will be the backup you just ran on the new computer. Click the Previous version button at the bottom. This will take you to the last backup that was run on the old computer.

9. With nothing selected in the main window, click the Restore to original location button at the bottom. This will restore the latest version of all files to your new computer.

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.

Another Simpler Way to Restore Files to New Computer

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.

1. First, click the download button below to install AOMEI Backupper Standard on your old computer.

2. Launch this software on your old computer and create a file backup to USB. You can also backup to external hard disk, SD card, network locations and NAS, etc.
3. Once the backup is complete, install this freeware on the new computer as well and open it. Go to Restore tab and Select Task. 

4. Select a file backup image in the list and click Next.

5. Select the folders and files you want to restore, then click Next.

6. Select Restore to new location. Click Start Restore and wait for it to complete.

Final Words

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.