i bought a new computer with xp home already installed. i'm trying to find the backup utitility but it isn't in the os. i read that if you had the disk you could install it but i do not have the disk. how can i get win's backup utility? are there any good backup utitlities out there that you guys would recommend? i really like windows backup uti because i can backup the registry. i've searched around for 3rd party backup utlilities, many which do no allow me to back up my registry.

i think your talking about the system state? I would get a WIndows XP home cd from a firend or similar and go to add/remove programs, select windows components and tick the backup utility option, this will install it, not advisable to use 3rd party software :)

Backup doesn't come as a standard option on XP Home and it isn't available directly from the Add Components section. To install it in XP Home you can only do it from any borrowed XP disk (not a restore disk) - browse the disk to VALUEADD/MSFT/NTBACKUP & run the installer. It is just the backup program similar to previous Windows versions, the Automatic System Restore in XP Pro isn't supported by XP Home. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

As you probably know, you can back up the registry by using the Export function. You don't need any extra software to do that.

DRIVEIMAGEXP, and SAVEPART are both very good freeware backup utilities. They will backup your entire C Drive...windows and all. You can screwup your entire C Drive, do a format, and restore like nothing ever happened. Believe me, I know...I crash my computer on a regular basis! I use SAVEPART because you can choose to copy only occupied sectors giving you a more compact backup. But it works best with FAT32 file systems. Most computers are now coming with NTFS file systems in which case DRIVEIMAGEXP is the better choice. But it copies ALL sectors of your drive including the blank ones. This can lead to a pretty big backup file and a lot of wasted space. In either case, the backup should be stored on a different drive. You can get these programs from pretty much any freeware site.

ha!!!! i did even better. i "googled" for the NTBACKUP.MSI file and i found a site that allowed me to dL the file. i've just installed it and now it's in my system tools! cool, thank to all for your help. p.s. i love google!

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/software/ntbackup.msi Good morning everyone. The site above is the download for the Windows NTBackup. Hope this helps you out a little; take care.. ~Tommyo