Monte

Damn Paul Thurrott and his half-assed observations.

In Windows Weekly, episode 38, Thurrott wrote off Time Machine as being a hokey replica of Windows Shadow Copy.

Windows Shadow Copy is not by itself a backup solution. The “snapshots” it takes of documents are stored on the user’s local machine, not on a separate hard drive, and the snapshots cannot be searched. Shadow Copy was never intended to be a consumer backup solution.

Time Machine on the other hand makes a backup of the entire computer, minus cache and other unnecessary files, to a USB, firewire drive or network storage. It can even backup files to encrypted disk images. Once the initial backup is complete, Time Machine continues to make incremental backups at specified intervals. Once the computer is backed up, Time Machine gives the user several options for finding and restoring files. You can browse back in time via the Finder or supported applications, you can perform spotlight searches, or you can just open up Time Machine’s backup folder and manually navigate through your files and folders, something many backup software solutions don’t let you do because they store backups in formats that can only be read by the backup software. Time Machine can also restore your computer after a catastrophe.

Thurrott never mentioned any of this, and instead harped about how much he hated the user interface.

Oh, why do I even bother. I’m just a fan boy.