This milestone was reached after only two days, during which I made few, if any, changes to Library files. I have the same problem. My backup drive just filled up, I've been running File History for a couple of weeks since upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8.
I was not using Windows 7 Backup previously. Looking at the contents in the Data folder I see 5 or 6 copies of every file, even though they have not been changed. Each version has the same timestamp and filesize, e. I have the same problem, every file is rewritten to the history on every backup, and this is when backing up to a USB3 drive formatted with NTFS. When a backup doesn't complete and has to be restarted usually due to power management sleeping the machine it makes yet another copy!
More and more users are chiming in with this same problem. Are Microsoft engineers looking into it at all? This strange behaviour has stopped after the update of November 13 on my machine but it took a full cycle of backup. Maybe the problem has been solved.
I have been having the same problem, it appears to be creating problems in excel and outlook. I turned File History off, dumped the old files and went back to manual back ups. Also I have changed my storage drive letters here, all look ok in the libraries, but File History is still backing up as the old drive letters and the new drive letters!!!!
The File History does not yet??? The config files. I've tried deleting my config files and have got rid of everything in the Libraries. The File History config files. A right mess. I really feel that we have not received proper answers, and that you are giving us the run around here.
So, we are now 6-weeks in, with no answers from Microsoft. You guys can do better. We need information! Upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro, wasn't using windows backup. It all seemed to work ok for a couple of weeks, then 2 days ago it just decided to create new versions of loads of my pictures, none of which had changed. I went into advanced settings and clicked on "Clean up versions" then selected to remove all but the latest versions. I clicked cancel but it continued to delete almost everything.
It is currently recreating the backup, but strangely is also recreating quite a few of the duplicate versions. I clicked "Restore personal files", and browsed to a directory where I know that I haven't changed file contents for years. File History showed 1 of 1 since the last time I was forced to do a "full re-backup", afterward I'm sure I told it to clean all but the latest version, because I don't have enough space on the external HD to store 2 full rebackups.
Now I ask more information of you: Do you guys know if you changed anything that may have fixed it? Do you guys know what causes the issue?
There are still problems. It looked as if the endless backup was coming to an end, but suddenly all files in libraries that are visible via the homegroup got an unexpected backup round.
I also noticed that playing around with file permissions triggers another backup round. Maybe the automatic management of permissions for home groups has something to do with it. That would make sense if the permissions were copied also, but that is unfortunately!! I tried to clean up all but the last copies, but that removed far way to much files.
So I lost many backup files. But some files that should be removed e. And also some duplicates remained Hopefully FileHistory will work at some time in future.
And I really miss now the system protection for user files, that was available in Windows 7. So far we can't reproduce the issue in our labs, so our quality team is checking the issue, no more update for this issue now. I checked the logs around the time that one of my unchanged files was backed up for the umpteenth time:.
However, throughout that log there are many of the following entries 24 on each of the two days I checked - pretty much at hourly intervals :. Until I did this, File History was just showing the "first time" message when I opened it.
Curiously, it would then revert to the neutral message saying that file history is on, but it wouldn't let me go to the Restore Personal Files pane. It would then revert to "first time" for about 10 seconds, and repeat. After deleting the configuration files and restarting, I was finally able to open the Restore Personal Files pane. I should still like to know how File History deals with long file names if it does at all those where the path is longer than the maximum allowed NTFS name -- characters or something.
I posted some log extracts on November Were they any help? Is anyone at Microsoft investigating? Yes I would also like to know what happens with long file names. I have some music files that are long but show ok in their normal folders, it seems as if File History backs them up as I've managed to restore them to a different location from the restore personal files option however when I look for the files on the back up media they don't show a bit disconcerting!!!
Also has anyone noticed that the excessive backing up problem seems to happen after the show hidden files option is ticked? Or is it be me getting paranoid!
I'm convinced that when I used this option, File History decided to use more Gigs up even though no files were changed! If possible, I'd like to keep this thread focused on the issue at hand, and not discuss "how File History handles long file names".
For reference, per my own poking and prodding at the system, I believe it maintains databases. If you find a bug with it, or need to continue discussion about it, please consider putting it in a separate thread. But, getting back to this thread titled: Windows 8 File History - Excessive backup - Excessively saving copies of files photos, videos, documents, etc.
Although the problem hasn't reoccurred for me for a while, I am not yet convinced of the fix. It's very important that we find out if the problem is still occurring on a fully patched machine. I just checked the same file that I used as an example in my post of November It is still being backed up erroneously, most recently on December Just letting Jacob know I found this thread due to the excessively saving copies of files problem still ocurring for me, on a fully patched Windows 8 Pro bit machine.
In my case the problem was likely triggered after I added an Xbox as an extender - I suspect that even though the media files themselves did not change, the file permissions were updated automatically by Windows to give access to the new user.
I did not notice that backups were duplicating all the files around a terrabyte until I started to get the "Reconnect your drive" and "Your File History drive was disconnected for too long" messages - which seem to be related to File History not noticing that the previous backup cycle was still copying it will take days for a full refresh in my case.
I have had to go back to robocopy as my primary means of backup for now, and have turned File History off until this problem gets resolved. Perhaps there are other related ways that confuse File History into thinking entire libraries have changed, such as simply sharing the library with the home network or other new users?
And then once the backup cycle overlaps with the next run it all goes downhill from there? I hope this problem will not recur. If it does, I hope that by the time Microsoft come up with a fix the fix includes clean-up of redundant backups.
Having to start from square one is a pain. Will MS fix it though? They have been notably absent from this thread since November Not too impressive! I still have to wonder: Why did Microsoft eliminate the Previous Versions feature and "replace" it with something more limited and that doesn't really work?
A fun project for young developers who weren't part of prior developments? Square zero may be viable The advice to never upgrade before service pack 1 is as valid as ever with Windows 8. A fresh install of Windows 7 works as fast as Windows 8 on most hardware. Windows 8 tidied up the boot a bit, and because it doesn't start so many processes it uses a bit less memory, but for normal operations it's no better. I could argue that Windows 8 is good even before any service packs for it.
I could argue that sticking with Windows 7 is not advisable. But I won't, because this thread is not about OS version feature comparisons. It's about solving the File History problem. If you aren't going to help to solve it, then please take your negativity elsewhere. LOL, not convincingly you can't. I'm sorry I touched a nerve about your decision to upgrade, but my message is valid for others who might read this thread. You wouldn't be the first to find indexing to have corrupted itself.
Have you noticed that on the file history page, if you click on Advanced Settings, then on Clean up Versions, it gives you a choice to delete files: "all but the latest. I had multiple copies in my backup file, but that cleaned it up and freed my backup drive of tons of space.
Thanks for your tip, but as I mentioned in the original post, "my only option is to remove the older versions of the files. I am shocked that more and more people are joining in to say that this is a problem. Where is Microsoft's answer? If Microsoft does not solve this soon, I'll turn it off all together and get back to the WHS backups.
I think that windows 8 file history is having the same problems as robocopy used to have while copying files to a NAS. So by copying files to your nas the time stamp will be rounded by 2 seconds causing robocopy to think the file is different as will copy it again the next time. Microsoft can you please introduce a similar option for file history so we can start backing up our windows 8 to NAS again please????
Same here and it's still as bad. Seems fine when you leave things alone. It will just back up the odd small change. Is there anyone out there that gets this problem on a simple single c: drive installation no other drives for personal files music, photos etc. I also have the same issue.
It keeps copying the same files, even if they did not change. In particular, it happens for my Gb of photos which are on an external usb hard drive. This hard drive is not always connected.
The backup is on another external hard drive. I have the same problem with excessive copies. I have done all the Advance Options and tried deleting file history and re-run it, but have the same problem after a few days. Microsoft owns a software SyncToy 2. This sync your files and it deletes old files if a new one is available.
Sync Toy doesn't automatically back up your files. Have to do it manually. Why can't Microsoft integrate this with file history and maybe it will work correctly.
This is a major problem for me as well, on a fully patched Win8Pro machine. It makes the feature un-usable, back to full image backups until this is fixed.
It is now over a month since anyone from MS informed us about the status of this problem. I would be grateful if you could at least let us know if anyone is investigating. As for me, I will soon have to go back to square one with File History for the second time.
Since I did so on December 8, the problem still remains. Here are some example files:. My File History drive contains , files in 11, directories. I hope this additional information might assist diagnosis. I am having the same problem.
Installed Windows 8 just over a week ago and now have 1. If I tick the option ""keep saved version until space is needed" will this option always retain the latest version of a file if there is space - which I know there is because I have nowhere near 1.
Could this be a temporary solution until a permanent solution is found? Presumably, as long as the user knows that the external drive is large enough to accommodate everything on the main PC then no files should be lost in the event of a disaster if this setting is used.
That is not a temporary solution, because you will only have a rolling backup of recent versions of files. Since a lots of people are reporting several versions are being saved in a short time span, then any external HD will fill up quickly, and throw away the old versions. I've had the problem happen again, where all my data is being unnecessarily backed up again, even though I've not changed the data nor metadata.
I think it might be related to me setting up a HomeGroup, and sharing data through it. We're giving you as many hints as we can, as to the cause, but please please please invest more into fixing it! Just share some experience with you: If you think this is a bug, please submit a case to Microsoft, they will not charge you. Forum is just an open environment, no one is promising that there will be someone to help you all the time. If the issue has big bussiness impact to you, it's NOT suitable to open a post here to wait, what you will lose will be more than the money opening a support case.
It appears that, for me, the problem is only happening on the following Libraries: Music Pictures Videos. I don't think it's a coincidence that these are the default shares for a HomeGroup, when setting one up, and I recently did set one up. Also, when setting a HomeGroup up, I believe the user can also choose to include the sharing of Documents within the HomeGroup.
So, I believe the possible libraries that could exhibit this behavior are: Documents Music Pictures Videos. So, the next questions are: - Does anyone have evidence that this problem is happening outside of those 4 libraries? I will be doing some HomeGroup testing this weekend, but any assistance would be helpful. I'd like to know the exact reproducible steps before contacting Microsoft Support directly.
I can confirm that I have a HomeGroup, and that the four libraries you mention including Documents are shared in the group. Sadly I have no exact reproducible steps, but can only repeat that the problem occurs with that setup.
Without doing that, a separate copy of Public libraries was maintained for each user: and, as for historical reasons most of our shared files are in Public, this represented a huge unnecessary duplication of backups. Thanks for pursuing this. I am still watching this thread, so if I can provide any more info just ask here. I've recently set up File History and am also seeing mass duplication of files that haven't changed.
As you've noted, there does seem to be some correspondence to the default HomeGroup shares - I see duplicates in all the photos that I've looked at , but not in the documents which aren't shared. I can't believe that both Storage Spaces, and File History have such obvious flaws - but I guess that's what comes with not having beta testers like MS used to have, and of not listening to customers when they try to tell you there are problems.
Likewise I one laptop in the Homegroup that has it's Pictures Library shared and it has happened on this machine also. If I change permissions or share with another user the problem seems to occur. Unfortunately I still have not found what exact steps trigger the problem. I'm guessing when the system sees a change in a folder and even though no files have actually changed in that folder it decides to back up the lot! Not a lot of use as space gets used and backups that are not so old are deleted!!
It seems as if Microsoft have deserted us on this one. I hope you're testing is successful and that you get some joy with Microsoft Support. Please keep us updated. I too have been having this problem. I only have this PC on my Homegroup our laptop is Win 7. However, I've now removed the share on the music, picture and video files and am starting again not an issue for me.
I will come back should the problem recur as that would probably indicate that sharing isn't the issue. Same problem here too! I'm really surprised that Microsoft haven't addressed the issue or even had the courtesy to date of keeping you guys updated on progress. I too tried the option of deleting all but the most recent copy which as my total library size is around 50GB, should free up around GB which windows 8 estimated would take 3 hours to do, only to return to see that in the meantime it subsequently duplicated my entire backup.
Yes that's right - my original 50GB plus a second complete copy of everything! LOL, I just free-associated to a famous serpent.
As I recall it recommended Apple. Have been watching this thread for some time as have had multiple copies created right back to when I first turned File History on. File History was one of the features I really liked in Windows 8.
I noted several references to HomeGroup as a suspect. I turned off HomeGroup about 4 days ago, and since then File History is working perfectly with no duplicates being created on unchanged files. I have a lot of music and picture files, so my 1TB drive rapidly filled. If anything changes will advise, but until MS fixes this I would rather live without HomeGroup networking still not hard without it than without File History.
I just read the entire thread. In the middle of it I was hoping it concludes to a solution. How disappointed but not really surprised I was there was none at the end. It's so sad Microsoft has abandoned this thread. I'm experiencing the same issue. Win8, Office , WP8, Outlook. For what it's worth, the Homegroup feature is not needed to do networking "as it always has been". You need to do things like have the same username and password on multiple systems to make it ultimately convenient, but that's no big deal.
Now Disk is not filling up but in Restore Personal Files looking at the latest backup its a bit misleading it appears all files are backed up again but they are not, its just showing all backed up files and changed files since last backup. I think what I'm saying is correct? Another annoying thing is that I have to shut down Outlook to allow File History to backup my Outlook. Only changed files appear to being backed up. My NAS is noticably quieter and my laptop far more responsive as it isn't constantly backing up!!
Thanks all - nearly gave up on File History. More than happy to live without HomeGroup as it really isn't needed in Win 8 as Noel helpfully pointed out above.
On the weekend where I tried to figure out the "trigger" of the problem, I was not successful. I tried several steps listed below , but could never get the problem to back up the files in duplicate, on demand.
But it still happened after my testing, so the problem still exists. Furthermore, after that testing concluded, I decided to turn off HomeGroup for my 3 networked Windows 8 machines, and reboot them all, while leaving the Media Streaming options on and allowed for all devices.
I also reset File History to clear it out, along with all the duplicates it had. This was a little over a week ago, on Saturday January 19th. I have not seen duplicate backups since then. This leads me to believe that the problem happens when HomeGroup is enabled. I will let it go for at least another 2 weeks, and if it's not doing duplicate backups still, then I'll call Microsoft to report the problem.
They may ignore a single complainer, so if some of you guys could also do your own tests with turning HomeGroup off, while leaving Media Streaming on, rebooting, and confirming the results , and then you guys report to Microsoft too I suggest there may be more than 1 trigger event.
I have gotten this it to work by disabling Media Sharing on all machines. I have kept Homegroup active on all machines. I has now been working without issue for several weeks. Didn't need a week or so to report back after turning off HomeGroup 3 days ago. I just noticed an unexpected growth in my File History.
A cursory inspection showed the problem is still there:. Will check Media Sharing later today, turn it off if it is on anywhere in the network, and report back in a few days. After you turned HomeGroup off, did you make sure to both manually run FileHistory to flush out any queued duplicates , and restart the system to ensure HomeGroup was not initialized during the session , before monitoring for duplicates?
Probably effectively, though I can't be sure. As far as I recall, my course of action was as follows:. I certainly restarted every system during this process, but can't say for sure at exactly what point. I will be more disciplined when I deal with the Media Sharing and take more detailed notes. Just keep in mind that, when the trigger happens, it first queues up the duplicate copy locally.
And so, it may not have been "flushed out" to the external hard drive yet. So, after you've setup your test scenario, you still should use File History "Run now" to flush out the local copies, before monitoring for triggered duplication.
Based on what you've described, I believe it's possible that duplicates were queued locally, and then synced when you redid the File History settings. I have having the same problem here. It's very painful and frustrating. Something to do with new file attributes at Windows 8.
I suspect the search index process is trawling the libraries and triggering the modified flag on pre-windows 8 files. The above is not happening for everybody and on only 3 out of my 4 disks , so not clear what the full set of conditions is. For now I have removed the media folders in the search indexing options. This could be off the mark but throwing it out there However, the separate networked machine that is hosting the external backup drive is Win 8 Pro bit with Media Center Add-On.
Lately, that host machine is not producing duplicates for its own History Files, while the bit machine is. As a band-aid to remove duplicate files generated by Win 8 File History, keeping only latest versions:. This option works efficiently, but does not necessarily prevent duplicates in future file history backups.
The only replication I see is with my Pictures and Music libraries. I've seen no sign of anything under Documents or any of the other libraries I've created. I don't have any videos so I don't know about them. In the case of Pictures, the only replication is in 'My Pictures', I've a handful of files in 'Public Pictures' and they're not replicated. Someone had a theory that it was related to sharing in a Homegroup.
I stopped sharing my music, but not pictures a while ago but this had no effect. Regarding the theory that it is only files created prior to Windows 8 being installed, I have some files under 'My Pictures' that are new but they're still replicated. It is unrelated to file types.
I have gpx files in 'My Pictures' as well as elsewhere and it is only the ones in 'My Pictures' that are replicated. However, while it appears to me that virtually all my files under 'My Pictures' and 'My Music' are replicated, it's not quite the case.
I thought at first that this might be confirming the theory about new files. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Too technical. Not enough information. Not enough pictures. Any additional feedback? Submit feedback. They don't sort like virtual or real folders. They only sort like libraries.
Less useful than real or virtual folders. So the widely touted replacement for Backup is less versatile than Backup. Which explains why Backup is back. I've been using Outlook since I have a small business, but I use a standalone PC. I don't have a "commercial backup process," although I've tried several over the last three decades.
Backup will save everything in the user directories, but File History doesn't. Backup will also save the Program Data directory, but programmers still want to put their stuff in "My Documents. Backup does however get confused when I delete the "free" - and worth every penny - Contacts folder because it's "supposed" to be there. Details required : characters remaining Cancel Submit 1 person found this reply helpful. Then you certainly shouldn't be using either Backup or File History.
Neither of those are robust enough or reliable enough for business use. I don't have employees to screw things up so since I know what I'm doing, Backup works just fine.
It does no harm to have them both running, and I can really do without FH. I like its restore interface, though. I don't trust the "big name" companies' products because they start with the assumption that I'm too stupid to have access to my own computer. When software starts hiding things from me I remove it from my machine. Is there a way of doing this? Adding directories and complete drives Don't double-click on the library you just created to add a folder.
Now select: In the sample above I am adding a chosen folder to the "SourceVault" library. Let's have a look at the advanced settings. Pitfalls of Windows File History File History is not replacing the obligation to make proper backups of your valuable data.
Links Another very good read about Windows Libraries. Johan van de Merwe Working in IT since This was followed by a carrier as IT manager for several international operating companies. Started own business with Enovision in Since dedicated to internet software development on both server and frontend.
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But also for Linux you will find useful tools for that purp How to increase the font-size in Thunderbird Mail Software 01 Dec As an dedicated Linux user I am using Mozilla Thunderbird as mail client. In this contribution I explain how you can increase the font-size of the mai
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