technical solutions and commentary

    • January 17, 2007

    Windows Vista incompatible with older BKF files.

    Filed under: Uncategorized — Jason Hartley @ 3:22 pm

    Windows Vista is not compatible with NtBackup files created in prior Windows versions. The Backup/Restore utility in Vista is not able to read the bkf files.

    If you have backed up you data using NTbackup before upgrading a PC to Vista, you may have problems restoring your data. Microsoft is working on a utility to enable backwards compatability.

    To work around this use the following instructions from the Lockergnome Help boards. I have found this does not always work, so try it at your own risk. To copy ntbackup from an XP machine to the Vista machine…

    1. create a folder somewhere, call it ntbackup just so you can keep track of what you’ve done
    2. from an existing XP installation, copy these 3 files into the new folder: “ntbackup.exe”, “vssapi.dll”, “ntmsapi.dll”. Optionally, copy the files ntbackup.chm and ntbackup.hlp. Do not overwrite any Vista files that have the same names.
    3. run ntbackup.exe. dismiss the error dialog concerning removable storage if it appears.
    4. catalog the backup file as you normally would (select the Restore tab, then select Tools/Catalog) then select and restore your files. Remember to restore them to an alternate location using the drop-down box in the lower-left corner of ntbackup.

    If you don’t have a running XP installation, then extract the listed files from the XP installation CD. If you don’t know where these files are, you can use search to find them; they will have the same filename except the last character will be an underscore (e.g., ntbackup.exe will be ntbackup.ex_ on the CD). i have not done an exhaustive search of every version of XP’s installation CD to determine their locations.

    Since you are (presumably) not running as an administrator under Vista as you probably were under XP,

    1. Some extraneous errors may occur during the restore. check the results of the restore to ensure that you got all the files you needed from the backup, and apply the appropriate security settings to the restored files manually if necessary
    2. You might need to turn off the option to restore file security. (Hit the “Advanced” button in the restore dialog).

    ntbackup also appears to work for backing up files, but I wouldn’t trust it to do so correctly without extensive testing.

    From Lockergnome: http://help.lockergnome.com/vista/instructions-restore-files-XP-bkf-file-ftopict18975.html