This has been covered many times on various pages but not complete, below i have documented the steps to perform a complete PC backup to a network drive using the built in windows command line backup tool. The problem with the windows version of this tool is it will not allow a full backup to a network drive (crazy!), which is why we need to schedule a regular backup using the command prompt version of wbadmin.

Here’s how:

1.  Open Task Scheduler with admin privileges

In the start search input box type ‘Task’. Select ‘Task Scheduler. If you’re using a standard account, right click on ‘Task Scheduler’ and select ‘Run as Administrator’. Enter your admin user credentials when prompted and select OK.

2. Select ‘Create Task’ from the Actions menu on the right hand side.

3. Create a name and description for the task and then select the ‘Triggers’ tab.

4. Click ‘New’ and select the frequency and start time you would like to run the backup. Click OK.

5. Select the ‘Actions’ tab, click ‘New’.

6. In the ‘Program/Script’ input box type ‘wbadmin’

7. In the ‘Add Arguments’ input box type the following:

Where \SERVER is the name of the PC or Network device you want to store the backup on, if you’re saving to your own machine you can put the drive letter here, and PATH is the folder path on the server.

-include:c: is the drive/s you want to backup (again you can a directory if required

-allCritical indicates you want to include all critical system files

-quiet subdues any prompts, and runs silently in the background

-username:yourusername and password:yourpassword is the login username and password for the backup destination folder you specified, which is required if your backing up to a network pc or device.

When you’re finished press ‘OK’ and run the backup, be sure to check the log to see if any errors were generated. If your having problems then i suggest using the command prompt and running the above ‘START BACKUP’ command from there, you will see more clearly any errors the script encounters. Remember you must run the cmd prompt with admin privileges.