File History Stopped Working...

I'm still working on this, but here's what I know so far:

First, Creators update turned OFF the SCHEDULER for File History. That means, unless you initiate it manually through their UI, OR by RE-adding that to the task scheduler, you will never get any FH, automatically, once per hour as you have been.

Here's how FH is set up to work: You can easily see the way it works, simply by opening a COPY of the the config files of FH. After syncing, there are two IDENTICAL file folder structures with IDENTICAL Config files.

Your BACKUP FH TARGET drive folders are in THIS format:
External USB or other network drive:\ [H: in example below] FileHistory\CURRENTuserNAME\PCName\Configuration

H:\FileHistory\ME\MY-PC\Configuration\ << inside, you will find Config1.XML and Config2.XML
-- Also, the ..MY-PC\DATA\ folder will have all your stored files.

On your SYSTEM drive, (typically C:\), you also have the identical FOLDERS. After sync, the config files should all be identical with identical dates and times, but the files will NOT be inside the folders. NOTE that when FH is run when your backup drive is NOT available, these drive C: folders ARE USED as the target, until you sync while connected.

Your BACKUP FH CACHE and CONFIGURATION folders are in THIS format:
System Drive:\ [ C: in example below ] User\CURRENTuserNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\

C:\User\ME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\ << inside, you will find Config1.XML and Config2.XML

If you open one of these config files, you will see all the config settings, which include the active folders and the target drive. Near the end, you will see the targetURL, and the targetVOLUMEpath which is a long string called the GUID. Internally, this is what Windows uses to positively ID your backup device, (and most all storage locations). IF it matches the REAL GUID of that drive, then your backup FH runs. If not, it won't run.

Obviously, you can fix these files, and then FH will work. I won't get into which files you should or shouldn't change, but if you run FH when it is mis-configured, you could lose all your your FH, so KNOW what you are doing and don't open or save the live config files unless you do.

Two rules to remember:
FH will NOT work, unless you are logged in AS that current user, and RUN FH as that user:
FH will LOOK for the TARGET GUID to see if it matches the config, or it won't run or won't COPY files to the target. It SHOULD however, back these files up to the CACHE on drive C:

I'm still really miffed that, instead of finding some way of NOTIFYING any users that have and are using FH, that they just turned FH OFF with Creator's update to Windows... At least it is still there and can be made to be usable. Later, I hope to post how to make it all work again with a single click

Jamis, As I sometimes neglect to do, I didn't read all your posts carefully. Your mention about a bunch of "found.xxx" folders is a real problem. I'd do my best to figure out what those folder names were before they were partially recovered. If any of these had some of the indexes and / or config files, it might be difficult to get everything working again properly with your current backup files. I DO suggest that somehow, you get as clean of a copy of ALL those files and folders copied to a different device that doesn't have errors. Then, you can try different things without destroying the only copy you have.

I didn't get into it, but there are copies of all the files in the data folder. However, they will have a DATE attached to the filename, so you can't just copy the files. Also, if you are looking for any specific file that was in a specific folder, it might not be where you'd think. The FIRST time a new file is encountered by FH, it makes a copy of that file, and it places it into the respective folder that it was in AT THAT FIRST TIME. Then, if you change that file's CONTENTS, it makes more NEW copies of the same file, puts them into the numbered folders and makes some indexed references so FH can get you all of those same file VERSION COPIES.

However, IF you MOVE that file, the old location in FH does NOT CHANGE!! FH changes the INDEXES, but doesn't change the locations. Let's say all your downloads start life in the "download folder" which is constantly once per hour, protected with FH, and then later, you "organize your files" by moving all of those files into sub-folders. If FH was working after download but before you moved them, then ALL your files will only show up in the download folder, and NOT that new sub-folder.

Recovering files --- NONE of the files you thought you had copies of, will show up in Explorer's "Previous Versions" tab, IF you also don't have the BACKUP TARGET drive for file history CONNECTED at the time you are trying to browse or recover files!! It won't show the indexes for these files as you might expect it to. So that's another great reason for getting that error working if you can. Good luck!

The found.xxx folders were sequentially numbered from 000 to 027. All were dated right after the February patch Tuesday update. Only folders 000 and 001 had anything in them. The others were empty. I read a MS tech note that said the empty ones could be deleted and did so. I'm not making any other changes to the original FileHistory drive. I feel FH is working properly again as I added a new folder to the include section and it has shown up in the C drive section of the FileHistory drive. Next step is to properly change drives for FileHistory to use.

I've just twigged that whatever you put in Settings or Control Panel, FH only runs when you click Run Now in CPanel
The one big benefit of FH design is, er... WAS, the automation of the backup process, and that seems no longer to work

I looked in Task Scheduler, and tho a job is there, there are no triggers and no actions, so I don't know at present, how to re-instate the automation.
I'd be grateful for any help, as I'm under time pressure... (on holiday from the UK in West Australia, and trying to set my cousin up with a proper backup system before I fly off into the sunset).

My ideal policy is take a monthly image by Reflect Free, plus automatic hourly or daily User data backup by FH.
This loss of FH automation has blown my policy out of the window, not only here in WA, but also for ten or a dozen systems in our local village. Bl**dy MS seem to be causing me a lot of work. Until now, I've been singing their praises about FH.

BTW - Does anyone know WHY they have done this?

spilly said:

BTW - Does anyone know WHY they have done this?

IDK if they have done anything but you should use onedrive sync instead.

"This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it"

Open the Pod bay doors, HAL. - YouTube

I tried to create a trigger, but the system blocked it due to some sort of "restriction". Can't be passwords as this system does not use them. FileHistory is in "maintenance mode", whatever that means. Curious to know when bld. 17063 (17083?) will be available, as this system is at bld. 16299 and is current according to Windows Update as of this writing. Not sure I'll jump on a new Windows feature right away. Maybe it's time to go third party for file backup/syncing.