Confused about Imaging

Ok so I have been making System Images with Windows 7 (and now Windows 10) for a long time now, onto a portable hard drive. I rename them afterwards to things like "HpJune2016cleaninstall" so I know which one is which. I just read somewhere that to restore an image it has to be named "WindowsImageBackup". Which might explain why I couldn't restore one a few months ago. On the other hand I know I have restored System images before successfully. I rename the folder. Does that mean the image doesn't get renamed and just the folder? And by renaming the folder does that mean a new image will go in a new folder (rather than overwrite). I now have images for 3 different machines at various stages of install/set up and with both Windows 7 and Windows 10 so some kind of workable system to know which is which and to make sure I've got naming right, would be gratefully received. Thanks.

I don't use the built in image system because of the naming limitations you mentioned.

For years I have used Macrium Reflex Free and it lets me name the image what I want and can put them anywhere on my disks.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

I have three systems and have a Backup folder and under that a folder for each system. Here is how images are named for my main system. I also copy the Backup folder to 2 external drives. I can rename these at any time and still restore them as long as the extension .mrimg is not changed.





Hope this helps.

Jim

Thanks! I had heard that Macrium was popular. As I have some Windows images already, can I just rename the one I want to restore back to WindowsImageBackup? And if I have just renamed the folders and not the contents, does that matter?