Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

File History

System Restore is an amazing, powerful, career-saving feature—but it’s awfully self-interested. It cares only about protecting Windows.

How can you rewind your documents to their earlier, healthier, or pre-edited conditions?

File History is a time machine for documents in the same way System Restore is a time machine for your system software. It’s an incredible safety net against damage, accidental modification, or late-night bouts of ill-advised editing. It automatically backs up files in your libraries, on the desktop, in your address book, and on your OneDrive. If anything bad happens to the originals, you’re covered. You can also rewind documents to specific dates—if, for example, you decide your novel was better before you tinkered with it last week. It’s a lot like the Time Machine feature on the Mac, in other words.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC: System Restore vs. Your Hard Drive

Ever wonder where Windows stashes all these backup copies of your operating system? They’re in a folder called System Volume Information, which is in your Local Disk (C:) window. Inside that are individual files for each restore point. (System Volume Information is generally an invisible folder, but you can make it visible by following the instructions on View Tab. You still won’t be allowed to move, rename, or delete it, however—thank goodness. In fact, you won’t even be able to look inside it.)

You can turn off System Restore entirely, or you can limit it to eating up a certain percentage of your ...