computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

, WBAdmin is a

command-line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

utility built into

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on F ...

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generall ...

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succe ...

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

and

Windows 11 Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 11 ...

operating systems. The

command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards * ...

is used to perform backups and restores of operating systems, drive volumes,

computer file A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and trans ...

s, folders, and applications from a command-line interface.

Features

WBAdmin is a disk-based backup system. It can create a "bare metal" backup used to restore the Windows operating system to similar or dissimilar hardware. The backup file(s) created are primarily in the form of Microsoft's Virtual Hard Disk (.VHD) files with some accompanying .xml configuration files. The backup .VHD file can be mounted in Windows Disk Manager to view content. However, the .VHD backup file is not a direct "disk clone". The utility replaces the previous Microsoft Windows Backup command-line tool, NTBackup, which came built-into

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...

. It is the command-line version of Backup and Restore. WBAdmin also has a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

option available to simplify creation of computer backup (and restore). Workstation editions such as Windows 7 use a backup wizard located in Control Panel. The server version is done through an (easily installed) Windows feature using the Windows Management Console WBAdmin.MSC. The WBAdmin Management Console simplifies restoration, whether single file or multiple folders. Using the command-line or graphical user interface, WBAdmin creates a backup which can be quickly restored using just the Windows installation DVD and the backup files located on a removable USB disk without the need to re-install from scratch. WBAdmin uses a differencing engine to update the backup files. Once the original backup file is created Volume Shadow Copy Service updates changes, subsequent full backups take a matter of moments rather than many minutes taken to create the original backup file. Automatic backups can be scheduled on a regular basis using a wizard. Two kinds of restore operations are supported: #

Bare-metal restore Bare-metal restore is a technique in the field of data recovery and restoration where the backed up data is available in a form that allows one to restore a computer system from "bare metal", i.e. without any requirements as to previously installe ...

: using the

Windows Recovery Environment Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended t ...

you can complete a full server restoration to either the same server or to a server with dissimilar hardware (known as Hardware Independent Restore – HIR) #Individual file and folder, and system state restore: files, folders, or the machine’s system state can be restored from the command-line using WBAdmin.

References

External links

Microsoft's Windows Server Backup GuideWBAdmin commands listMicrosoft Guide to Windows Vista BackupMicrosoft Backup and Recovery overview
{{Windows commands Backup software for Windows Windows administration

Features

References

Further reading

External links