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Play .MKV’s in Windows Media Center (WMC)

Play .MKV’s in Windows Media Center (WMC)

For a long time I had resisted converting my DVD and Blu-Ray disks into any other format because I didn’t want to lose any quality.  I had lived by this rule for a long time, and thankfully companies like QNAP and Thecus came to my storage rescue.  However, the day has come where the cost of storing all the extra garbage that comes along with these movies has opened my eyes to benefits conversions.  With that, I have began converting my movie collection to a format that allows me to lose all the excess fat, but keep my movie loss-less. Read More…

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In a previous article here on C.O.D. (Essential Windows 7 Tweaks: Part 1), I mentioned it's my opinion that users should disable the system restore features in Windows 7.  Outside of the resources associated with running the task, I feel as though it provides a false sense of security for Windows Users and does nothing for users plagued by things worse than failed updates.  So what is the answer? Windows 7 comes with Backup and Restore...

Backup and Restore—improved for Windows 7—creates safety copies of your most important files, so if you lose something, it won't be lost forever.

Let Windows choose what to back up, or pick individual folders, libraries, or drives. Windows can back up files on whatever schedule you choose. Just set it and forget it. In Windows 7, you can back up files to another drive, your network, or a DVD. Backup and Restore for your personal PC and attached DVD or external hard drives comes with all editions of Windows.

If you want to backup to a network location, say on your company's central server, network attached storage, or another computer on your network, you'll need Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate.

Backup and Restore features multiple ways for you to save your data including backing up to an external hard drive, a DVD, and if you are running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate you also have the ability to backup to a network share.

You can open Backup and Restore by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Backup and Restore.

Click Setup Backup



In many cases, most people would want to backup to an external hard drive, but for those of us that have network attached storage or home servers the ability to save on the network is the preferred option.  However, I am going to make a wild assumption that most of you reading this do not have servers in your basement as I do.  With that said, your preferred method would be to continue using your removable storage (you can attach it now and click refresh).

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Joe DiFiglia has written 226 Articles at C.O.D.


In early 2000 I became increasingly frustrated with hardware review sites praising less than satisfactory products. The saying: “if you want something done right, do it yourself” applies here. I wasn’t satisfied, so I did it myself; and here we are years later.

2 Responses to Configure Backup and Restore in Windows 7

  1. Mike admin says:
    February 4, 2011 at 2:23 am

    Thanks for sharing, if you want to save your time you can use backup software like Handy Backup, it’s easy to use and reliable backup software for Windows 7. It allows backup files, databases, Exchange, Windows Server and others.

    • Joe DiFiglia says:
      February 4, 2011 at 5:06 am

      I personally prefer Acronis, but with the built in backup features in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 at least those that do not know can now get something in the works to protect themselves. I constantly ask people the magic question when their OS craps out…. "Do you have a backup?", the answer is almost ALWAYS a "No…"