How to back up non-standard directories in my user profile with Windows Backup?

Posted by James Johnston on Super User See other posts from Super User or by James Johnston
Published on 2012-04-11T05:00:32Z Indexed on 2012/04/11 5:32 UTC
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I'm using Windows Backup to back up my Win7 Pro laptop. I'd like to use it to back up my complete user profile, but I only see standard profile directories (e.g. C:\Users\JohnstonJ\Documents) in the list. Non-standard ones aren't there (e.g. C:\Users\JohnstonJ\MyCustomDirectory).

What's the best way to handle this? The only thing I can think of is to browse under the "Computer" entry and navigate directly to C:\Users\JohnstonJ and check off the entire profile (to get what's in there, and any new directories that come up). But is that going to back up the profile twice? Cause other unforeseen problems given that I checked it off by navigating through the computer, rather than picking it under the "Data Files" category? (e.g. back up temporary file garbage, files in use problems, etc. that the "Data Files" category might be handling better).

Looking for solutions that other people use that are known to work well and still uses the Windows Backup software - I don't really want to fuss with 3rd-party backup software.

Example - as you can see, I have two directories in my profile that Windows Backup is not offering to back up: "Dropbox" and "New folder":

(Link to images album because I don't have enough reputation to directly embed them: http://imgur.com/a/Xyv5u)

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