Microsoft Windows 10 File History is NOT a reliable backup

Backups are important.

Backups are important. Yes I'm repeating myself.

A backup that doesn't back up is NOT a backup.

The Microsoft File History backup is NOT reliable. Therefore it is NOT a backup.

I see in researching that it has had the same problems for years (going back to Windows 8) and Microsoft doesn't seem to consider backups important enough to get it working. It looks like it was written by the same people who brought us Windows 8. I guess that explains a lot. Sadly when they fired the Windows 8 team and hired the Windows 10 team, the Windows 10 team apparently decided to leave this buggy piece of software alone. (I guess they couldn't figure out how it works/doesn't work - so they just left the crap in.)

I'm not absolutely sure what the exact problems are and since this has been a problem in their code for a decade I'm not going to bother. But it appears that at least one of the problems is: When you add a new sub directory, file history does not back those files up.

On the other hand, another free Microsoft powertool "SyncToy" does a much better job - albeit it has no 'history' just 'the current state'.

There are lots of other backup solutions. Make sure you are using one - and periodically check that it is really working.

And just forget Windows History. It in my mind is too buggy to give any reliance on.