Microsoft is finally planning to fix backup in Windows Phone

December 24, 2011 | By Surur

backupwp7 Backup, or the lack of it, is the untold sad story of Windows Phone 7. Sure, you can backup your phone before a firmware update, but not without hacks anytime else, and then you are still left with a massive 10 GB file taking up precious space on your laptop hard drive.

As such all Windows Phone 7 users are constantly at risk of losing their app data, game progress, text messages, preferences and god knows what else. Its a pretty good thing the operating system is so stable, but nothing Microsoft can do can stop anyone from dropping their phone in the toilet.

Thankfully it seems Microsoft is finally stepping up to the challenge. In a job post looking for a Software Engineer In Test they write:

Come join the Windows Phone Backup, Migrate, and Restore team. Our goal is to ensure that no matter if someone loses their phone, drops their phone in a lake, buys a new windows phone, or just has their toddler wipe their phone by entering the wrong PIN over and over, a user can quickly and seamlessly get their phone back to a good state. The features we are producing will be new for the next version of Windows Phone and will help ensure Microsoft stays ahead of the competition when it comes to disaster recovery.

The job post does not give anything else away of interest, except that this is for the next version of Windows Phone, which would presumably be either Tango 2 or Apollo. Obviously we would prefer if its the first, as if it is for Apollo we will be waiting quite a while indeed for this basic feature.

The job post can be seen here.

Do our readers feel this is long overdue, and how do you feel about the proposed implementation, which would allow restoring to a band new phone? Let us know below.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged apollo, backup, tango, windows phone 7.75, windows phone 8

Anonymous

Finally. The amount of times @winphosupport have asked me to reset my phone to fix a probably and for me to reply with “Not if I’m going to lose everything, I’ll deal with my phone not working on WiFi without a reboot or two”

Anonymous

I appreciate their quick responses, but the help that comes from @winphonesupport is too scripted. It’s great for people who don’t know how to charge their phone or configure a Hotmail account, but I’ve tried to use it to report several legitimate bugs to no avail. They won’t provide any way to track your submission, or to even know if it is ever going to be fixed. Some of those submissions I made were 6 months ago, some were over a year ago; but none have been fixed.
Anonymous

Not being snarky, just curious. Why have you had to reset your phone so many times? I never reset my original Focus from launch day until I replaced it with the Focus S.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1793201213 Steve Kirts

I also have a Focus and have hard reset it numerous times, for various reasons; none was for fun!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Milad-Bazzaz/100000479683479 Milad Bazzaz

The most unacceptable thing for me is to buy an app, then the app is pulled and I’m left in the dust…thats simply robbery and unacceptable.

Now Metrotube gets pulled…it would have been just fair to allow us to save our DOWNLOADED apps (free and paid) and be able to restore that once we do a hard-reset or buy a new phone or whatever.

Its an absolute must have, period.
freestaterocker

I could’ve used this… My HD7 has crashed and been hard reset twice in the last 6 days.
http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

I’ll get excited when it’s actually an option I can use on my current phone, not on some nebulous future version. Should have been there from day one, likely won’t see this for another year.
Anonymous

Finally, a week ago, I dropped some water on my phone, and even though it still works, it performed a cold boot back then erasing all my data, including all of my pictures from my last trip, and saved games. I really wish we get the option to backup to SkyDrive as well.

http://twitter.com/wmpuisajoke macsbacer

Actually I don’t understand this. Why do you need such a backup system. Why not just keep everything in skydrive when you login to backs up as you go. Then when you login to another device its just gets pulled down first time you login. Chrome backs up webapps bookmarks, webapps and extensions.

This just seams such an old outdated way of doing it.

Anonymous

That’s what I meant, but I guess I wasn’t very clear.
Anonymous

It’s a matter or providing choice, backup to the cloud and local backup is needed, just because someone wants local backup of data doesn’t make them ‘outdated’ it shows that they have more experience than someone newer to data storage and security.

Anonymous

You can set it to automatically back up your pictures to Skydrive, albeit at lower quality.

Anonymous

It’s ridiculous to think that such feature existed in the WM5.x/6.x days but has been missing from WP for the past year. But if they’re barely advertising for a job, my cynical guess is that we won’t see it until Apollo, at the earliest.
http://twitter.com/digthenoise Dig The Noise

I’ll be happy to see it.

Anonymous

As long as we have choice where the backup is located.

The statement “then you are still left with a massive 10 GB file taking up precious space on your laptop hard drive” is just not true, much of your 10gb is made up of media, photos, video etc the remaining data is o/s, firmware and settings which is around 1gb.

Local sms backup is definitely need.

Anonymous

great, i had to refind my apps once and it was an annoying process
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/CW3SETFCKRB5NRLX5QZK3EMRWY Joe

That would be a welcome addition to windows phone! And Apollo should be here in June of next year.
http://twitter.com/StefEBear Stefan

This is indeed a welcome sign and hoping that it won’t take too long. Something like this is a HUGE requirement when trying to implement this in Business, let alone for Personal use. being able to ‘back up and restore a phone (just like those iOS users have been able to do for a while now). Maybe there will also be a Wi-Fi Skydrive backup facility as part of this.. (back up anywhere.. anytime.. not locked to a Zune Installaions
Anonymous

Yeah, we won’t be seeing this until WindowsPhone 8 / Apollo. it also seems a bit lazy for Microsoft to JUST NOW be posting the job, knowing realistically the person won’t actually START working until another month or two from now (keeping in mind time for interviews, orientation and such).

The rumors about WindowsPhone 8 coming out in June are unrealistic, and this is another clue why. No way Microsoft will release Apollo when they haven’t even begun on the backup solution (they can, but I know they won’t).