We’re almost done looking at how Windows 7 can be a game changer for business. Which is probably good because Windows 7 is due out in just a hair over 2 months. And this week we’ll be looking at what I consider to be one of the most important features of the new operating system… disk image backups.

I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t at least heard of a Windows system becoming un-bootable. To most geek types, it’s kind of like death and taxes… it’ll happen, the only question is when. And with Windows 7, this no longer has to be a major source of stress for computer owners and users. The new backup functions make it no more than an inconvenience. Let me explain why…

Before I do that however, it’s worth taking a quick look at what exactly a “disk image backup” really is. And simply put, it’s kind of like taking a picture of your computer’s hard drive. At an incredibly high level of detail. The software takes a picture of your hard drive, and stores it as a file. That becomes your backup. In case of a disaster or other problem causing your computer to fail, you can walk through a restore to a previous state using tools that come with the Windows 7 installation disk. It’s actually pretty simple.

And you can even extract individual files from the image file. Let’s say you have a backup of your PC, and you need to go back and find a specific file. There are a number of steps involved, but you can go get just that single file instead of having to do a full restore of your system.

This is a real big game changer for business. In the simplest possible terms, this feature allows Windows 7 computers to be recovered much more quickly than in the past. And not just that… when the restore is complete, you’re back right where you left off at the point the backup was taken. In previous versions of Windows, an un-bootable drive often meant having to reinstall the operating system, re-installing drivers, and trying to do a data recovery in there somewhere as well. Now it’s a case of pop in a disk, have your image file somewhere handy, and in less than an hour you’re back up and running. The potential for time savings is HUGE.

And yes, unsurprisingly there is a catch. You need a lot of disk space to store the image, and you can not store the image on the same disk the image is taken from (that is, if you have 1 hard drive in your computer, you cannot store the image OF that drive ON that drive). For this reason it makes the most sense to have a two-pronged approach to backups… regularly scheduled monthly disk images, and daily backups using an online backup service such as Save My Data. This gives you the best of all worlds – quick and easy regular daily backups, the peace of mind of having a disk image backup, and far, far lower storage requirements.

The bottom line however is that in the time-to-repair arena, this feature alone could save you hours of downtime. And as we’ve discussed recently, downtime can be stupidly expensive for a company. So talk to your IT support people and develop a plan to keep your technology in check.