Unchanged data files being repeatedly backed up
My Windows 7 scheduled backup runs every Sunday, takes about 3 hours every time and backs up about 50-60 gigabytes of data files on the backup device, every week, about 880 GB total since the start of the year. (The system-image disk usage is only about 170 GB.) The one folder where I store all my data files is only 67 GB and most of it doesn't change from week to week. There is only one user on the systems, and the C:\Users folder contains about 6 GB total. Looking at my data-backup zip folders I see files that have not been changed for years being copied over every week. I'm wondering if a setting is off that causes unchanged files to be copied. The same file may be in more than one "library", but I don't think overlapping libraries should matter. Has anyone else run into this problem or seen it reported?
April 6th, 2010 2:11am

This issue occurs if you enable "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service". It will update the ChangeTime of all media files under media library folders every time machine is rebooted or resumed from sleep, so Windows Backup will back up them every time. To resolve this issue, turn that service off.Arthur Xie - MSFT
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April 7th, 2010 11:49am

If the "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" is disabled then will it still be possible to share media over the network? If not, is there a work-around to this defect that will enable media sharing while also preventing the redundant backups?
May 23rd, 2011 2:56am

According to another thread (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/e8a27814-7f7b-4ca4-b9e1-82f69c974988?prof=required) it seems that the issue with Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service was resolved with Windows 7 Service Pack 1. I have observed non-incremental behavior during a scheduled backup on a Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 x64 system with all updates applied as of May 22, 2011. Therefore it appears that the issue with Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service is not the only issue affecting non-incremental behavior in Windows Backup and Restore.
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May 23rd, 2011 2:42pm

Somehow I don't think I got notified of Mr. Xie's response. I don't believe I am using Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service; in any case, how would I determine this or turn it off, on a 64-bit Windows 7 system?
May 23rd, 2011 3:43pm

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