Creating an Active Directory / System State Backup

In this lecture, you will learn how you can use Windows Server Backup to safely backup your Active Directory data. Having and maintaining Active Directory backups is a critical aspect of administration of your network.

It's very important that you take proper backups and you understand how to restore those backups should a catastrophic failure occur.

To get started you need to open the Windows Backup console by selecting Tools > Windows Server Backup:

Select Local Backup > Backup Once...

Select Different options then click next:

Click Next, then click Custom:

Click Add Items

Select System State and click OK.

Specify the destination and click Next.

I am going to specify my backup location and leave the rest at default:

Click Next, then click Backup.

Now we just need to wait for the backup to complete. This is generally not a fast process so you will need to wait a little while before its done:

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