Windows 8 to copy Apple’s Time Machine: ‘History Vault’

A leak has shown that Microsoft are planning to imitate the behaviour of Apple's popular Time Machine which has been built into Mac OS X now for many years. Windows 8 will have the new feature, called ‘History Vault'.

History Vault is based around the Shadow Copies feature that has been around since Vista launch time, but they are giving it a proper user interface for restoring older files.

WinRumors posted a screenshot, but it doesn't highlight any of the restoration process. It does however show that users can use both real and virtual drives to make a History Vault archive.

Apple's Time Machine has been around since 2005, two years before Vista was launched and was considered one of the first ‘easy' backup options to include an individual file restore algorithm. Mac OS X Lion is due to add a versions parallel that will let users go back through many edits of a single file, instead of just going for a dated file.

Windows 8 is set to receive many other overhauls to the code and it could introduce a new Metro influenced interface with some Windows Phone 7 ideas incorporated. Microsoft could also optimise the interface for finger touch and they are adding full support for ARM processors so the operating system can be used on a range of Android Tablets, helping to improve versatility and potentially battery life.

KitGuru says: Microsoft are said to be making a focus on fast startup and shutdown times, but it will be some time before it is released to market. Nearest estimations are set to late 2012, so there is still plenty of time for new features to be added.

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