Every version of Windows that I'm familiar with has its own backup/restore program available. XP does as well. I think it's installed by default with XP Pro and you have to find it on the setup disk if you are using XP Home. Don't quote me. On XP Pro, you can find it in Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools, I think.

I did some testing with the XP backup program a few years back. It has all the proper stuff, like full, incremental and differential backups. Probably a few other variations. I think it's perfectly fine. However, something about it made me look elsewhere. I think it was that I couldn't get the automatic part set up to my liking. My memory is that if I wanted to edit something like the schedule (or maybe the files/folders?), I couldn't do it. I had to start over.

The other concern I had with The MS backup programs was that it seemed every version of Windows Backup had its own file format. You could only restore if you had the same version of Windows running. That might have changed, but it's something you will want to look into. Of course, nobody else supports the file format.

I ended up going with a full featured backup program (Backup4All) that compresses to the zip file format. I know I can get access to the files, even if I don't have a copy of that program running. It costs money, but works very well on my work computer. I do hourly incremental backups with very little notice that it's affecting my system. This program is so powerful, I generally don't recommend it. It gets confusing. I probably will look at another program that our IT guy recommends next time. It's free (starts with "C"?) but I can't remember the name.

At the time, I also looked at SyncToys. It didn't do everything I wanted, so I looked elsewhere.