Does Time Machine Back Up Parallels & MS Outlook .pst files and other Windows Docs?

Hi there

I went into the Apple Store recently and was shocked when one of the Geniuses told me that Time Machine does not include any Parallels Windows files in its automated backup - is this true???

I have checked settings in configuration and I see there is an option 'Do not include in Time Machine backup' - which was unchecked, so am a little confused as another Genius bar guy also told me the same thing.

I'm especially wanting to have my MS Office Outlook .pst files backed up, as well as other Office docs and.. well would be good to know the whole Virtual Machine and programs were being backed up too as I can't seem to enter Windows Parallels side in Time Capsule to know that it's there or not.

Thanks

Zoe

 

The Genius was wrong or misunderstood you.

Time Machine works from the Mac side of things, so as far as it's concerned, your enter Parallels virtual machine is one big file, and it does indeed get backed up. However, since it's backed up as one file, you can't retrieve earlier versions of Windows files as you can with Mac files.

This is easy to see: Open Documents->Parallels and look at your *.pvm files there. These are what get backed up. Invoke Time Machine with this folder open and you'll see you can restore earlier versions of these files with no problem.

Again, though, be aware that you can't retrieve just your Outlook .pst files; you've have to restore the entire virtual machine.

 

Thank you for this. Only thing is I don't have a Parallels Folder in my Docs - only in Users - Shared - Parallels.. and the only file in there is Windows XP.pvm - is this the file you are talking about that is backed up?

 

Time machine backed up my windows files just fine.

My only question is whether it knew just what areas changed within the files, or if it just
backed up the whole vm file again.

When I had a virus in my windows VM that was so bad it messed up my boot,
I renamed my .pvm file , then opened up time machine from prior to my getting
the virus, explored my way to the backup .pvm, and clicked restore.

And as a nice person here informed me, all I had to do was right click on the OLD .pvm
and choose open with .. parallels mounter, and you can go into and pick and choose which
files you want to move to a common area, then open the restored VM , and copy them
over. Once I'm sure I got all the files I need, I'll delete the old partition.

GG

 

Yes. And as another user has pointed out, you can retrieve an earlier version of the file, mount it with Parallels Mounter, and then get earlier versions of individual Windows files.

 

Thank you Dramsey & GG

I tried opening "Windows XP.pvm" file (when Parallels Desktop was shut down) with "Parallels Mounter.app" but it doesn't open to view.

How exactly can I open it to view the individual files?

Thanks
Zoe

 

The .pvm is a folder with a special flag set so that you can't open it normally as a folder in the Finder. To view the contents of the folder, you need to right click it and select "Show Package Contents".

If you use Open with Parallels Mounter, then Parallels Mounter should mount the virtual machine's virtual hard disks in the Finder.