Ask Dave Taylor: Tech and Business

Friday

Windows XP Backup requires a password?

Dear Dave, I have a PC with Win XP Home, 1GB memory, SP2, etc. I have a Western Digital 320GB external hard drive. I don't log on Win XP with a password. Problem: when I want to 'schedule' an incremental backup with XP Backup program to the external hard drive, it always asks for Computer Name and a password in order to do this. When I create one to do this backup, it won't let me. How can I get around this problem and not use this password thing to do this scheduled backup? Thanks so much.

Windows has a feature called Scheduled Tasks that allows you to run something on a schedule you define. This is commonly used for backups, and also has a number of common uses in corporate IT departments (scheduled restarts, automated maintenance, system
reports, etc.).

When Scheduled Tasks are set up, they must be given a user account to...