Windows Vista Vista backup useless?

Hi,
I recently had my house broken into and two laptops stolen. Unfortunately I don't think I will ever see them again. My problem is that my backup is from one of them and it had vista installed on it.
Now I have a new laptop which is running Windows 7. I have a desktop but it is running XP. Is my backup now totally useless?
I appreciate all help, even if it is bad news!
Thank you
Sharon

 

Just the backup on the computer. Will try to get vista on a system to retrieve some of my info. What backup should I use on my new system? Windows 7 64-bit
Thanks
Sharon

 

Do some research yourself There are many, many types of backup. As you have seen, Windows backup can be very limited.

(at least have it on two places at once). Synchronising does not save the complete system, only the data which you deem as important. I don't mind installing or reinstalling a new operating system, cleaning out any left over "bits and pieces" and starting afresh.

If you use a backup that takes a "snapshot" of the system just before it fell over, you could be back where it was about to fall over.

As an example, your old system is now gone, do you want the new one exactly the same as the old one or install a fresh version of Windows and be able to restore the data that is important to you? Edit: you don't have the same computer, so you couldn't use a snapshot-type backup anyway, it wouldn't work. You might be able to "extract" data from a snapshot. Back up your data (sync it) if you want to save your data and not the whole system, as in the circumstances that you have now (a stolen computer). If you are worried about having the same computer, but it gets trashed, consider a snapshot backup.

Matt
PS:

Of course, not on the same hard disk drive (which you have done). Backup programs will (should) warn against backing up to the same HDD.