Microsoft Deigns to Give Us File-Level Restore, Universe Shocked
Well, slap my arse and call me Susan. Microsoft has finally decided to implement file-level restore in Microsoft 365 Backup, a feature that every half-competent backup solution has had since the fucking Bronze Age. Previously, when some dribbling imbecile in Accounting “accidentally” deleted a single spreadsheet, you had to restore the entire SharePoint site— that’s right, terabytes of mind-numbing corporate detritus just to retrieve one sodding Excel file that probably contained nothing but #REF! errors anyway.
Announced at Ignite (the annual festival where Microsoft trots out features they should’ve launched five years ago), this “groundbreaking” capability lets you restore individual files instead of entire libraries. They claim it uses “accelerators” for faster recovery, which in plain English means they stopped using a carrier pigeon to move bits between datacenters. It’s currently in preview for OneDrive and SharePoint, because apparently Exchange admins haven’t suffered enough yet. You’ll still pay through the nose for Azure storage, naturally. Microsoft wouldn’t want you to recover your own data without bleeding money for the privilege.
The real kick in the teeth? They act like this is innovation. My grandmother’s backup system written in COBOL on punch cards had better granularity than this shitshow. But sure, Redmond, take a bow for catching up to 1990s technology standards. Bravo. Give yourselves a round of applause while the rest of us mop up the piss-poor excuse for data protection we’ve been tolerating.
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Speaking of restores, I once had a user who deleted his entire home directory and demanded I recover “just the stuff I need.” When I asked him to specify, he waved his hand and said “you know, the important things.” I restored everything into a folder named “RECYCLED_BIN_OF_SHAME” nested seventeen directories deep, set permissions so only the SYSTEM account could access it, and told him it was “archived for security compliance.” He’s still looking for it three years later. Some people shouldn’t be allowed near technology sharper than a spoon.
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