On Mon, 08 Jun 2015 13:50:56 +0000, John Doe wrote:

Forget Microsoft backup. Apparently everyone else has. No surprise.

I use Macrium Reflect Free. Just a small fast SSD for Windows and
programs. A large conventional drive for everything else. My system is
quick and bulletproof. Easy as cake.

As far as I know, windows backup technically works, I did use it once.
However, it creates directories, fill them with lots of files and in my
case overwrote the older one's.
Macrium creates a single file with compression and works well. On a
windows machine, you can access single files or directories from the
image. I use the free one all the time. Unfortunately, they don't have a
Linux version, but you can use the windows bootable recovery usb to
create backup and restore of any partition. The paid version has extended
capabilities for file backup.
Apart from Macrium, there are other free ones, all preferable to windows
backup.