(dredging up an old but related thread)

My wife wants her laptop backed up, as does one of her friends (both running Windows XP). I've been pondering the need to make this as painless as possible, since neither my wife nor her friend are the sort to want to click through various options and whatnot. Time Machine, on a Mac, is exactly the right idea.

As far as I can tell, Rebit is the only solution for Windows that explicitly offers the same sort of fire-and-forget interface as Apple's Time Machine. What bothers me is that they don't just sell the software. Instead, they sell it pre-installed on a USB hard drive. Grumble.

Has anybody set up Windows XP's built-in backup utility? I know that it's not exactly fire-and-forget, and that it doesn't back up *everything* like what you might need if your hard drive dies. Is it still useful in a model akin to Time Machine?

The last time I had a dying hard drive on my hands, Acronis True Image ended up saving my bacon. It successfully pulled out an image to a USB hard drive which I restored to a new drive. Very impressive. The question is whether it can be configured to be painless.

Again, I'm being asked to set up backups for a friend without any technical skills. It needs to be painless. Right now, Rebit seems to be the best answer. Thoughts?