You should certainly make it a point to periodically back up your system to a high-capacity drive such as a tape drive. Although Windows provides a Backup utility with versions 9x/Me that's ideal for this, it not installed by default with Windows. Instead, you'll need to install Backup manually from the Windows installation CD. Open your Control Panel, then double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon. On the Windows Setup tab, click Disk Tools (or System Tools), and then click Details. Click the Backup check box to select it, and then click OK. Click OK again. The installation process will proceed automatically. You can then use Backup with your tape drive.

Formerly part of Computer Currents, Stephen J. Bigelow's Computer Advisor column has been resurrected on computeruser.com as a daily tech tip column. Find Stephen at www.dlspubs.com.