Non Tax, Windows 7 Backup

[Kurly]

Sorry this is not a tax question directly.

When I use Windows 7 back-up to an external drive. My understanding it makes a mirror image of my computer. How do I read the files on the external drive. Looks like I get a lot of long numbered files. How do i know what they are? How do I read my data files. I just bought a new computer and it has Windows 7 on it.

Thanks

I appreciate any help that you can give me. I am not to savy on computers.

[Redneck]

Located in Windows 7 Help

Restore files from a backup

You can restore backed-up versions of files that are lost, damaged, or changed accidentally. You can also restore individual files, groups of files, or all of the files that you have backed up.

Click to open Backup and Restore.

Do one of the following:

To restore your files, click Restore my files.

To restore the files of all users, click Restore all users' files. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Do one of the following:

To browse the contents of the backup, click Browse for files or Browse for folders.

When you are browsing for folders, you won't be able to see the individual files in a folder. To view individual files, use the Browse for files option.

To search the contents of the backup, click Search, type all or part of a file name, and then click Search.

Tips
If you are searching for files or folders associated with a specific user account, you can improve search results by typing the location of the file or folder in the Search for box. For example, to search for all JPG files that were backed up, type JPG in the Search for box. To only search for JPG files associated with the user Bill, type C:\Users\Bill\JPG in the Search for box.

You can use wild card characters such as *.jpg to search for all JPG files that were backed up.