I have a simple question. If I exclude directories from backup are they still included in an image backup?
For example, I really don’t need my c:\windows directory included in a file backup but it would be critical to have in an image backup to restore my boot drive in case of failure.
Yes.
Very little gets excluded from images.
In regedit navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot
If you want to see what Microsoft don’t include in VSS snapshots, principally it’s .ost files which get regenerated anyway though.