Windows 11 26H2 will turn settings backup on by default for businesses

Windows 11 26H2 will turn settings backup on by default for businesses

9 November 2026: Microsoft says Windows settings backup will be enabled by default on eligible devices starting with Windows 11 version 26H2, so an organisation with no policy in place will begin storing users' Windows settings and Microsoft Store app lists without taking any decision. A tenant that wants otherwise has to configure it before those devices arrive.

Not yet independently verified. Microsoft's post does not give a release date for version 26H2, and the definition of an eligible device is on a linked Microsoft Learn page that we have not read. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

Explicit policies win, and only backup changes

The company's wording on control is specific. "Any explicitly configured backup policy, whether enabled or disabled, continues to be honored," the post says, and the default applies to backup only. Restore needs separate configuration by an administrator, so users will not see their settings come back on a new machine until someone turns that on.

The practical effect is a gap for anyone who never touched this setting. Backups can start accumulating with no restore path enabled, and the data sits in the tenant whether or not the organisation ever uses it. A team with data minimisation commitments should choose deliberately and set the policy either way.

A new name and one place for roaming

Windows Backup for Organizations, generally available since August 2025, is now Windows settings backup and restore. Existing configurations carry over, per Microsoft's post.

Enterprise State Roaming has moved under the same management. The settings it covers are unchanged, and Microsoft says that after a transition period that ended in June 2026, the backup and restore policies are the supported way to manage it. Licensing requirements for Enterprise State Roaming still apply, so the merged console does not widen who is entitled to the feature.

PowerShell for profiles that pile up

Because default-on means more profiles to look after, Microsoft points administrators to a WindowsBackupAdmin PowerShell module, published on the PowerShell Gallery and GitHub. It lets a suitably permissioned admin view the attributes of backup profiles linked to a user, export backup information and delete a user's backup data or profiles. It cannot show the settings or app data inside a backup. The scripts wrap Microsoft Graph beta APIs, which is worth knowing before building them into a long-lived process, since beta endpoints can change.

Deletion is the capability a leaver process needs. If an employee departs or exercises an erasure right, a clean-up step that previously had no target now has one once backups run by default.

What users will see after a restore

A restore summary arrives for Windows 11 24H2 and later. During setup or at first sign-in a user picks a backup profile, and the summary shows what was restored from personalisation settings and the Store app list. Help Net Security reports that it opens in a browser about an hour after a successful restore and stays available for seven days after setup.

Our backup software category lists four products.

Sources

• Windows IT Pro Blog, Enhanced resilience with Windows settings backup and restore, 9 November 2026
• Help Net Security, Windows settings backup default, 10 November 2026