Paragon Software has released Image Backup for Windows 8, a simple backup tool which runs on Windows 8/ Server 2012 and supports Microsoft’s new Resilient File System, ReFS.

If you’ve used any recent Paragon backup product then you’ll feel at home right away, as the new product uses Paragon’s standard front end menu, which quickly points you to the features you need.

Look a little closer, though, and you’ll find the program is considerably cut down from Paragon’s other free tools. In particular, there’s no “advanced” view, no full program to explore: the front end menu, and the four main wizards it points to, are just about everything you get.

This does at least help to keep things simple, though. And if you check “Change backup settings” in the Backup Wizard then you’ll find there are plenty of useful configuration options here.

Helpful wizards walk you through every step of the backup and recovery process

Include and exclude filters help to define exactly what you’re backing up, for instance; you can set your archive’s compression level, or split it into equal-sized files; support for VSS will help you to back up locked files, and you can optionally password-protect your archive to keep it safe from snoopers.

Your backup may then be written to any local or network drive, copied to a physical partition, or burned to CD, DVD or Blu-ray discs.

At a later date you can then restore individual files or folders from the image, or the entire thing. And as usual with Paragon backup tools, the program allows you to create a bootable Linux-based recovery environment, which can restore your system partition if Windows will no longer boot.

This has some obvious limitations. There’s no scheduler, for instance. And no support for backing up to FTP, or any other online destination.

Still, Image Backup for Windows 8 is probably the first freeware backup tool to offer Windows 8, Server 2012 and ReFS support, which works for us. And if that’s something you’re looking for, the program is available now.