How can I access directly to my backup files, without having to restore them?

I've allways made "simple" backups, saving all my files normally in folders on my external hard drive. I've already used the tool that Windows 7 (on my desktop computer) offers to make backups, but it isn't realy diferent from copying them manualy.

Yesterday, I decided to give a chance to Deja-Dup, and I made a backup from my netbook, and them I restored them to a virtual machine, just for experiment. And I felt realy amazed when I saw that Deja-Dup, because it backups all my home folder, was capable to restore not only my files, but also all my apps configurations and even my background! I think this app is incredible, and it deserves to be used on my computer! :D

But there is one problem. I have about 100GB of data, and I want to have it on both netbook and desktop (Ubuntu and Windows. I don't use it on my desktop because of some games I bought and wich I can't play on Ubuntu). It's a lot of data to duplicate.

If I skip some files from Ubuntu backups, like pictures, my Background will disappear, and I will have to put those files separatly, which will take much more work than backing up everything. I just wanted to know: Is there a way of accessing those files without having to restore them, from Ubuntu/Windows? I mean, to open the backup files like 7zip would open a zipped file, so I can take just what I want from the backup files, on any OS.

I want also to say THANK YOU to Ubuntu developers and to the comunity that make this OS so freaking amazing. Ubuntu is the best OS I've ever used, specially with Unity desktop. Please continue with the great work!

Yes, it's possible. Go to the directory where the file used to be, (eg: Pictures), open the folder in Nautilus, and click "Restore Missing Files..."

If a file or directory has since changed, and you want to restore previous versions, right click on the file itself, and choose "Revert to Previous Version..."

If you need to access some of your back-upped files frequently, go for a back-up solution like Rsnapshot or BackInTime, and leave duplicity-based backup solutions like Deja-Dup. It will save you a lot of time.

Deja-Dup uses duplicity, which stores backups as a set of encrypted archive files. There exists no simple method to access the files in the backup than restore via duplicity or Deja-Dup