1. A method of restoring backup data to a computer, comprising: specifying selected resources within the backup data to be restored using the computer or a second computer wherein the selected resources comprise one or more backup files; generating an installation package using the computer or a second computer that provides a hierarchical archive of the selected resources and is configured for execution by an operating system of the computer; providing the installation package to the computer for execution thereon to effect a restoration of the selected resources onto the computer; and wherein the step of generating comprises: generating a restore job at the remote backup service, the restore job specifying a restoration medium of installation package; executing the restore job to form the installation package using an installer application programming interface (API) of the operating system; determining, at the remote backup service, that the installation package exceeds a threshold storage size; storing the selected resources onto a storage device configured for transport to the computer; and forming the installation package having the selected resources as stored on the storage device using the installer API of the operating system.