Personal Backup Vers. 2.1 |
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| © 2002, J. Rathlev, IEAP, Uni-Kiel |
Desktop
Click on desktop region leads to specific help.
Menu structure
The total amount of needed space for the types to include and those
not to include is diplayed benath the type lists.
In the upper region of the window the total amount of space for the whole backup
(without compression) and date and time of last run for this backup task are displayed.
To remove a directory from the task list click on button Remove from task.
Click on the tab Options to select more options for your backup task and to have a look
at your filter adjustments (see filter).
Compress
Select if you want all files to be compressed using the GZip algorithm. This method is
compatible with all standard archive programs (e.g. WinZip). Further you can specify
which files types are to exclude from compressing (see packing of files).
Backup destination
By default you will find separate directories for each drive in the backup directory:
LwC, LwD, etc (drives separated).
You can suppress this behaviour, but this mode only works if your backup task uses just
one drive as source and you start your backup manually (click on Start button).
When you are using the startup feature of the program for automatic backup, drives are
always separated to prevent from lost of data if you use identical path names on different
drives (see the advanced possibilities using the
command line options).
You can select between two modes:
clone of source: The source path is identical to the destination path. If you
specify for instance E:\ as destination you will get a 1:1 copy of your selected
directory structure on the source drive on driv E:.
in one directory: The source path will be ignored. All subdirectories of the source
path are copied in the same destination path.

When the backup is done the window shows you how many files were copied actually and
if errors have accured. Close the window by clicking the Done button.
There are four different ways to start the automatic backup:
When the box end automatically is checked the backup status window is closed
after a few seconds by the program. Otherwise the user has to close this window for
confirmation by striking the
In the lower part of the startup panel you can adjust if you want to have a backup
schedule. The destination of the backup can change dayly or weekly. The total number of
cycles is selectable (1..31). In the backup directory you now will find subdirectories for
each drive of the kind "LwXnn" (X = drive letter, nn = actual cycle).
Deleting files makes only sense if these files are no longer existing in the original directory.
Otherwise they would be copied at the next backup again. If you want you can also do
a cleanup using any available file manager.
dayly schedule: When you have selected 5 cycles the destination directory changes
every day from LwX01 to LwX05. Then it starts from beginning (Lw01).
A special case is cycle of 7 days. The destination directory corresponds to the day of
week (LwX01 for sunday, Lw02 for monday, etc.)
weekly schedule: The destination directory changes in the same way as described
above (LwX01,...). The counter is incremented always on monday. If you had no backup on
monday this is done on the next following day.
Clicking with the left mouse button on the symbol in the taskbar will show you the
schedule of the next automatic backup, clicking with the right button will popup
a menu:
Taskbar Options of Personal-Backup
Edit File Type Lists
Click the register tab File types to have a look at the user type lists.
Each preselection of types (see above) can be stored for
future use. Each list is stored under a unique name. Clicking the buttons
will perform one of the following functions:
Restore data from backup
In the case of data loss or if you want to move your backup data to another place open the
Restore Window. You can select which directory you want to restore and where the
files are to be moved. The destination can be any folder on your disk. Select if
existing files shall be overwritten in any case or just when they are older as those
from your backup.
Cleanup the backup directory
From time to time you should delete older files from your backup. Personal-Backup does this
for you. You have several options to select file types and/or a file age.
when backing up text files or data bases you can spare a lot of space by using a compressing
method. Small files and types like GIF or JPG need not to compressed. By clearing the
check box in Backup task options/Compress files you inhibit compressing for all files
(Default: compress files)
Compressing files
You can select which file types you do not want to be compressed. Global preferences
are made in the menu Options/Compress, individual for each back up task by
clicking the button Types not to compress.
If you want, Personal-Backup can keep a protocol file of all backup actions:
Protocol settings
Further you can select if also to keep a protocol while restoring or cleaning up.
If errors occur on these actions you will find in a long protocol which files
were affected.
A view window is opened. Click one of the buttons to print or erase the protocol.
Viewing and printing the protocol
When you exit the program all preferences including your selections for automatic backup
are stored (see PersBackup.ini in your personal windows folder).
Quit program
When starting the program via a desktop link or from another program you can define
its behaviour by one of the following command line options:
Command line options
This option is very useful in connection with the windows task scheduler. So it
is possible to execute several backup tasks at individual times. In this case
you should not use one of the internal functions of Personal-Backup to start a backup
Sample: PersBackup.exe C:\Backup\BackupA.buj C:\Backup\BackupB.buj /force
Hint: Windows 2000/XP shuts down the system, but does not switch off the computer
(for this see option /poweroff). Windows 98 makes a power off after this option.