|
 |
Files to be backed up are specified as the files in a particular folder (which may be the root, or top-level, folder) plus files in selected subfolders. First you select a folder, called the source folder, then you select a set of subfolders (if any) of that folder. The set of files to be backed up then consists of all files in the source folder (unless you exclude these) plus all files in the selected subfolders plus all files in subfolders of those folders.
Clicking on the 'Source folder' button brings up the window for selection of the top folder, as shown at left (in this illustration the source folder is the root folder, C:\).
After selection of the source folder click on the 'Include subfolders' button, which brings up a window which allows you to select some or all of the subfolders to be included in the backup, as shown below.
Note that including a subfolder implies that all subfolders of that folder are also included (plus all subfolders of the subfolders, etc.). The number of KB or MB shown in the folder selection window is the total of the sizes of the files in each folder shown, not including files in subfolders. Where there are both files and subfolders then 'over' is shown.
After selection of subfolders the main screen will look something like this:
If backing up a laptop to an external hard disk then it is advisable to exclude the Windows folder and the Program files folder (and with Windows XP the Documents and Settings folder), unless you are sure that you want to back up the very many files in these folders and their subfolders.
If you don't wish to back up the files in the source folder itself, but only files in subfolders, then check the 'Exclude files in source folder' box:
A file is identified by a filepath, which is the name of the file preceded by the name of the folder containing it, preceded by the name of the folder containing that folder, and so on, up to the root folder. For example, if folder _websites is in the root folder of Drive C:, and contains a subfolder example which contains a subfolder bak which contains a file file.txt then the filepath for that file is C:\_websites\example\bak\file.txt.
Modified File Backup allows you to exclude files whose filepaths contain a given character string, which may be a substring either of a folder name in the filepath or a substring of the file name. This allows you to exclude files in several subfolders, e.g., files named named Copy of. It also allows you to exclude subfolders of non-excluded subfolders of the top folder, e.g., if you have some deeply-nested subfolders named bak which contain backups of files in immediately higher subfolders. These character strings must be separated by commas, may contain spaces and are not case-sensitive.
The target folder is the folder to which the files in the source folder (and included subfolders) will be copied. The source folder is not copied as a subfolder of the target folder.
Specify the target folder by clicking on the 'Target folder' button, similar to the selection of the top-level source folder.
If your desired target folder does not exist on the backup device then you have two choices: (i) You can create it using Windows Explore in the usual way or (ii) you can select some existing folder on the target device as the target folder (in which case the 'Create subfolder' button will be enabled) and create the subfolder using this program.
If the default subfolder name is not what you want then backspace over it and type the desired subfolder name.
If the target folder is not empty then an 'Empty' button will appear. Clicking on this will empty the target folder (that is, all files and folders in the target folder will be deleted).
The target folder must not contain the source folder. It is possible, however, for the target folder to be a subfolder of the source folder. This allows for all files in the source folder and its subfolders to be backed up to a subfolder of the source folder. In this case, of course, the files in the target folder and its subfolders are not themselves backed up. In other words, during the course of a backup operation in such a case, the target folder and its subfolders are skipped.
After specifying a setup you may wish to save it for the next run or save it in a setup file (see below).
Most operations produce reports, but two of them simply report, without doing any backup or deletion. These two are:
- Listing subfolders of the source folder
- Checking the backup state
The first is used mainly so that (if subfolders are included) you can see exactly which subfolders will be backed up. It displays the pathnames of all folders to be backed up plus the number of files in each folder, and at the end gives the total of the sizes of the files to be backed up.
The second is used mainly when you want to see if you need to do a backup. It compares the current files with the backup files, and reports which files in each folder are either new or have been modified since the last backup. (A file is regarded as modified if the corresponding backup file has a different date/time or a different size.)
This check is conditioned by the value shown in the drop-down menu at the right of the 'Backup new and modified' button:
So, for example, if "in the last 3 days" is displayed then the program only checks for files which are new, or have been modified, within the last three days (including today).
If there are many subfolders then this report can be quite lengthy. To get only a summary of the numbers of new ("not backed up") and modified files, before requesting the report check the 'Suppress detailed reports' checkbox:
Folders which contain no files are included in the report of subfolders of the source folder, but are not included when checking the backup state or in the report for any backup or deletion operation.
You can back up:
- All files
- Only new and modified files or
- Only files which are new or have been modified within a number of days from today.
With the third kind of backup you can back up files new or modified today, since yesterday, in the last 3 to 6 days or in the last 1 to 4 weeks.
Some files which are being used by the Windows operating system or by some other program cannot be backed up (while in use), and an error message will be displayed, typically "Unable to open source file -- inaccessible." Thus it is advisable to close all applications which might be using a file among those to be backed up or deleted before using this software. Even so there will probably be some files to which access is currently denied (in particular the system pagefile (a.k.a. the swap file) and which are thus not currently copyable. The criterion of a successful backup operation is not the copying of all the source files but the copying of all the source files which can be opened. A file which cannot be opened for reading cannot be copied. This particularly applies (under Windows XP) to files in certain subfolders of the Documents and Settings folder.
Three of the checkbox options affect backup operations. Two of these are:
Normally, of course, the current file will be newer than the corresponding backup file. If it is not then one should ask why (it may be due to editing a file with the PC's system date set incorrectly). If the first option is checked and a modified file is found which is older than the backup file then a message such as this one appears.
Usually a later version of a file is larger than an earlier version, so if the current file is significantly smaller than the backup file then again one should ask why (perhaps it's simply that a large part of the file was deleted). What "significantly smaller" means can be defined as anything from 10% to 90%. If the second option is checked and a modified file is found which is signficantly smaller than the backup file then a message such as this one appears.
There is a third checkbox which affects backup operations: 
When this box is checked, a backup operation will pause after the first instance of copying files from a folder. The reason for this is that it is possible (since humans occasionally make mistakes) to set up the parameters for the backup operation erroneously, despite having checked them. Pausing at the first folder gives you a chance to see that the operation is proceeding as expected (otherwise it would run on, with undesirable results).
Some miscellaneous remarks (which can be skipped on first reading of this user manual):
- Copying of files is handed off the the operating system, so disk activity may continue for a while after the program reports that one or more files have been copied. In a long backup operation the output to the report window may periodically be suspended temporarily while the operating system completes its file copying tasks.
- When backing up files to an external device it is recommended to 'eject' the target disk, or if this is not an available option then to shut the computer down. This ensures that the backup files are actually written to the target device.
- This software does not change the current files in any way (in particular, it does not clear the archive attribute bit); the only effect on the file system is to create and delete backup files and to create setup files.
- Whether or not a current file is read-only or hidden, the backup file is not read-only and is not hidden.
- A backup file is a system file if and only if the current file is a system file.
- A folder which is empty (contains no files or subfolders) is not copied — this is the only case where a source subfolder is not carried over to the target device. Thus the number of folders in the set of backup files may be slightly smaller than the number of folders in the set of current files.
All backup operations produce a detailed report, such as:
To avoid a lengthy report and get the summary only, check the 'Suppress detailed reports' checkbox:
The four deletion operations are:
- Empty the target folder
- Delete all backup files without overwriting
- Delete all backup files with overwriting
- Delete obsolete backup files and folders
Both backup operations and deletion operations require confirmation before the operation is performed. In the case of deletion the confirmation window is like this:
The first deletion operation simply deletes all files in the target folder and in all subfolders, if any; it also deletes the subfolders (and leaves the target folder intact).
The second deletion operation does the same.
The third deletion operation deletes all files in the target folder and in all subfolders (if any) but in this case the deleted files are overwritten (once) using null (that is, zero) bytes. The slack area of the file is also overwritten (since this may contain data from previous versions of the file). For this check the 'Overwrite deleted files' checkbox:
When the target folder is emptied the files are not overwritten; checking this option has no effect on the empty-target-folder operation.
If deleted files are not overwritten then they may be recovered using special techniques (at least, until such time as the disk sectors are used to store other data). If there are many backup files then overwriting may take quite some time. Overwriting with deletion is thus recommended only if the backup files contain private data. (For more information on this subject see the user manual for the Data Destroyer software.)
When the checkbox for overwriting files is checked then you have the option to pause at the first deletion of files from a folder. As with the option to pause at the first file copy, this is to allow you to check that the deletion is proceeding as intended.
This pause is available only when (i) overwriting deleted files and (ii) a detailed report has not been suppressed.
Note that if files with an 'exe' extension (or 'com', 'doc', 'xls', etc.) are to be overwritten then some anti-virus software may produce a warning message for each file. If this occurs then that software should be disabled before a deletion operation using overwrites.
The fourth deletion operation, 'Delete obsolete backups', is used to maintain congruency between the current files and the backup files. A backup file is obsolete if there is no corresponding file among the files to be backed up (as defined by the current setup). A subfolder of the target folder is obsolete if there is no corresponding subfolder of the source folder (again, with respect to the current setup).
Backup files and folders become obsolete in two circumstances:
- When current files are deleted or when subfolders of the source folder are deleted.
- When the setup is changed to exclude files in the source folder or when it is changed to remove an included folder or to add an excluded folder.
Note that the 'Delete obsolete backups' operation should only be used when you wish the backup files to mirror the current files, which is not always the case. For example, if you are archiving files from your desktop PC to an external hard disk and then deleting those files from the desktop PC, the files on the external hard disk will then be "obsolete" in this sense even though you may never wish to delete them (and so should never use the 'Delete obsolete backups' operation with this setup).
You can request that no obsolete file or folder be deleted without confirmation by checking the 'Confirm each deletion' checkbox:
When this option is in effect and the program finds an obsolete file then a message such as the following appears:
A backup operation does not remove obsolete files and folders; they are removed only when the 'Delete obsolete backups' operation is performed.
Note that the deletion operations will delete all files in the target folder and its subfolders, whether they were created as backup files or not. It is thus advisable (if you plan on deleting obsolete folders under a particular setup) to ensure that the target folder is empty before doing an initial backup to it.
Of the four deletion operations only the 3rd and the 4th produce a detailed report, such as:
To avoid a lengthy report and get the summary only, check the 'Suppress detailed reports' checkbox.
As stated at the beginning, this software is intended for regular backup of multiple sets of files, and this is accomplished by setting up the parameters for a particular backup operation and then saving those parameters in a setup file. When the backup operation is to be repeated then the setup file can be loaded and there is no need to set up the parameters again.
Clicking on the 'Setup' button brings up the setup menu, shown at right. You can save a setup file or load a setup file that you have previously saved. (It is convenient to save all setup files to a particular folder.) You can also save a setup file for the next run, in which case you don't need to save it to a particular location since it will automatically be run when the program starts up again. Setup files must have extension 'mfb' (which is added automatically when a setup file is saved). The setup should be saved under some name which describes the operation, e.g., "budget_files_to_memory_stick".
'Clear setup' returns the setup to its initial default state. If you do this by mistake then you can use the 'Restore setup' to get the setup back.
| Modified File Backup Main Page |
| Hermetic Systems Home Page |