Backing up Files, Directories etc.

[Glenn Vaughn]

One of the most important this to do with a computer is backing up important files. While ther are a number of services for off-line backup and also software for doing local backups, both methods can be a bit expensive. I have found something that makes backups fairly easy and costs nothing since it is included with Windows (Vista and Windows 7). It takes a little work to plan and setup but once done, it runs quite well. The program is Robocopy.

Robocopy allows you to do the following:
• Use file names, wildcard characters, paths, or file attributes to include or exclude
source files as candidates for copying.
• Exclude directories by name or by path.
• Delete source files and directories after copying (that is, move rather than copy
them).
• Delete destination files and directories that no longer exist in the source.
• Control the number of times the program retries an operation after encountering a
recoverable network error.
• Schedule copy jobs to run automatically.
• Specify when copying is to be performed.
• Monitor a directory tree for changes.
• Selectively copy file data.

Here is a link to documentation: http://theether.net/download/Microsoft/Utilities/robocopy.pdf (http://theether.net/download/Microsoft/Utilities/robocopy.pdf)

If you want to try it and have problems setting it up, PM me and I will give some help.