[mdlug] Windows backup software reccommendations

[Jeff Hanson]

Easy, uncomplicated, minimal, and incomplete:  Copy My Documents to a
FLASH drive.

Moderate, uncomplicated, inefficient, complete:  Create a separate
partition with Linux set up with tools for full drive imaging to
another drive.  Have it just create a compressed image of the entire
drive to another larger drive automatically.

Moderate, very complicated, efficient, mostly complete:  Use XP's
built-in backup function to dump to an external NAS box.  I have set
this up for a customer.  It is difficult as many programs don't use My
Documents and instead save their data in their Program Files
directory, user configuration directory (Local Settings or Application
Data), or some other random location.  The backup app (from Veritas)
has command-line bugs (used by the Windows scheduler) that require
full backups to always be performed.  It also has no space management
functions for the target device so the end user has to delete old
backups manually.

I'd like to take a moment to thank M$ again for not having a proper
filesystem hierarchy defined and an OS that can't redirect all user
data to a different partition (I've tried on every version including 7
beta).

QFTD:  Linux is developed using the bazaar philosophy for development,
Windows is just bizarre.

On 10/9/09, Allen Majorovic <amajorov at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Got some friends who run Windows, mostly XP, and I've been hit with a couple
> of requests for help about backup software.
>
> I've got them all running Firefox and/or Thunderbird but nothing pops up on
> Sourceforge looking especially promising for the typical Windows user when
> it comes to backup software.
>
> The less setup the better, for all concerned. Backup to a thumb drive
> preferred.
>
> Allen
>
>
>
>
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