[Box Backup] Windows backups

[Joe Krahn]

Nick Knight wrote:
> Hello
> 
> Here's my two cents.
> 
> Locked files separate into two areas
> 
> 1/ dlls, programs etc do not need backing up (IMHO) these are just too
> difficult on a windows box to backup, make sure you have original
> install media
I agree that a proper Windows backup is just 'too difficult', but 
installing a bunch of apps and options and configurations can be an 
enormous amount of time. At the same time, it is trivial to backup and 
restore Windows from Linux. Think how long it would take to install 
every application and every plug-in/module/etc. versus just a one-shot 
whole-disk recovery.

> 
> 2/ Other locked files are things like registry, exchange data, etc etc,
> to unlock these files you have to stop the apps using them, I always use
> NT Backup to generate a backup file of things like system state,
> exchange, then plonk this file into the box backup area to be backuped
> up. This file is transferred quite efficiently - as most of the contents
> are the same...
This sounds like a reasonable approach for a pretty good plan, but a 
backup isn't really a 'system backup' unless you can use it to 
completely restore a system onto blank disks.

It all comes down to whether you just want to back up irreplaceable 
files so that system recovery is possible, or back up everything so 
system recovery is simple.

Joe Krahn