Windows 7 Backup

Looking for an alternative to the Windows 7 Backup and Restore utility? Me too. Backup and Restore is nice but limited. There’s no way to do incremental backups (add only new or changed files to the backup) and no matter what I try the backup just grows and grows and grows with my 220gig profile backup currently at 765gigs. Why? What’s in there?! With four computers to backup in my Family it was looking like a I was going to need IBM for some storage consulting. Back to an old friend, RoboCopy the Robust File Copy utility that comes with Windows.  I had last written about my failure to get RoboCopy working with Windows 7 using the automated tool RichCopy. Back to the drawing board! Lots of good data available now with Windows 7 out for 3 years. The results are below – give it a whirl and post any suggestions or issues!

What to backup?

You can backup your entire User Profile with the line of code below saved as a .BAT or .CMD file (batch files) or for more control see the code, steps and downloadable sample below.

How to run

  • Close programs that you’re backing up so in use files are copied.
  • Run Manually – by double clicking the file. For some commands or permissions you may need to execute as administrator: Right Click and select Run As Administrator.
  • Schedule it – Use Task Scheduler to automatically run your backup daily, weekly or any any time of your choosing see this link

Schedule

  • I schedule my backups for twice a week. Wake the system up and run at 2am. Make sure your destination for the backup is not busy with other possibly conflicting tasks – for example I backup four systems in my house to one drive and schedule them all at different times.
  • How to Schedule a Task: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Schedule…
  • Make sure to follow these steps:
    • In General tab, check Run with highest privileges.
    • In Actions tab, click on the action and then the “edit” button at the bottom.
    • In the “Edit Action” Window there is a field for “start in (optional)”, please set the path for your bat file.

 

Download the Windows 7 Backup Script
Fully functional script – just change UserName to your Profile name and change/remove items to your needs.

Password = backup

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Windows 7 Backup Script

Windows 7 Backup

Code from the download file

 

3 thoughts on “Windows 7 Backup

  1. Hey Vince, hit me up through the contact page and I can take a look at your script via download link or email.

  2. More info

    2013/06/20 16:48:29 ERROR 1921 (0x00000781) Scanning Source Directory C:\Users\vc\AppData\Local\Application Data\Ap
    plication Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\App
    lication Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Appl
    ication Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Appli
    cation Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Applic
    ation Data\Application Data\Application Data\
    The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.
    Waiting 30 seconds…

    Junction points are not real folders and cannot be traversed.

  3. This seems to get hung up on the junction points in Windows 7 profiles. Any way to get around that?

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