Altaro Oops!Backup v3 User Guide

Altaro Oops!Backup v3 User Guide

Introduction

Welcome Welcome to the user guide for Altaro Oops!Backup v3. Expand the tree-view on the left to browse through the user guide.

Contact Support Visit the Altaro online community hosted on the popular GetSatisfaction community platform. To visit the Altaro community click here. To contact Altaro Tech support send an email to [email protected]. More info on Altaro Tech support here.

Getting Started

System requirements Altaro Oops!Backup requires the following specifications:

· · · · ·

Pentium or compatible PC 128 MB RAM 100 MB Hard Disk Space (for Altaro Oops!Backup Program and Settings files) Windows 7, Vista or Windows XP MS .NET Framework 2.0

Supported Operating Systems Altaro Oops!Backup Works on:

· Windows 7 (all editions) - 32 and 64 bit · Windows Vista (all editions) - 32 and 64 bit · Windows XP SP2 - 32 bit

Supported Storage Media Altaro Oops!Backup supports backing up to:

· · · · · · ·

USB External Drives eSata External Drives USB Flash Drives Fileserver Network Shares using UNC Paths Fileserver Network Shares using Mapped Drives NAS devices (Network Attached Storage) PC Internal Hard Drives (recommend only for evaluation purposes)

Upgrading Oops!Backup Upgrading to a newer version is easy. When you upgrade Altaro Oops!Backup all your settings are kept. Follow the steps below to upgrade to a newer version: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Exit Altaro Oops!Backup by right-clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon and clicking on the 'Exit' menu. Download the new version to your PC from http://www.altaro.com/download_update.php Once downloaded double-click on the executable to start the installation. Follow the install instructions. The last dialog of the installation will ask you if you want to start Oops!Backup automatically. Make sure the checkbox is enabled ( it is enabled by default ) and click Finish 6. The new Oops!backup will now start and all your settings will be kept

How To ...

Back up files that are in use or locked? Altaro Oops!Backup can backup files that are locked or in use by other applications. In order for Oops!Backup to backup locked files it makes use of MS VSS. For more info on MS VSS click here. If you have files that you want to backup but which are always in use then we suggest that you create a special folder and enable the MS VSS for that special folder only.

For more info on Special Folders click here. For instructions on how to create a Special Folder follow the instructions here .

Back up to a network or NAS drive? Apart from internal and external hard drives, Altaro Oops!Backup can also backup to a network drive such as a server or a NAS drive.

· In order to backup to a network drive you need can either map it to a drive letter on the computer where Altaro Oops!Backup is installed or else choose it as a UNC path.

· If you choose to map it to a drive letter then do so now and then head over to the tutorial below to start backing up to a network drive. If you will be using a UNC path directly then just go to the tutorial.

Tutorial on how to back up to a network drive.

Configure a Mirror Backup With Oops!Backup 3.0, users can now choose to synchronise their backup drive to a secondary drive. This is useful for users that travel with their backup drive alongside their laptop. Should anything happen to both the source drive and the backup drive, a third drive would still contain a recent version of your files.

How do I setup a Secondary Backup Drive? 1.

Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon.

2.

Click on 'Open Drive Manager ....' to open the Drive Manager.

3.

You will now be presented with the Drive Manager screen. Through the Drive Manager you can choose a new Primary Backup Drive or else to configure a Secondary Backup Drive. In this example we will be choosing a nd Secondary Backup Drive so click on the 'Select 2 Backup Drive ...' button.

4.

A window showing the list of available drives will appear. If your drive is not showing make sure that it is connected and then click the Refresh Drive List link. If you want to back up to a network drive via a UNC path then click the 'Back up to a network path' button. Please note that your primary backup drive will be hidden from this list.

5.

Choose the drive to which you would like to start synchronising your backup to. In this example we will start backing up to a removable hard drive with the drive letter "E:". Check the check-box near the drive and click nd the Select 2 Backup Drive button on the bottom right of the window.

6.

You have now selected your secondary backup drive. At this point you will be returned to the Drive Manager Screen. From here you may choose the time for the daily synchronisation. Please note that during a synchronisation, both your primary and secondary backup drives must be connected.

7.

The next step is to initiate the initial synchronisation. Simply click on the button Synchronise your Backup to nd the 2 Backup Drive Now. You will see from Oops!Backup's main progress bar that a synchronisation has begun.

Check that a file/folder is being backed up? If you want to make sure that a file or folder is being backed up use the BackInTime browser restore instructions for an example on how to use the BackInTime browser. The instructions on how to restore a file can be found here .

Check which version of Oops!Backup you have installed Checking which version of Oops!Backup is installed is simple. First of all ensure that Oops!Backup is running and is present within the system tray icon.

Next double-click on the Oops!Backup icon to bring up the QuickLaunch panel (as shown in the screenshot below).

The version number will be displayed at the bottom left of the panel. In the example above the version number is 3.0.8.0. Unsure whether an upgrade is required? If you are unsure whether an update is required, simply right click on the Oops!Backup icon and click on "Check for Online Updates". You will then be informed whether there is a newer version available or not.

Configure backup frequencies for different folders? Although by default when you install Oops!Backup all the folders configured for backup and versioning have the same settings, you can still configure different settings for specific folders by using Oops!Backup Special Folders. By using Oops!Backup Special Folders you can create different configurations per folder: for example a particular folder can be configured to be backed up every 5 minutes, while all other folders continue to be backed up every hour. To create a special folder follow the instructions below:

· Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon

· Click on 'Manage ...' to open the Oops!Backup Manager

· Click Add / Remove Backup Folders on the left of the screen.

· Once clicked the folder review panel will change to show all the hard drives and folders on your computer. · Navigate to the folder that you want to assign different settings to, right click on it and select Set as Special Folder.

In this how-to we will assign a 5 minute backup frequency to a folder called Website

· Once you click the Set as Special Folder menu item a window will be displayed. In this window you can configure the

backup frequency for this folder. Since this folder changes frequently we will set this folder to backup a version of files that changed every 5 minutes.

· Apart from the frequency you can also set other settings such as Plug and Protect, ReverseDelta and handling of locked files. In this example we will leave all the settings on default and only modify the backup frequency. Configure the frequency to 5 minutes and click the Create button.

· When you click the Create button the folder icon in the folder view will change to a star, Click Save to confirm the settings.

· To view your new Special Folder open the BackInTime browser and browse to the respective folder.

Enter my Oops!Backup License Key? Once you order Oops!Backup you will receive an email containing your unique Oops!Backup License Key. The License Key is a block of letters as shown below.

· Right-click on the Oops!Backup icon in the tray. Click 'Enter your License Key...' from the menu.

· Once you click on Enter License Key... a window like the one below will appear.

· Now open the email that contains your Oops!Backup License Key. Select the License Key as shown in the image below. Once you select the License Key, right-click on it and select Copy.

· Go back to the License Key window, right-click on the white text box and select Paste Once you do this the License Key will show up in the white box as shown in the image below.

· Click the button Verify License Key to verify your License Key. Once verified the window will change to confirm that the License Key was accepted by thanking you for purchasing the product.

Limit my backup size? During each backup Oops!Backup stores the latest version of any changed files as a complete copy. The previous version is then moved to the "old versions" repository. Over time this "old versions" repository will continue to grow as files keep on changing and more versions are stored. (Learn about ReverseDelta to ensure that minimal space is required for the "old versions' repository) As shown in the image below, the BackInTime browser shows the backup history on the right hand side:

Oops!Backup gives you the possibility of restoring a file, a folder or indeed an entire backup set to the exact state it was at the specified timestamp. For example if a deleted file was still present at the selected point in time, it will show up in the folder view. Each snapshot in the timeline contributes to the size of the total backup set on the backup drive. This increase in size is dependent on the nature of the changes that occurred between that backup and the previous one. The way Oops!Backup controls the increase in size is by referencing unchanged files across snapshots to the same data on the disk, and also by making use of delta technology in order to store only the changes within a file from one backup to the next. Snapshots may be deleted from the backup set, with the limitation that snapshots can only be deleted contiguously starting from the oldest available snapshot. Using Automatic Maintenance Operations to delete old versions Some users may want to maintain their "old version" repository to ensure that it does not exceed a certain size limit or contain old and obsolete versions. There are two ways to limit the backup size in Oops!Backup 3.0:

1. Limit the age of the oldest file versions that are stored on the backup drive. 2. Limit the size quota allocated to storing old versions of your files.

This can be configured to be taken care of automatically by setting a Maintenance Schedule. Click on the "Manage" button and then select the "Advanced Settings" tab as shown below. The bottom of the settings window shows the maintenance configuration option, that may be set independently for Special Folders.

Option 1: Automatically Purge Versions Older Than... As an example, let's say today's date is the 15th January 2010 and I set my Maintenance Schedule at 2 months. This would mean that any backups older than the 15th November 2009 will be deleted from the backup drive. This does not happen immediately, but will be done by a maintenance routine within Oops!Backup that performs house-keeping operations. These are more likely to take place when you are idle or away from your PC. Continuing on the previous example, all snapshots that are older than 14th November will be deleted:

Option 2: Limit Storage Available for Old Versions to... This feature has been added to Oops!Backup version 3, and is great if you would like to keep as many versions as possible but would like to limit the space available on your Backup Drive. With this setting enabled, each time the size limit is reached, the maintenance operation will automatically begin deleting the oldest versions of your files until the size limit is no longer exceeded. Oops!Backup will only delete one timestamp at a time. Therefore to continue on the previous example when the size limit is exceeded, the maintenance operation will attempt to delete all file versions which contain the oldest timestamp. For example, all versions that were created on the 10th October 2009 at 10:00 will be deleted first, if the size limit is still exceeded then all versions of 11:00 will be deleted, followed by 12:00 etc. The latest version of each file will never be deleted even if the size limit remains exceeded. Will maintenance ever delete all versions of a backed up file? The maintenance operations will never delete the latest version of a file, unless: 1. Option 1 is enabled and the file had been deleted from your PC for a period longer than the maintenance period set. Therefore you have chosen to delete all versions older than 2 months and a particular file was deleted from your PC 3 months ago. 2. Option 2 is enabled and due to the size limit all versions older than X days are deleted. Similar to the previous example the file would have been deleted from your PC more than X days ago. Since that file was not present at any of the points in time displayed on the timeline then the file can no longer be restored by Oops!Backup from the BackInTime browser. To protect against deleting the final version of a file, this version will be moved to the Oops!Backup Trash folder on the backup drive. The Trash folder can be selected from the BackInTime browser and from here users can choose to restore

the trashed versions or delete them permanently. What is the result of maintenance being activated? The result of all of the above is that, assuming that the changes to your data are more or less similar between one backup and another, this will result in the backup size levelling off as shown in the image below. This is because as one backup is added to the stack on the timeline, an older one is deleted, so your backup window is always the same size (2 months in the example above), moving forwards one day at a time. This levelling off is of course only seen when the oldest backup hits the limit set by the maintenance schedule.

Please note that if you have no Maintenance Schedule for quite a while, and then set the cut-off point to a point in time that is considerably "younger" than your oldest backup, you will see a dip in the size in the graph above, as several backups in the timeline are purged simultaneously. You should then start seeing some levelling off in size thereafter. Remember that the levelling off assumes that daily changes are fairly similar. If you add substantial amounts of data, or rename a large folder (which would cause the "old" name to be replicated in the backup history) then you will still see an increase in the size of the graph. With regards to the renaming of folders, deleting of files etc. the files will remain in the backup history until they are flushed out by the Maintenance Schedule. How do I find the right setting for my Maintenance Schedule? Sometimes, trial and error is required to find the right balance between available disk space and age of versions to keep. Here at Altaro, we recommend that if drive space on your backup drive becomes an issue, start with a high setting, which is just below the age of your oldest backup. For example, if you have versions going back 3 months set the setting at 2 months. Next wait until your backup size is maintained and you see a dip in size in the graph. If after a few days you realise that drive space is still an issue, set the Maintenance Schedule to a shorter time-window, and keep going until you achieve the desired balance. In the case of any questions, please contact us on [email protected]. We'd be happy to help you achieve the most out

of this application.

manually delete file versions from your backup A explanation on automatic maintenance of old versions and an introduction to how Oops!Backup stores and deletes old versions can be found here. This tutorial is for users that choose to delete old versions manually. The Oops!Backup drive space manager is a simply utility that can be used to clear out old versions from your backup drive. This utility will free up disk space and will also be presented to the user in the case that their backup drive is full or will soon be full. The utility can be accessed from the Backup History report as shown in this screenshot.

To access the utility: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Open the Oops!Backup Manager from the system tray context menu. Click on the reports tab on the left hand side of the screen. Choose the "Backup History" report. Click on "Delete old backups..." from the top right of the report.

You will now be presented with the following screen:

To delete old versions: 1. Choose the checkboxes to indicate which folders you would like to perform version maintenance for. 2. From the drop down lists select a "delete if older than" date. Versions which were created at a time which is older than the selected date will be marked for deletion. 3. Click on "Delete Old Versions". 4. You will now be presented with a progress bar which will indicate when the selected old versions have been deleted. Will maintenance ever delete all versions of a backed up file? All versions of any file that was deleted from your PC at an older date than the one selected in the above step will be removed completely from the BackInTime browser. Since that file was not present at any of the points in time displayed on the timeline then the file can no longer be restored from the BackInTime browser. To protect against deleting the final version of a file, this version will be moved to the Oops!Backup Trash folder on the backup drive. The Trash folder can be selected from the BackInTime browser and from here users can choose to restore the trashed versions or delete them permanently.

Manually sync the primary and secondary backup drives Please configure your second backup drive before reading this tutorial. You may find information on how to do this here.

How to manually synchronise your backup to the second backup drive? 1.

Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon.

2.

Click on 'Open Drive Manager ....' to open the Drive Manager.

3.

You will now be presented with the Drive Manager screen.

4.

nd

To start a synchronisation simply click on the button Synchronise your Backup to the 2 You will see from Oops!Backup's main progress bar that a synchronisation has begun.

Backup Drive Now.

Pause my backup schedule? The backup schedule can be paused if you do not want any backups to take place for a period of time. The backups will not take place until you manually resume the schedule. This is also done automatically when you are choosing a new drive, migrating drives, or you have just restored your Oops!Backup profile to a new PC. 1. How to Pause Your Backup Schedule: To pause your backup schedule, simply open the Manager window, and right click on one of the folders in the "Backup Folders" panel at the bottom right:

On the context menu that pops up, select "Pause backups for this Folder".

2. All folders are paused at once, except for Special Folders (if you don't know what a Special Folder is, click here). This image shows how a Special Folder can be paused independently of all the other selected folders. This user has three standard selected folders and one Special Folder called "Error Reports": All folders paused except special folders:

Special Folder paused independently:

3. Resuming the backup schedule: To resume the backup schedule, simply right click on the folders again and select "Resume Backups for this Folder". All standard folders will be resumed at once. Special Folders however need to be resumed one at a time:

Restore an old version of a file? · Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking the Oops!Backup tray icon.

· Click on the Go BackInTime and Restore link.

· Once the BackInTime browser comes up it will show the main folders that are being backed up.

· The main folders will typically have many sub-folders inside them so click the main folder which contains the file that you wish to restore, or browse previous versions of.

In this how-to we will restore a file called Thesis 2.doc that was saved in the Documents folder.

· Click the Documents folder to view the files and sub folders that are being backed up. Find the file (Thesis 2.doc) that you would like to restore.

· Once the file is found, double-click on the file to open it in preview mode which allows you to see the different versions of that file over time.

· On the right of the Oops! Backup window a list of dates will be displayed in green. This list shows the different versions available.

· Using the Timeline on the right of the BackInTime browser find the version required by expanding a date group and then selecting the actual time.

· Find the version that you would like to restore and click it. Once clicked the document preview in the center of the browser will change to display the first page of that version of the document. If you want to open the file before restoring it, simply click on the Full Preview button located on the left of the browser.

· When you open a Full Preview, a read only version of the document will open. Once the document opens check whether it is the version required.

· To restore the document click the Restore File button on the left of the screen.

· Your document is now restored. Open it from your computer to continue working on the document.

Restore from the secondary backup drive Please configure your second backup drive before reading this tutorial. You may find information on how to do this here.

How to restore from a secondary backup drive? 1.

Bring up the Oops!Backup Context Menu by right-clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon.

2.

Click on Run the Setup Wizard Again option. This can be found under the other settings entry.

3.

Once you click on this option Oops!Backup will restart and you will be presented with the Setup Wizard. If Oops!Backup does not restart automatically simply launch it from the desktop icon

4.

The next steps are explained in a related tutorial. You will be guided on how to select a previous backup drive, restore the required backup profile from the chosen drive, and then restore any files and folders using the BackInTimeBrowser.

5.

Click here to continue.

Restore my data onto a new PC? When you need to restore all your data from your backup drive to a new PC, whether it's because of a hard disk failure or because you bought a new PC, the procedure is really simple. Download the Oops!Backup installer from http://www.altaro.com/download.php on your new PC, and double click it to start the installation process. Once the installation is complete, the Oops!Backup Setup Wizard will appear as shown below. Choose the second option, "Users migrating to a new PC" and click "Next".

Connect the drive containing your backup data. If it is a USB drive, just plug it into the new PC. If it is a network drive, make sure that the network drive is mapped to a drive letter and is currently connected.

Oops!Backup will scan your drives for all existing backup profiles and list what it finds. If you reached this screen before you plugged in your drive, then simply click "Refresh Backup Plan List".

As shown in the image below, you may see more than one backup profile. This may be because the backup drive contains the backups of more than one user and it also may contain old backup profiles that you no longer use. The arrow in the image below shows where to look to see the time each profile was last used. In this way you can easily locate the most recent one. Select the backup profile and click "Next".

Note: If you were backing up to a custom folder and not to the root of the drive (for example X:\CustomFolder\OopsBackup), then you will have to click on "Choose a subfolder containing your Oops!Backup backup" and locate the backup folder.

The next screen will show you what folders the backup contains. These may not match the folders on the new PC, but don't worry about this for now. Just click "Next":

Congratulations! Your backup profile has been transferred to your new PC. Now the next step is to restore your data (if necessary) and re-configure any changes in folder locations. When you see the screen below, just click "Next".

Now that Oops!Backup knows where to find your data, you will be presented with the restore browser (shown below), from where you can restore any data you need onto your new PC. If you need help with using this, click here.

Please note that your data will be restored to its original path unless you specify differently. For example if your Pictures folder was previously on C:\Users\John\Pictures, it will be restored to that path on your new PC, even if your new Pictures path is for example C:\Users\John Doe\Pictures. Before restoring though, you may specify the new location to restore. Please apply a bit of care at this stage so that you restore your data to its proper new location. If your original paths no longer exist, you will need to click on "Manage" and select your new paths from the treeview. To see how to do that, please click here.

Start backing up a new folder? · Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon

· Click on the Manage ... link to open the Oops!Backup Manager

· Click on the Add / Remove Backup Folders text on the left of the screen.

· Once the button is clicked, the panel under the button will change to show all the hard drives and folders on your computer.

· Navigate to the folder you want to backup and once found tick the box on the left side of that folder.

· If the box is already ticked, it means that the folder is already being backed up. · If you have more folders to backup then repeat this step for each folder. · Once you've chosen all your folders click the Save button just below the Add / Remove Backup Folders.

· You are done! If you want to confirm that your folders are backed up then click here.

Start backing up to a new drive?

There are times when a user needs to start backing up to a new drive due to various reasons, for example lack of free space on your old backup drive or changing over to a mapped network drive. This can be done using the "Migrate Backup" feature in Oops!Backup. Through the Migrate Backup feature once you choose the new drive Oops!Backup will migrate all your backups to the new drive so that you can keep all your backups.

· Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon

· Click on 'Open Drive Manager ....' to open the Drive Manager.

· When you click, the Drive Manager window will come up. Through the Drive Manager you can choose a new Primary Backup Drive or else to configure a Secondary Backup Drive. In this example we will be choosing a new Primary Backup Drive so click on the 'Select Backup Drive ...' button.

· A window showing the list of available drives will appear. If your drive is not showing make sure that it's connected and then click the Refresh Drive List link. If you want to back up to a network drive via a UNC path then click the 'Back up to a network path' button.

· Choose the drive to which you would like to start backing up. In this example we will start backing up to a removable hard drive with the drive letter "H:". Check the check-box near the drive and click the Select Backup Drive button on the bottom right of the window

· At this point a window will prompt you to choose whether you want to migrate all your backup data to the new drive or if you would rather start your backups from scratch.

· If you choose to Migrate then Oops!Backup will copy all your backed up versions to the new drive. With this option

you will still be able to access and restore all your past backups.

· If you choose to Restart backup from scratch then Oops!Backup will start backing up to your new drive without copying all your old backup versions. Using this option means that you will not be able to access your old versions. In this example we will choose to Migrate the backup data to a new hard drive.

· The Migrate option will take time since all your backup versions will be copied to the new drive. Choose the option and click on the Change Drive button to start the migration.

· If during the migration you decide to click the Stop Migrating button, the migration process will be stoped and Oops!Backup will continue archiving to the original drive. You can then go through this process at a later stage to retry the migration.

· Once the process is ready Oops!Backup will start backing up to the new drive.

Search for a file I have in my backup? How to search for versions of files stored on your backup drive? 1. Open the Oops!Backup Quick Launch by clicking on the Oops!Backup tray icon.

2. Enter the name (or part) of the file that you are looking for and press the enter key, or the search icon. You will quickly be presented with a list of results. The list will contain the last modified timestamp of that version of the file, as well as the size and the original file path. The search will find old versions of each file and will also find files that were deleted from your PC.

3. Once you double-click on one of the search results, the BackInTime browser will appear and will display a preview of the selected version. From here you can choose to view newer / older versions and you can also restore the file.

It is also possible to search directly from the following screens: The Oops!Backup Manager:

The Oops!Backup BackInTime Browser:

Understand my Backup Schedule Backup schedules in Oops!Backup are fairly simple, but certain ground rules must be understood first: Rule 1) If you set your backup to take place every X hours or every X days, Oops!Backup will align your backup to the next top of the hour. So even if the backup is already due at 11:30 for example, Oops!Backup will wait till 12:00, so that subsequent backups will all be at the top of the hour (for example 12:00, 13:00, 14:00 etc... if the schedule is every 1 hour). This does not apply to schedules that are selected with a "minutes" interval.

Rule 2) Manual backups and "Plug & Protect" backups (that take place when you plug in your drive), are considered "out of band" and do not affect the next backup according to your backup schedule. In other words, the next backup time is calculated according to the last automatic backup only. Now that these rules are out of the way, let's move on to a more detailed description... At the top of all windows in Oops!Backup, you can see a status as follows:

How is this time calculated? Take this example, related to the image above: Our schedule is set to backup every 3 hours. The last backup was at 09:34, which was our first backup. The three hours from the first backup will elapse at 12:34. However, as described above in Rule 1, Oops!Backup will align your backups to the hour, so the next backup will take place at 13:00. It is now 11:35, so the text will show us that the next backup is in 1 hour and 25 minutes, as shown above. The backup after that will be at 16:00, three hours after the backup of 13:00.

If I take a manual backup at 14:20, for example, this will not affect the 16:00 backup, since it is out of band (see Rule 2 above). What if there are no changes yet? If there are no changes at the point at which the backup time elapses, then no backup will be taken. In fact, if there are no changes, then you will not see the time remaining, but that there are no changes yet. Let's assume in the example above that there are no changes between 13:00 and 16:00. The backup will not take place at 16:00. The first change to a file or folder marked for backup occurs at 16:25. The backup will now take place at the next top of the hour, namely at 17:00. Although the schedule is set at every 3 hours, the interval between backups in this case will be 4 hours, because there were no changes in the first three hours after 13:00. What about "minutes" schedules? If your schedule is set at "every 30 minutes", for example, then the top of the hour is not taken into consideration. After the 09:34 backup in the example above, the next backup will be at 10:04. Let's assume that there are no changes yet at 10:04. If the first change occurs at 10:17, then the backup will be taken very soon after 10:17, because the backup time would have elapsed and no attempt is made to align the backup times to any particular point in the hour. Assuming there are changes, the next backup will then take place at 10:47, which is 30 minutes after 10:17. What happens if my PC is off at the time of the next backup? Continuing on the original example: a backup schedule every 3 hours, with the last automatic backup at 13:00. There are 5 changed files pending backup. That means the next backup is to take place at 16:00. Let's say the PC is turned off at 15:45 so the 16:00 backup cannot take place. The PC is then turned back on at 17:30. Oops!Backup will detect that there are changes pending and the backup is overdue. The next available backup time on the hour is 18:00, so the backup will be taken at 18:00 (see Rule 1 above). The backup after that will be taken at 21:00, assuming there are changes to back up. If my schedule was set every 30 minutes, for example, then an overdue backup would be taken shortly after the PC is turned back on. Please note that this also applies to PCs in hibernation or standby. What happens if my backup drive is disconnected at the time of the next backup? In this case, the same logic as described above is followed (see "What happens if my PC is off at the time of the next backup"). In a nutshell, the next backup will be taken place after the drive is next available, either immediately (if you have a "minutes" schedule) or at the next top of the hour (if you have an "every x hours" or "every x days" schedule). What about special folders? When you have special folders (for example your Outlook PST file) backing up at different schedules, then things may get a bit more tricky. If you don't know what special folders are, then please click here . Let's assume your main schedule is to backup changes every hour. Your Outlook PST folder is set to back up once a day. There are no changes in your main folders, but your Outlook files have changed. The next backup time will be shown for the Outlook PST folder only. For this reason, you may see "next backup in 22 hours 15 minutes". This may be at first confusing, since the schedule is set on an hourly basis. However this simply means that there are no changes for the other folders. As a general rule, the next backup time is shown as the nearest backup time for the folders with at least one pending change. In the example above, the second a change occurs in one of the main folders marked for backup, the text will promptly change to "next backup in 20 minutes" or whatever the case may be. After that backup, if there are no more changes pending in your main folders, the text will probably go back to "next backup in 21 hours etc.." signalling that the Outlook folder is the only one with changes. What does "Full check still pending" mean? When Oops!Backup is started up, or when you make changes to settings or changes to the treeview selections, Oops!Backup will make a full comparison on the source and destination files to make sure all pending changes are caught, including the ones that may have occurred when Oops!Backup was not running. If you see the text "No changes yet. Full check still pending" it simply means that the next backup time can only be determined after Oops!Backup does a full check for changes. This is usually done right before the next backup time, or maybe even before if your PC is idle and the

backup drive is available. What if a backup fails or I abort a backup? If an automatic (scheduled) backup fails, it will be retried after 5 minutes for up to three times. If the third attempt also fails, then no further retries will take place. The next attempt to back up will then be when the backup interval elapses again from the time of the original failed backup. If any backup, manual or scheduled, is aborted by the user, then the next backup will take place after the backup interval has elapsed from the time the backup was aborted. The first backup cannot be aborted, but it can be postponed. If you click the "Postpone" button, then the next backup will take place at the next available backup slot, namely at the next top of the hour, or if you set a "minutes" schedule, when the interval in minutes elapses from the start time of the postponed backup. There is still something I can't understand... We know that every user has his or her particular set up. It is impossible to cover all possibilities. If you have any questions about what you are seeing in the user interface, or you would like to know how Oops!Backup will work for your set up, we'd be glad to help. Just send us an email to [email protected].

What ...

is a Special Folder? Although by default when you install Oops!Backup all the folders configured for backup and versioning have the same settings, you can configure different settings for specific folders by using the Oops!Backup Special Folders feature. By using the Oops!Backup Special Folders feature, you can assign different settings to a specific backup folder. As an example, you may have a folder that you would like to backup every 5 minutes, while keeping the rest of the folders backing up every hour. The settings that you can configure for a special folders can be found in the screen shot below:

For instructions on how to create a special folder click here.

is Microsoft VSS? The Microsoft Volume Shadow Service (VSS) is Microsoft technology that forms part of Windows XP, Vista and 7 that allows applications to access a "point in time" snapshot of a logical drive, also enabling files that are in use or locked to be accessed. Oops!Backup makes use of MS VSS to backup files that are in use by other applications such as Microsoft Outlook PST files. When backing up PST files, VSS should be enabled. If VSS is not enabled then Oops!Backup will find the files locked and will fail to back them up. Since MS VSS takes up system resources it will slow down the backup process to some extent. Due to this we suggest to only use MS VSS when you know that one or more of the files you want to back will be in use.

If you want to back up files that are always in use then we suggest you create a Special Folder and enable the MS VSS just for that special folder. For more info on Special Folders, click here. For instructions on how to create Special Folders, follow the instructions here.

is ReverseDelta? ReverseDelta is technology developed by Altaro Software that enables Oops!Backup to only save the changes between each version of a changed file, rather than backing up the whole file every time it is changed. This means that keeping multiple backup versions will require less space on your backup drive. What distinguishes ReverseDelta from other delta technologies? At Altaro we listened to what users felt was the main concern about delta files. The problem is that in the event of heavy data loss, the version of a file you are most likely to need is the latest one. Many users are apprehensive if this version may need to be rebuilt from an older version and one or more delta files. With ReverseDelta, the latest version of a file is always made available in its entirety and not as a delta file. This means that if you require the latest version of a file, it is possible to access it directly from your backup drive without having to rebuild the file from delta files. The delta files are only used if you want to build a previous version of the file, building one delta file at a time for each version as you travel back in time in the reverse direction. ReverseDelta is recommended for large files that change often, such as Outlook PST files or database backup files. How do I choose when to keep a full copy of the files? In the Advanced Settings window in Oops!Backup, there is an option to keep a full copy of a file every X versions. What does this mean? Let's say you have a large file, say 1GB, which changes all the time and needs to be backed up every hour. The first backup is for example at 9am. When you back up that file the first time, it is simply copied over to the destination. At 10am, it is copied over again, and at 11am again and so on. So you have 3 full versions on your backup drive, 9am, 10am, and 11am... That would mean 3GB in three hours... So Oops!Backup makes delta files of the OLDER files (9am and 10am) so that your latest (11am) is available as a full file. The delta file is usually much smaller (a few MB). If you choose "keep full file every 30 versions" means that every 30 backups, the delta file is not taken, so that you never have more than 30 delta files to rebuild if you need to restore a file. Let's say you set this setting to "5". The picture would look like this: -- Full file 10pm (Latest, 1GB) -- delta 9pm -- delta 8pm -- delta 7pm -- delta 6pm -- Full file 5pm (1GB) -- delta 4pm -- delta 3pm -- delta 2pm -- delta 1pm -- Full file 12pm (1GB) etc.. etc. If you need to restore the 2pm file, then you need to start from the 5pm full file, add on the 4pm delta, 3 pm delta and finally, the 2pm delta.

These steps take some time, so this setting ensures that you are never too far away from a full file. This of course happens in the background and is totally abstracted from the user.

is the Trash Folder? The maintenance operations may in some cases move a file out of the BackInTime browser and place it in the Oops!Backup trash folder. This Trash folder is stored on the backup drive. You may find a tutorial on manual maintenance operations here and automatic maintenance here. When will files be moved to the Trash Folder?: The trash folder is used when the maintenance operations / manual maintenance are set to delete all versions older than X months and a file exists on the backup drive that was deleted from your PC more than X months ago. In this case only one version of this file exists and therefore Oops!Backup will choose to move it to the Trash folder instead of deleting it permanently. What happens when a file is moved to the Trash Folder? Once a file has been deposited in the trash folder, it will remain there until the user indicates what they would like to do with that file. At this point the user has a choice to either: Delete the file permanently. Restore the file back to its original location on your PC. How do I access the Trash Folder? 1. Launch the "BackInTime" Browser from the system tray application icon. 2. Navigate to the folder that contained the "deleted file(s)" or one of its parent folders. 3. Click on the "Trash" button at the bottom right of the window.

How do I use the Trash Folder? 1. Once you click on the trash folder button, you will be presented with a list of files which once existed within the current folder being displayed in the BackInTime browser. 2. From here you can use the checkboxes to select as many files as you require. 3. You can then choose to Restore the Selected Items, and move them back to their original location on your PC. Or You can then choose to Permanently Delete the Selected Items, and they will be removed from your Backup Drive and free up extra storage space for you. Please note that once you delete the file permanently you will be unable to restore them in the future.