Read This First

The following provides a simple example of file backup, and little else. It does not, for instance, discuss backing up to and from a network disk, such as provided by your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) FTP server or by a Local Area Network (LAN). It does not mention automatic periodic backups, date-based rotating backups, pruning of orphaned files, directory mirroring, or command-line operation, all of which are discussed, along with other capabilities, in the associated Windows help.

For a complete description of MultiBackup, download and view the Windows help file: MultiBackup.hlp

An Example

For example, say you want to regularly backup everything under the following directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\Jose\My Documents
This will be the Working directory.

You decide to backup to a second disk on the same machine (see below for other examples) in:
E: \backups\Jose\MyDocs
This is the Backup directory. This could be any write-able device that has an associated drive letter, such as removable media (Jump drive, Jaz drive, floppy drive, CDRW ...), fixed hard drive, or a network disk share.

To accomplish this, run MultiBackup and start filling in the job description:

The pictures in this section are portions of the main MultiBackup screen.
In the first picture, above, the job has been named and the Working and Backup directories defined.
The include source sub-directories item has been checked because you want to back up the contents of all sub-directories also.
The create destination directories item is checked because you want sub-directories created in the backup filesystem as needed.
Important point: MultiBackup requires that, in this case, the directory e:\backups\Jose already exist before the job is run. Although any depth of sub-directories is ok, only one top-level directory will be created automatically. This is to help prevent a simple typo from sending your files to the wrong place.

Next, specify what files in the working directory you want to back up.

Enter an asterisk in the include list (or select the all files checkbox), as shown here, which is the directory listing specification for "all file names". If you wanted, for instance, only your Word documents and GIF files to be backed up, you would put:
*.doc *.gif
in the include list instead.

If you want not to back up files with names ending in ".txt", put
*.txt
in the exclude list.

If you want not to back up any directory named "temp", put
temp
in the prune list.

The include/exclude lists, as shown above, are in the format of Windows wildcards. A more versatile method of specification, called "regular expressions", can also be used for either or both of these lists. Regular expressions are discussed in the MultiBackup Windows help system.

Now that job parameters are set, press Apply and the job is created.

Once you press Apply, the new job appears in the job list window,

and pressing the Run button executes the backup job.
Numerous jobs can be created this way to form a single job list.

A single job can have multiple "tasks", each task specifying its own Working and Backup directories and other job parameters. Tasks are added to a job with the "clone" button in the task area:

Having pressed the "clone" button, the second task is identical to the first, and the second task is ready for modification. In the tasks section, the "run" button will run just the selected task. Normally, the whole job is run (both tasks) with the Run button in the Job section as shown previously.
With any task selected in the task area, that task's parameters are displayed. To modify that task, simply change one or more parameters and press the Apply button.

Saving the Job

Generally, there is no need to explicitly save the job. Simply running a job after creation or modification will guarantee that the job is up to date on disk. Then when MultiBackup is run again, the job will be present and simply pressing the Run button will execute it, backing up those files that have been modified since the last time the job was run.

Log Output

When a job runs, output appears in the log window:

The current date, time, and job name are listed first in the log. Then the first (in this case the only) task's Working and Backup directories are shown.
If a file is found in the Working directory that is younger (newer) than the file of the same name in the Backup directory, the older file is overwritten with a copy of the newer version, and the transfer is logged with a line like:
(B) <== (W)/cw_auth.doc
If there is no matching file in the Backup directory, then the Working version is simply copied to backup, and the log entry is like this:
B <== (W)/cw_req.doc
with no parentheses surrounding the letter B.

Log output can be saved as plain text or in Rich Text Format to preserve font and color attributes. Log output text can be generated directly to a file when running non-interactively.

Networked Filesystems

Use of disk storage on other computers requires a network connection. If you have Microsoft networking enabled, then directories in another computer's "disk share" can be used as Backup or Working directories by MultiBackup. Simply use the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) to name the appropriate disk share and directory as shown below.

In this example, backups will be to the disk share "Jose" on the machine "Storage", in the directory "MyDocs". The user name and password entry boxes appear in MultiBackup when the directory format indicates a networked disk. Passwords are encoded (hidden) in MultiBackup's job files.

Similarly, use MultiBackup's FTP directory format to use an available FTP filesystem as shown next:

In this example, backups will be to the directory "/jose/mydocs" on the machine "ftpserver".

You can usually treat a job involving FTP like any other job, but an issue sometimes arises because the FTP protocol lacks standardization relating to time zones and provides no control over a file's time stamp. The two additional parameters that appear when using a standard FTP server ("set Working file time to ftp Backup value", and "directory list hour offset", visible in the picture above) are related to those issues.

MultiBackup Main Form

Below is a snapshot of the main MultiBackup screen (minus the log window at the bottom). The job shown is a backup to a MultiBackup ftp server, which provides for file timestamp control on the backup filesystem. The Windows help file (MultiBackup.hlp) includes a similar picture as an image map, with explanatory text associated with each button, menu, text-entry window, etc... Run MultiBackup.hlp on your Windows computer, select Graphical View, and just click on any screen component to get complete information.

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