Today we will speak about a very important software: Backup 1.7

The purpose of the program is to facilitate making backups from a source drive/directory to a destination drive/directory. The progam is designed to work with directory device drivers, e.g. win, dev, flp, mdv etc. – but NOT with serial devices such as ser or net.

The program has 4 different areas, of which only the first one will have anything in it when starting the program.
A – First comes the menu bar where the menu items are, from left to right:

Move the window
Resize the window
S – Source : lets you choose the source drive/directory.
F3- Options menu : shows some options for operations.
A – All : this selects/deselects all itmes in the current tab.
D – Destination : lets you choose the destination drive/directory.
G – Go : reads the soure & destination drives and checks which
files should be backed up BUT DOES NOT BACK THEM UP.
Button : move program to a button in the button frame.

B – The Tab area, where different tabs for different backup options are presented.

C – The sort area, where you can sort the files according to three criteria : Name, Date and Size: just click on a header and the displayed files will be sorted according to that criteria. If you click on the same header again, the sort will be inversed (ascending/descending).

D – The files area which displays the files corresponding to the current tab.

Setting the destination and source drives/directories and hitting the “G” key or the Go item. The program then reads the source & destination drives/directories and checks which files should be presented for backup BUT DOES NOT BACK THEM UP: it presents lists of files in the different tabs.

Now right-click (or hit ENTER) when the mouse pointer is over a file in a tab. You are presented with a menu giving you choices for diffferent backup actions, which are all self-explanatory. Again, some tabs may show files which might be NEWER on the destination drive and which you do not wish to overwrite.

One tab shows files which cannot be backed up at all because the destination filename would be too long.

The program can create, on the destination, all subdirectories that exist on the source, including the main destination
directory. So, if you want to backup from, say, “win1_” to “win2_backup_”, then the program can create all subdirectories
that exist under “win1_” in “win2_backup_” and it will also create “win2_backup_” itself if that doesn’t exist.

The program can show up to six different tabs.

The “All” tab.
Shows a summary of all files that are contained in all of the other tabs.

The “Non existing” tab.
Shows all files that exist on the source but not on the destination. This tab does NOT show files that exist on the destination but not on the source.

The “Different dates” tab.
This tab will show all files that have different dates on the source and destination – independently of whether the source or the destination files are newer. HOWEVER : If the “Different dates: Show only files that are newer on source” item is selected in the F3 options menu, then this tab will only show files that are newer on the source drive than on the destination drive. This is probably what one wants for backup purposes.

The “Different sizes” tab.
Shows all files that have different sizes in the source and destination directories, independently of which of the files is
newer, on source or on destination!

The “Different type” tab.
Shows files where the filetype differs between source and destination. Again, this doesNOT mean that the source files are
newer!

The “Too long” tab.
This shows files that can’t be backed up because the name on the destination drive/directory would be too long. For example, if you’re trying to back up a file called “this_is_a_long_filename” from win1_ to “win2_very_long_dirname_”, you won’t be able to do this as the name on the destination exceeds the maximum filename length allowed.

The programs only shows those tabs where something might be filled in : if there are no files that have a different type on the source and the destination, then the “Different type” tab will not be shown.