BackupToZip

BackupToZip is a simple backup program. It maintains a compressed mirror of a set of files in a single large ZIP file. You can then copy this ZIP file to DVD (Digital Video Disc), flash drive, hard disk or CD (Compact Disk) for backup. Unlike a compression utility, such as WinZip, if you delete files, the next time you run BackupToZip it will automatically delete those deleted files from the backup archive. It will also automatically update changed or add new files as needed.

To restore, you would use a conventional ZIP tool such as WinZip to fetch replacements for the damaged files from the archive.

BackupToZip is much faster than recreating the archive from scratch each time with WinZip. It also avoids the usual problem of gradually accumulating more and more junk in your backup archive files that have long been deleted from your actual files. With an ordinary archiving utility, come time to restore, you have to manually sort through the accumulated chaff.

Advantages

• BackupToZip is written in Java, and hence will run almost anywhere on any OS (Operating System).
• The final DVD is a perfectly standard DVD. You do not need any special utility to browse it or copy files off it, other than an archiver such as WinZip, or the archiver built into Windows. The DVD can also be read on other operating systems without special software, so you can transfer you data to a totally different computer. Nearly all other backup programs use a proprietary DVD format that only their software can read.
• BackupToZip uses industry standard Java Zip compression. This means for most people all their important files will fit on a single DVD.
• You can use the free BackupToZip with a simple free DVD burning program such as Nero Lite. Most other backup programs, even ones that do no compression, charge you. Using BackupToZip is completely free, other than the cost of blank DVDs (Digital Video Discs) or CDs. I have composed a list of candidates. On my todo list is integrating DVD-burning into BackupToZip, probably with Cdrtools Mkisofs and cdrecord.
• As a side effect, BackupToZip maintains a hot backup, a compressed mirror of your data files on hard disk. You can recover almost instantly from data loss using this hot backup, much faster than fetching files from DVD.
• BackupToZip is completely free. The source code is provided so you can modify it in any way you please.

Disadvantages

• BackupToZip is command-line rather than GUI (Graphic User Interface) dialog driven. I find this makes automation of repetitive tasks easier, but it does require you to have some skill in composing bat files with a text editor.
• BackupToZip simply creates a zip compressed aggregate file on your hard disk. It does not copy it to DVD or other backup media. You must use some other program such as Nero Lite or the built-in OS DVD-burning features to do that, on any of a dozens of free or pay, GUI or command line, CD / DVD burning utilities or backup utilities. You can even do it with UDF (Universal Disk Format) DVD burning abilities built into Vista/W2008/W7-32/W7-64
• BackupToZip has no feature to split the ZIP files into pieces each big enough to fit on a DVD or CD. Either you must select a set of files to backup to each archive that will fit on a DVD/CD or you must use a smart backup program that can split the archives over more than one DVD/CD. I use several ZIPs, and back them all onto one DVD.
• BackupToZip does not yet have a mechanism to specify directories, files and extensions to exclude, just include. You might think you could temorarily hide files and directories you don’t want to back up with attrib /D -h but BackupToZip includes even hidden files in its backup.
• BackupToZip does not have a way to specify a long list of directories and files to backup in a file. You must squeeze then all on the command line.
• It requires you to manually an auxiliary TrueZIP jar truezip-6.8.1.jar. It comes bundled in the BackupToZip zip distributable.

I plan to rectify some of those problems he coming months with a unified constellation system for specifying files that will work with all Canadian Mind Products utilities.

Installing

But if you lose it, you can download another copy. Download TrueZIP. You can also get the full TrueZIP program and documentation from http://truezip.java.net/. You must use this slightly older version 6.8.1 not the latest version 7.5. I have the task of upgrading BackupToZip to use the latest TrueZIP version on my todo list.

Then type something along the lines of:

Where store.zip in the name of the archive where you want to create the mirror. The archive need not exist to start. You can pick any name you want so long as it ends in .zip

E:\important F:\stuff etc. are directory trees you want to back up.

-q means quiet — suppresses voluminous status information about the files selected.

-s mean and subdirectories too, recursively.

The first time you invoke BackupToZip it will take a fair bit of time. Every time thereafter will be much faster since it will only have to compress the files that have changed.

You will get faster response if you use a number of smaller backup zips rather than one big one. This is because there is nothing to do if none of the files in one of the zips have changed. Further is in faster to rearrange a small jar to accommodate the additions, updates and deletions.

Verify that all the files you wanted are present in the archive file with WinZip or other Zip utility. It is fairly easy to forget or misspell one of the directories, or to forget a -s option to include subdirectories or to include subdirectories you did not want. It is also easy to leave off the quote marks around files with embedded spaces in their names like "F:\Program Files\SomeProg\SomeFile.ini". You won’t get an error message. Your file will be quietly left behind.

I repeat, please, please, verify that all the file you thought you were backing up are inside the ZIP. Do a fire drill to make sure you can recover backed up files and all the files you need are on DVD. When it comes time to restore, if the files you need are not there, there is nothing you can do to recover.

Be aware that if you change the command line, any files NOT mentioned on the new command line will be automatically deleted! You don’t have to start from scratch. Note that you can’t add to the archive with several different command lines. If your command line gets too long, use two separate archive files and two separate groups of files to backup.

I repeat. BackupToZip does not do anything to get the archive copied to DVD and offsite. That is totally up to you after BackupToZip has run. It does nothing to restore files after a crash. It is up to you to use some zip-compatible compression utility, to manually restore whatever files you need from the zip archive on backup media. See compression utilities for possible tools.

Because BackupToZip creates a vanilla zip file, you can restore it on any computer with any OS. You don’t even need to install BackupToZip to restore. With Vista, you don’t need to install any software at all to restore.

It does not bother backing up junk files such as:

*.aps, *.bak, *.csm, *.dmp, *. ilk, *.log, *.lst, *.map, *.ncb, *.obj, *.pch, *.pdb, *.temp, *.tmp, temp.*, temp1.*, temp2.*, delete_me

To change that list you would have to modify the source and recompile the program.

Bat Files

Here are the various bat files you need to create zips file then optionally burn them to DVD. This is all script driven. You will have to modify these BAT (Batch) scripts for your own purposes.

Master Backup to DVD : Bk.bat

Backup files to zips, then burn the zips to DVD. Call this from the command line or from an elephant shortcut on the desktop.

Quick Backup to Zips : BkQ.bat

Quick Hot Backup files to zip, without burning the zips to DVD . Call this from the command line or from a butterfly shortcut on the desktop.

Pre-Backup File Cleaning : BkClean.bat

Get rid of junk files, tidy up generally in preparation for the backup.

Compress and Archive recently changed files to backup zips : BkToZips.bat

Update zip archives with recently changed data files using BackupToZip utility.

Burn Alternate 1. Burn zips to DVD with Nero Kwikmedia : BkBurnWithNero.bat

Burn zips updated in BkToZip step to DVD with the free Nero Kwikmedia. Requires keying into a GUI, so you must attend the backup.

Burn Alternate 2. Burn zips to DVD with JPSoft Take Command TCC (Take Command Command line) : BkBurnWithTCC.btm

Burn zips updated in BkToZip step to DVD with TCC. Runs unattended, but slow and efficient use of DVD space.

Burn Alternate 3. Burn zips to DVD with Cygwin/Cdrtools : BkBurnWithCdrtools.bat and BkBurnWithCdrtools.bsh

Burn zips updated in BkToZip step to DVD with Cdrtools. Runs unattended, but does not work.

Burn Alternate 4. Burn zips to Flash drive

Here is how I backup my crucial files to a 4 GB Kanguru AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encrypted USB (Universal Serial Bus) fob I can walk away with on a keychain.

Windup, post backup processing : BkWindup.bat

Reindex, defrag… or nothing

Those scripts are somewhat more elaborate than you strictly need, but it gives you an idea of the sort of things you might incorporate into your backup. They are realistic though. They are what I use myself.

You will want to modify those bat files, tune them and hook up launching icons for bk.bat and bkq.bat on the desktop.

Instructions For the Backup Operator

1. Click the butterfly icon  on the desktop to start the bkq.bat backup.
2. Go have a coffee.

1. Insert a blank DVD. It must have absolutely no fingerprints or scratches.
2. Click the elephant icon  on the desktop to start the bk.bat backup.
3. Be patient as BackupToZip finds files you have recently changed, added or deleted and compresses them and modifies the backup archive to keep it is sync.
4. When Nero starts, select data burning.
5. Adjust the title of the backup, usually containing today’s date.
6. Click add.
7. Click computer
8. Select the drive and directories containing the compressed archive zips you want to back up. Usually all the files in \bks.
9. Click burn.
10. When it is done, the DVD will pop out. Remove it.
11. Click exit
12. Be patient while the rest of the script runs, possibly to defrag your drives.

Awkward Filenames

Prior the version 1.3, BackupToZip would refuse to back up files with strange filenames, e.g. ones containing em-dashes (—) or ™ signs (technically ones with filenames not representable in the default character set.) Now it handles them. However, if you want to use the feature, you must delete the previously created *.zip files and start over. If you don’t do that, it will continue to behave as in version 1.2. This means your first back up will take much longer than usual, but after that will be the usual quickness.

Restoring From Backup

To restore, use any zip utility such as WinZip. e.g.

Icons

Why the worried elephant icon? The elephant is fabled never to forget. I wanted to remind everyone to remember to backup their files with BackupToZip and bk.bat.

The butterfly icon is to use with BackupToZip and qbk.bat, to suggest that the backup won’t last long until you do a full backup to hard disk.

You can get the two icons from FreeIconsDownload. They were created by VisualPharm.com.

Note the program is called BackupToZip not Backup2Exe, Back2Zip or BackupToZip… much as I would like to honour Michael J. Fox, a local boy who starred in Back to the Future.

Acquiring BackupToZip

Package	Version	Released	Licence	Language	Notes
BackupToZip	1.4	2011-03-26	free	Java	❘ precis ❘ manual ❘ screenshot ❘ browse source repository for the current version of BackupToZip. Backup a set of files to a compressed zip archive mirror, and quickly keep the backup up-to-date. 2,035K zip for BackupToZip Java source, compiled class files, jar and documentation to run on your own machine as an application. Runs on any OS that supports Java e.g. W2K/XP/W2003/Vista/W2008/W7-32/W7-64/W8-32/W8-64/Linux/LinuxARM/LinuxX86/LinuxX64/Ubuntu/Solaris/SolarisSPARC/SolarisSPARC64/SolarisX86/SolarisX64/OSX. First install the most recent Java. To install, extract the zip download with WinZip, (or similar unzip utility) into any directory you please, often J:\ — ticking off the use folder names option. To check out the corresponding source from the Subversion repository, use the TortoiseSVN repo-browser to access backuptozip source in repository with [Tortoise] Subversion client on wush.net/svn/mindprod/com/mindprod/backuptozip/. After you have installed the jar, you can run it as an application. Type: java -jar J:\com\mindprod\backuptozip\backuptozip.jar parms adjusting as necessary to account for where the jar file is. download ASP PAD XML program description for the current version of BackupToZip. BackupToZip is free. $1989.00 US donated so far. If the CMP utilities solved your problem, please donate a buck or two, or donate to one of the charities featured in the footer public service ads throughout the website and get a tax receipt. Full source included. You may even include the source code, modified or unmodified in free/commercial open source/proprietary programs that you write and distribute. Non-military use only.

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