Personal Backup © 2010, J. Rathlev, IEAP, Uni-Kiel

Vers. 5.0.5.0

Vers. 4.5.4.1

Version 5.0	Version 4.5	License	older Versions
FAQs	Translations	Online-Help	Help as PDF file

New in Version 5.0

Version 5.0 has the same features as the actual Version 4.5 but was created using Delphi 2009. This IDE has full Unicode support which will overcome the limitations to ANSI-Filenames (ISO-8859) on copying files. Also pathlengths may be longer than 260 characters.

The program package contains the following additional tools:

• PbPlaner: Create alternating backup schedules isung Windows Scheduled Tasks
• PbRestore: Restore single files from backup (also compressed and encrypted)
• CheckDrive:: Check if a drive or network resource is available.

The program at a glance

Personal-Backup is a program to save personal data to any destination folder. This folder may be located on a local fixed or removable drive, on a windows network server or on a FTP server. It runs under Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003/2008 and Windows 7 (32- and 64-Bit).
You can configure and store as many backup tasks as you want. The selecting of the files to backup is made on folder basis. All subfolders are included automatically. But the user can exclude ôr include any subdirectories from backup by selection or by filter. Additional criteria are the selection by file types, file age and/or file name filter.
At the destination folder the original drives (C:, D:, etc.) look like subdirectories named LwC, LwD, etc. The original directory structure remains unchanged beneath these folders. All files may be compressed using GZip or in total or separated by subfolders as Zip files. Optionally alls data can be encrypted by the AES algorithm.
Performing the backup can be done manually or automatically. During the backup the programm checks wether the file to be saved is newer than the backupped file or not. Only files with newer timestamps are saved. An alternate criteria is the archive bit of the files.
The automatic backup is started on login, at a selectable time of day, on logout or on shutdown (not under Vista). You can make a scheduled backup with dayly or weekly changing destination paths.
For individual schedules it is easy to start a backup using the windows task scheduler using the command line options of the program.

Note: Personal Backup cannot be used to save and restore system files.

• Restore of single files and from Zip files (single or folder separated)
• Selection dialog for files on restore or cleanup with folder tree and find function
• File preview on selecting or deselecting subfolders

• Wizard to create new backup tasks
• Unlimited number of configurable backups tasks
• Backup of complete directory structures
• Start backup on demand or run automatically
• Backup via FTP (opt. with proxy and FTPS (FTP over SSL))
• Backup options:
• Into single files:
• Copy files with or without data compression (GZip) using the original directory structure and drive replacement
• do. without drive replacement
• do. separated by root folders
• do. into one folder without root folder
• Into Zip files:
• One zip file (supports files > 4GB)
• One zip file per subfolder
• One zip file per root folder
• One zip file per subfolder without drive replacement
• Include or exclude selected sub directories
• Filter settings for filenames (opt. regular expressions), file attributes file age and file size
• Selection of file types
• Opt- encryption using AES (Zip-kompatible)
• Adjustable time gap for timestamp comparison
• Running of external programs or scripts before and after backup
• File preview to check filter settings
• Placeholders für date in target directory and Zip filename
• Optional log file with printout
• Optinal mail delivery after backup with status report and log (also TLS)
• Internal backup schedules:
• 8 individual configurable automatic tasks are supported at several times, on logon or logoff or once per week op logon
• Several types of alternating backups
• Wizard on using Windows scheduled Tasks for backups
• Extra tool PbPlaner to create and configure alternating backups using Windows Scheduled Tasks
• Comprehensive command line options to automate actions e.g. using the Windows task scheduler
• Automatic check for updates on starting the program
• Internal restore function of saved files:
• From backup into single files
• From backup in Zip files (single or separated by folders)
• Dialog to select the files for restore
• Restore using FTP connection
• Automatic decryption
• Extra tool PbRestore to restore single files (also compressed and encrypted)
• Function to delete files and directories:
• selected by filters and/or age
• Synchronise backup directories

Download Windows setup:

Vers. 5.0.5.0 released 3.9.2010

from Server at Uni-Kiel	from rathlev-home.de (4,75 MB)
Update as Zip file

Notes

Version 5 installs into a separate folder and uses its own directories for settings (ini file) and log.
Desktop and functions are identical to vers. 4.5. Enhancements are found in depth:

• Display file and directory names using other than ISO-8859 characters (e.g. greek or cyrillic)
• Backup such files as GZip and Zip
• Backup such files via FTP in case the server supports UTF-8
• Mail delivery in UTF-8 format
• Saving, restoring and deleting of files with path lengths > 260 Zeichen

More Informations

Languages: german, english, ukrainian (partial)

Translations:

• English and German: J. Rathlev
• Ukrainian: Andrey Demchenko

Some more details:

Compressing as GZip

The existing standard for the GZip format (RFC1952 von 1996) says that the filename is to be stored in the file header using the ISO-8859-1 character set. I could not find any recommendations how to handle Unicode filenames.

The actual Linux version of the program GZip used for creating and reading gz archives differs from the above standard and stores filenames in UTF-8 format. The OS byte in the header is set to 3 (Unix).

Personal Backup sets this byte in the path always to 0 (FAT) and saved the filename as ISO-8859-1. To be compatible with the former versions und also support Unicode two variants are used in Version 5:

• The filename only consists of characters containde in ISO-8859: OS = 0 (FAT) => Filename ist stored in ISO-8859-1
• The filename also contains other characters: OS = 11 (NTFS) => Filename ist stored in UTF-8

So we have the issue that other programs (like WinZip or WinRar) will detect the stored filename only with the first variant as correct. This has no effect on unpacking the files.

It would of cause be better to use the unused bit 5 of the FLG byte as criteria for the coding of the filename. The actual Zip format does it in this way (see below).

Creating Zip archives

The actual Zip format specification version: 6.3.2 from Sept. 2007 defines how to process Unicode filenames: if bit 11 of the "general purpose bit flag" is set filename and comment are in UTF-8 coding. Personal Backup uses this convention. Unfortunately only a few packers support this new format. I know about WinZip Vers. 12 and WinRar Vers. 3.80.

Passwords

All passwords for FTP, for SMTP as well as for AES encrytion have to be ISO-8859-1 coded.

Lenght of file paths

There are many places were Windows limits path lengths to 260 characters ( more infos). All applications using the Windows shell components, as the Explorer does, cannot process longer file paths.
In all cases Personal Backup uses these components (e.g. in the dialogs to select folders or files) this limitation is also valid for version 5.
Internal the program uses UNC paths (e.g. on copying files) which may have a maximum length of about 32000 characters. So it is possible to backup, restore and delete files with paths exceeding the above limit. But be aware that most of all file managers (including the Windows Explorer) will fail on scanning such a directory tree. A known file manager which supports long filenames is TotalCommander Vers. 7.5 .

Version 4.5

Version 4.5 works with all all actual Windows systems and Windows 98/ME. It supports only the west europian character set (ISO 8859) und pathname up to 260 characters.

Download Windows setup - Vers. (4.5.4.1) / 6.7.2010

from Server at Uni-Kiel	from rathlev-home.de (4,71 MB)
Update as Zip file

More Informations

Utility programs:
On saving data to removable drives (e.g. USB or CD burner) the backup is cancelled if the destination was not found. To prevent from this you can let Personal Backup start a utility program (Checkpath or CheckCD) to prompt the user to maintain the drive.
Another feature is to integrate Personal Backup into BartPE environment.

Download

Utilities

BartPE-Plugin

Besucher seit 9. Feb. 2007: