The research’s findings are worrying indeed.

• 74% of organisations are not very confident that they can fully recover after a disaster, according to a new survey of 1,750 European companies
• 54% surveyed have lost data and/or suffered systems downtime in the last year
• 61% report hardware failure as the primary cause of data loss and downtime;  natural disasters and employee sabotage being much less likely culprits
• 43% of organisations cite loss of employee productivity as the single biggest economic impact
• 28% point to lost revenue as a result of a disaster
• 40% of organisations still use tape for recovery and 80% of these organisations want to replace tape all together, highlighting the need for next generation backup and recovery

The fact that 74% of companies and organisations feel that they’re not prepared or equipped to properly recover data after an outage or disaster might be seen as very worrying for business overall.  We’ve all suffered data loss but the data losses suffered by business could affect us and them in many different ways.  They could lose customer orders, lose valuable employee details or details of current projects and so on.

The survey also details that more than half of the businesses and organisations surveyed said they had experienced data loss or systems downtime in the last year.  It’s common for companies to suffer from downtime and it’s a pity the research doesn’t go into more detail about what percentage of companies had actually experienced data loss, all we have is a corruption figure that in itself seems too high.

They say the most commonly reported causes of downtime are…

• Hardware failure: 61%
• Power failure: 42%
• Data corruption: 35%

One of the problems seems to be that 40% of the companies surveyed are still replying on tape for backup.  With the falling costs of hard disks and the increased bandwidth that dedicated phone lines can bring more and more companies are moving to secure and stable off-site backup solutions and indeed many business ISPs and server hosts now offer this facility as standard.  It is clear though that not enough companies are heeding the warnings of data loss and, more important of good security.

The research found that businesses are spending, on  average, 10% of their IT budgets on backup and recovery, and 29% of businesses  do not feel they are spending enough.   For backup and disaster recovery purposes, 40% of companies still rely  on tape, with an average annual cost of €74,000 on transporting, storing,  testing and replacing tapes. Where tape is used for disaster recovery purposes,  10% still have an employee take home a copy of the backup tapes with them.

The companies surveyed included manufacturing, retail, financial services and telecoms, among others and, frankly, it is disappointing that so many companies still seem unprepared for IT and data failures when computers have now been in business for over 30 years and have been on every desk for the vast majority of that time.

In this multi-part article I’m going to look at best-practice strategies for backing up your important files and documents.  I want to start with the home and begin this part by looking at some of the devices we now have our data stored on.  In years gone by it was just an Internet-connected PC on which you stored information.  Now however we have laptops, netbooks, tablets and smartphones.  All of these devices have personal data on them.

Now it’s not always easy to back data up on tablets and smartphones, though some services such as HP’s TouchPad do back your data up securely by default.  You can also get third-party backup software for these devices.  More often than not though you will find that the data on these devices is almost always duplicated elsewhere, such as in your email account.  It’s best in these cases then simply to make certain that these devices are protected by a secure password.  To create a secure password use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols and make the password at least eight, preferably ten or more, characters.

This leaves out desktops, laptops and netbooks.  Now these computers are most likely running either a version of Windows or Apple’s OS X.  Both operating systems are secure by default.  You should always make sure you have a strong password on any portable computer however and also preferably on a desktop PC.  This won’t stop someone getting at your data if they remove the hard disk, but it will make it difficult for the average thief.

Home users will commonly not have access to the encryption technologies available to business users with the Professional and Enterprise copies of operating systems such as Windows, so have to rely on passwords alone to keep their data secure.

With backups however it’s very easy and important to make sure that you have backups of all your files and data.  In previous years people have used CDs and DVDs to store backups.  I don’t recommend this any more.  These mediums are prone to data degradation over time and under certain conditions, such as heat or cold.  Hard disk technology has dropped in price considerably in the last few years however and a good-sized external hard disk can be bought for under $100.

Keeping regular backups (ie. settings either an automated backup solution using software such as Windows Backup or setting yourself an alarm reminder) once a month or maybe even more frequently is a fantastic routine to get into.  It doesn’t take much time or effort to make a backup once you have it running.

You might wonder though what you would do with this external hard disk once you have your backup?  After all, if you have a burglary or a house fire it too could be destroyed and surely an online backup service such as Mozy or Carbonite would be better.  If you don’t have a large file collection then online backups are excellent.  For everybody else though it can take months, or even longer to back up all your files online.  Also when it comes to restoring them should your computer be lost or damaged, can also take days or even weeks.

Thus my recommendation, while you can use this in concert with an online backup service, is to store this external hard disk somewhere secure but off site, away from your home.  Perhaps you can keep it with a family member or close friend.  Try to avoid the obvious locations where thieves may look, such as the back of the wardrobe.  Perhaps the bottom of the sideboard could be more hidden away.

Then once a month or so you can bring the hard disk back for a day or two, update the backup and send it away again.  This way, not only do you have a safe and secure backup, even safe from a house fire, you can also restore your files quickly should you need to.

In part two of this article series I’ll look at good backup strategies for small businesses.

Backup Folder Sync is a program that has been designed to mirror local backups. It is more of a file syncing software than a program to make backups of a Windows system.

Here is how it works. When you first start the program after installation you are asked to configure a job. The program displays all connected storage locations on the left sidebar of the application window. You select the backup folder with a right-click and exclude folders by holding down the Ctrl key before right-clicking.

You then have to select the destination that should store the backup mirrors. This can be another local drive, a removable drive, network shares or mapped drives. Since the program is primarily being used to mirror existing backups, it makes sense to store those backups on a remote computer or server.

It is possible to test the configuration with a click on Simulate to toggle that option and another on Backup. Backup Folder Sync will test the configuration and display a log with all file operations that would have taken place on a regular backup run.

The log lists all files, their size and location as well as a backup summary in the end. The summary informs the user about new files, files where the source files were newer, older or different and files and folders that were no longer available in the source folders (and thus deleted).

While the program’s main purpose is to mirror backup locations, it can theoretically be used to sync any kind of data. It uses robocopy for data transfers.

The program lacks an option to schedule jobs which is the biggest shortcoming. Windows users who want to automate the mirror creation cannot use the program to do so.

Backup Folder Sync is available for download at the developer website. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 to be installed on the system.

A file synchronization alternative with scheduler is the open source software Free File Sync.

Download GFI Backup Free Edition from this link.

With GFI Backup 2011, you can back up essential documents, pictures and videos, music, e-mails, and program settings. This is all done through a user friendly GUI. It will backup data to local and external drives, CD/DVD, remote FTP servers, and other removable devices.

To use the Freeware version, during setup you will have to check the circle next to “Freeware” and then click Next. Then you will have to agree to the terms and conditions which include agreeing that you will not use this version for commercial use. You will enter your Username, password, and Domain. If your computer is on a Workgroup, you do not need to enter the Domain.

GFI Backup uses two GUIs. The first, pictured in the above screenshot, is the GFI Backup Agent. This is for standard backups and is fairly easy to use. For advanced network backups, you can use the Administrative Console, the second GUI feature. For this demonstration, the Agent will be used.

Click on New Backup to get started.

You can provide a name for the backup in the “Backup Task Name” box. By default, the backup will be named “MyBackup 1 (2, 3, etc.)” You can leave the default name or make up your own. There is an option to enter a description of the task and group related tasks. For basic purposes, leave these fields blank unless you need a description attached. Click Next to move on to the next step.

Now you select the source. You can backup Files and Folders, Registry Keys, and Email. Files and Folders are selected here. This will allow you to specify which files and folders on any given disk(s) for backup. Click OK and Next to move on to selecting the destination.

If you do not know the destination path of your external hard drive, you can find it on Computer in the Control Panel. In this case, it is drive (M:). Next you will choose your options and then scheduling. You may run it only once or schedule it for regular intervals. In the Events panel, you should probably leave the default settings. Click Next and the backup begins.

Depending on the size and number of files and drives selected, the duration of the backup varies. You should minimize the window and complete other tasks or go take a long break because it is going to take awhile. Now you don’t have to worry, your files are being safely backed up.

So how do you back up the drivers in your Windows installation and how can you use these?  In all versions of Windows the drivers are stored in the C:\Windows\System32 folder in the sub-folders Drivers, DriverStore and if your installation has one, DRVSTORE.  These folders contain all the hardware drivers for your operating system.  In the folder location, C represents the drive on which you have Windows installed, this may be a different letter on your system.

You can simply copy these folders out to seperate storage (DO NOT MOVE THEM) such as an external USB drive or Pen Drive.  When time comes to reinstall the drivers you can copy the folders back.

Now there are a couple of ways to reinstall the drivers.  The easiest way is to simply restart the PC when the driver folders have been copied back to see if Windows automatically detects drivers for uninstalled hardware.  This is possible, but won’t be the case for all your hardware.

To install drivers for the missing hardware you need to open the Device Manager.  You can do this by typing Device Manager into the search box in the Start Menu.  You will see all your uninstalled drivers highlighted with a small yellow warning triangle icon.  You need to Right-Click on each one and select Update Driver.  Because the correct drivers are already in the drivers folders on your computer, telling Windows to find the drivers automatically should always install the correct one.  You may however, in some cases, have to tell the Device Manager which folder to look for.  You can either point it directly to one of the two drivers folders, or just at the System32 folder; making sure you tick the box “include subfolders”.

There is an important caveat with this.  The drivers for 64 bit (x64) and 32 bit (x86) versions of Windows are usually different.  This means that if you copy x86 drivers into an x64 copy of Windows; or vice-versa, they will not install.  Windows will recognise them as being incorrect.  You cannot use this method therefore when migrating your system from the 32-bit version of Windows to the 64-bit version when, for example, adding more memory to your PC.

You CAN use this method to migrate drivers between Windows Vista and Windows 7 (and back again) as both operating system share the same driver model, but again not between x86 and x64 builds.  You CAN’T use this to migrate Windows XP drivers to Vista or Windows 7 however as Windows XP uses an older driver model and the hardware drivers for XP are not compatible with the newer versions of Windows.

If you know the old version you won’t see huge differences interface wise. The interface actually looks almost exactly like it looked in version 2. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering that you can reach every program feature with a click or two.

When you start the program it opens with the Home screen, which links to several of the most popular backup options. Here you can create a system or file backup, clone a disk or open backup management to configure backup parameters and schedules.

Easeus Todo Backup Free 3.0 supports three different backup options. You can use the application to create a disk and partition backup, a file backup or a system backup. It is now possible to backup dynamic volumes in addition to a full hard drive, partition, individual files or an operating system.

The backup software comes with several features that you would not necessarily expect from a free program, like the ability to clone a partition, to backup network data or mounting backups as a virtual partition to explore it and access files. You can also check the integrity of existing backup files easily from within the application.

One of the biggest new features of version 3 of Easeus Todo Backup Free is the ability to create incremental and differential backups. Incremental backups only backup changed files which saves time and storage space. Differential backups on the other hand only backup files that have changed since the last backup.

The first thing that you may want to do after installing the software is to create an emergency disk. You can use that disk to recover a system in case it is not longer booting or responding. Bootable disks can be created on an USB drive, CD or DVD media, and exported as an ISO image for later burning.

Once you have done that you can start backing up data on your system. Disk, partition and system backups are only possible if you have enough free storage space on a different local or network drive. I recommend an external hard drive with enough storage for that, but the choice is yours.

File backup on the other hand may not require as much storage space. The backup program suggests some often used locations for backup, like the My Documents folder structure or the desktop. You can switch to a file types selection backup to only backup certain types of files like financial files, emails or documents.

While it is possible to add file extensions to those groups, it is not possible to create your own custom group which seems to be a shortcoming.

The free version lacks features that the commercial backup versions offer. It is for instance not possible to backup SQL databases or Exchange data, or to select tape as the backup location. The free version furthermore does not support Windows Server.

Easeus Todo Backup Free 3.0 is regardless of that an advanced backup solution for home computer owners who want a more sophisticated program than the default backup that the Windows operating system offers. You can download the latest version of the free backup software from the official product homepage.

There’s a lot of software out there that can be used to backup files to an external hard drive, or even to the cloud. But did you know that Windows 7 actually has some pretty sophisticated backup software built in? It can be used to make a single backup, or to regularly backup your files to keep your archive up to date.

You can backup to either a portable hard drive, to USB flash drives or to CDs or DVDs. The most popular method is to backup to a portable hard drive, as these are very cheap and can be easily connected and carried around. Portable drives are also very useful if you want to keep an off-site backup of your data.

You can find the options to backup your computer’s files from the control panel. Simply click on “start”, and then “control panel” and then find the option to backup your computer under the heading of “system and security”. You’ll be taken to a screen where you can set up a new backup or restore files if you already have an archive. You’ll need to be a computer administrator to do this, as you’ll see by the shield icon next to the link called “set up backup”. Clicking on this will start a wizard where you can set the parameters of your backup job.

You’ll need to select the device you want to use to hold your backups. Plug in a portable hard drive of suitable size to hold all the files you want to archive. The wizard will tell you the size of your drive, and the amount of free space you have on it.

On the next screen you can choose whether to manually select the files you want to backup, or let Windows 7 decide for you. If you have specific files and folders you want to backup, then do it manually but in most cases the automatic selection will work best. Click on next, and now you can see a summary of your selections. You also have the option here to set up a schedule for backups. A weekly backup is usually good enough, but if you are a heavy computer user then maybe select a daily backup.

You should now save your settings by clicking on the button to end the wizard. Congratulations, you’ve set up a backup job on your computer. All you need to do now is wait until the time you selected on your schedule, or you can click on the button “back up now” to start immediately.

One solution is to have more than one backup disk. The more disks you have, the better protected you’ll be. With portable disk drives so cheap and easily available, it’s possible to have one backup disk for every day of the week. Label them up with that days Monday through to Sunday, and do a full backup onto each of them. After that, you can do an incremental backup each day, and you’ll effectively have seven backups of your hard-drive. So if one backup fails, you have six more to rely on. The chances of even two of your backups failing are remote, let alone seven. In fact, the odds of that happening are astronomical.

However, have you considered what would happen if your house were broken into or you suffer some kind of damage such as a fire? In these situations you could easily lose your computer and all your backups at the same time. In many cases, the data you own is much more valuable than the hardware, so you should make a plan to keep the data safe at all times. The best way to do this is to have a copy of your data offsite. If you work in an office, you could consider taking a backup disk to work with you. A simple rotation system would mean that you have a copy of your most recent data kept in your desk draw at work. You take a new disk with you one day, and bring home the old one. The chances of both your home and your office burning down or being broken into at the same time is just as remote as all your backups being damages. In addition, you’ll usually have a disk with you in transit, so at any one time you’ll actually have your data in three different places.

Other options include backing up your data to an online service. This can be just as costly as buying disks, and depending on the amount of data could take a very long time to upload and download, especially if you have movie files you want to protect.

You’ll also want to consider using encryption on your disks if you’re leaving personal data on your backups, especially in an unattended office overnight. There are many free programs such as Truecrypt that you can use to encrypt your data backups on the fly, to automatically protect your data.

First, a quick review of creating a hard drive partition is demonstrated. To begin, go to Start > Right-click Computer > Manage. Or, enter computer into the run and search box and select Computer Management from the available options.

Click on Storage > Disk Management. Choose the drive that you want to partition. In this example, there is only one hard drive to choose. It is a 1TB hard drive with an NTFS files system and plenty of space to allow for a significant partition if necessary.

Here, the amount of shrink space entered is 100,000 MB, or 100 GB. This is a decent size for a VHD and it can be altered in the future. Click Shrink when done.

Select this unallocated space and right-click and choose New Simple Volume. The setup Wizard will appear. Follow the steps and fill in the partition size. You should see the VHD listed when you double-click Computer. In this example, it is named “Archive”.

Now that the VHD image has been created and named, the next step is to choose the data to backup. You may drag and drop as many files as the space will allow. With a partition of this size, a large amount of data can be stored over time. The computer used in this example shares data with other PCs on a remote network. Using Windows 7 Backup and Restore, you can backup all data on the PC easily and save yourself the trouble of dragging and dropping.

Backup to Virtual Hard Drive

To use the new VHD for a complete Backup and Restore, follow these steps:

Open the Control Panel and choose System and Security. Click “Back up your computer”. You will then see this option:

Select Options in the Check backup settings then click Change Backup Settings and you will see this window representing all drives. Select the new VHD as the backup Volume by clicking on it and then click Next.

Notice that Windows 7 warns that this drive is on the physical disk as your system drive. This warning is there because this is not the ideal space for a final backup. It is rather easy to transfer the data from the VHD to an external hard drive at a later time as often as needed.

To select specific documents, rather than a full backup, highlight “Let me choose”. To allow a full backup, highlight “Let Windows choose”.

You can set a schedule for the backup to occur at regular intervals but always be sure to make a final backup on an external hard drive. On a network this is particularly useful. You can, for example, backup a shared network folder on a weekly basis and ensure that shared network files are continually backed up. Set it any way you like.

Today while starting up JDownloader I noticed a strange behavior. The program prompted to pick a language first, and then showed up with an empty download queue. That was unfortunate since I had some downloads left in the queue from the other day.

I first thought that I had just installed a second instance of JDownloader, but discovered a moment later that the new installation seemed to have overwritten the database file containing the file download queue.

I knew that JDownloader was creating backups of the database in regular intervals. I checked the backup folder of the JDownloader program folder to find out that the program had saved more than a dozen database backups in the past months.

This was interesting in itself as it can be seen as a privacy issue by some users as it is possible to restore the download queue with the help of the backups.

The last database backup file is database.zip. To restore it you need to do the following. Quit the JDownloader program. Make sure it is completely terminated and not sitting minimized in the system tray.

Open the database.zip file and extract the contents (database.properties and database.script) to the main JDownloader/config/ directory. Replace the two database files listed there.

This restores the download queue. You may still be missing a few downloads though depending on the time and day the last backup was created by the file downloader. In my case, the last backup had been created four days ago which meant that I lost a few file downloads that I added after that date.

The free backup software Duplicati offers all of this, and then some more. The program displays a backup setup wizard automatically after installation. The wizard walks the user through the process of creating the first backup job.

It begins with the selection of a name and the folders and files that should be included in the backup. Duplicati suggests several common Windows folder out of the box, My Documents, My Music or all desktop files for instance (if Windows is the operating system of choice. The program is also available for Linux) Users who store their data elsewhere can add custom paths to the backup easily in the same step.

The space requirements are displayed on screen, and re-calculated whenever folders are added or removed by the user.

Backups can be protected with a password. The default encryption is a built-in AES 256 bit encryption algorithm with the possibility to switch to the GNU Privacy Guard for protecting the backup data. GPG is a free alternative to the popular PGP.

The backup destination is configured in the next step. And this is where Duplicati shines. Available are local and remote backup locations. From Amazon S3 and CloudFiles over WebDAV based, SSH based to plain ftp backups and local folder backups. It is all there and easily configurable.

It is necessary to enter a path, and if a remote backup location has been selected authentication to complete this step.

The last step displays several advanced options, allowing the user to schedule backups, configure rules when to remove older backups, size and bandwidth limits or filters to include or exclude files from the backup.

The backup can be started right after the setup wizard or at a later time.

Most backup settings can be configured for all jobs directly in the program options. Here it is possible to set an encryption method and password, authentication settings for Amazon S3, SSH and other services or the system’s GPG path.

It is possible to change settings and configure new backup jobs even while a backup is running in the background.

Backups can be restored at any point in time, but only by running the software program and selecting the data restore option.

Duplicati is an easy to setup backup program for the Windows operating system and Linux. Is there anything that is missing or a feature that could be improved? Well, it would be great if advanced users could configure backups on one page to speed things up. For now, it is only possible to use the wizard to create backup jobs. A missing feature is the ability to backup hard drives or partitions. Another feature that is missing is an option to restore backups externally.

Windows and Linux users who are looking for a lightweight, highly configurable backup software should download Duplicati for a test ride. The program is compatible with all recent versions of the Windows operating system.

It is really appalling to me that this is still happening.  After all, the focus of your PC has for too long appeared to be Windows itself, but it just isn’t.  The main focus of your PC is your files and documents surely!

Windows is designed to be installed on single disk systems, it’s always been that way.  You install Windows onto your C: drive and a folder will be created for your files.  Your ‘personal’ folders will automatically be stored there (Documents, Pictures, Music and the like) and any new files you copy over to your PC will be put there.

The problem is that as and when something goes wrong with Windows, which is inevitable eventually, you risk losing all your files and data if you don’t keep regular backups.  I get emails from people all the time asking for help with this and how they can get their data back, or at least not lose it to begin with.

Now you’re probably saying at this point that people should always keep regular backups of their data, and you won’t get any argument from me.  It’s not always that simple though, especially if you have a lot of critical files that change regularly.  There are also personal, financial or other circumstances that mean people won’t have regular backups or backups at all.  Let’s not forget that while Windows 7 might nag you to back up your files, millions of people are still using Windows XP and Vista which don’t, and most of those people and the people using Windows 7 aren’t technically minded and may not even know what this means.

This should therefore mean that Microsoft need to guide people and help them to keep their files and data safe.  They’ve made precious little progress here in the last decade though, having only added the ability with Windows Vista to cut and paste your ‘user folders’ to another location easily.  There’s no indication you can actually do this however, no help on the matter and no nagging from the Windows 7 Action Centre to remind you to do so.

With Windows 8 I’m beginning to feel the gloom setting in that nothing more will change.  What we desperately need is one of the following two scenarios but I’m doubtful somehow that either will happen.

Scenario 1 : Separation at Installation- It wouldn’t be too difficult for the Windows installer to ask you, when times comes to install Windows.  “Do you want to install Windows and your user files onto this 1Tb hard disk in your computer or would you like to separate them”, before going onto explain why seperating them is a good idea.

The installer could then do one of the following, ask what you want to use your computer for (light use, music and photos, work, gaming) and create two partitions of recommended size.  Alternatively it could split the hard drive by proportion, 50/50, 30/70 and so on or finally it could ask you what size you want the two partitions to be and make recommendations to you.

All of these options would be simple enough for people to understand and it would be easy and simple for the Windows installer, on a clean install anyway, to do this for you.

Scenario 2 : Separation after Installation – Windows already has the ability to grow and shrink partitions.  Why doesn’t it suggest to you after you install it through an Action Centre message that “You can greatly decrease the chances of losing files and data by moving them away from Windows, would you like to do this now?”

Here there would again be several options.  It could shrink the current Windows Partition and then move the user folders for you.  Alternatively, if you have a separate hard disk it could simply move the user files there.  It’s easy for Windows to determine what is internal and external storage so this wouldn’t be at all difficult.  This would also mean that if you’re reinstalling and have already moved the folders in the past, the pointers will be updated in Windows to where you’ve put them.

Are either of these scenarios likely to happen though?  Moving your files and folders away from your Windows installation is something I feel very strongly about and it’s something I write about at some length in my book Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out. 

There are ways to make sure you don’t ever lose your files and data (unsurprisingly I write about those as well, and will write additional articles on the subject here in the coming weeks) but in the mean time keep the emails coming to mike@MVPs.org.

As far as backup is concerned, there are differences between first party games created by Valve and third party games that are distributed via Steam.

You can backup any game on Steam by right-clicking on the game in the Steam library and selecting backup game files from the context menu.

Please note that you can only backup games that are currently installed. Games that you own but are not installed will not be available for backup.

Steam displays a backup and restore games window where additional installed games can be added to the backup. Once you have selected all games, you have to select a location for the backups. Steam displays the space requirements and available disk space here. Make sure there is enough backup space on the drive.

Steam offers to split the file size of the backup so that it can be stored on CDs or DVDs. It is also possible to select a custom maximum file size, good for users who want to burn the data on Blu-Ray or move it to other storage devices with space restrictions.

Steam will then show a backup progress bar. It is possible to open the folder that contains the backup in the end.

To restore game files, you need to select Backup and Restore games from the Steam menu at the top. Select Restore a previous backup there and select the location on the computer that contains the backups.

Please note that backups will not include save games. For Valve games, custom multiplayer maps and configuration files will also not be included in the backup. You need to create manual copies of those files. You find Valve custom game contents in the following locations:

\Steam\SteamApps\\\\ :

The following folders contain custom game contents:

• /cfg/ – Custom configurations and configuration scripts
• /downloads/ – Custom content for multiplayer games
• /maps/ – Custom maps which have been installed or downloaded during multiplayer games
• /materials/ – Custom textures and skins
• /SAVE/ – Single-player saved games

An official thread on the Steam forum highlights save locations for third party games.

User IDs
[USERNAME] — The name of the Windows account you use on your computer
[STEAMNAME] — The name of your Steam account
[STEAMID] — A numerical identifier for your Steam account

Steam-specific locations
[STEAMPATH] — The default location where Steam is installed
Windows 32-bit: C:\Program Files\Steam\
Windows 64-bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\

[STEAMAPPS] — The default location for Steam Games
All versions: [STEAMPATH]\steamapps\

[STEAMCLOUD] — Files that synchronize with the Steam Cloud
All versions: [STEAMPATH]\userdata\[STEAMID]\

General Windows locations
[DOCUMENTS] — The default location for the “My Documents” shell folder/library
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\My Documents\
Windows Vista: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\

[APPDATA] — The default location for standard application settings
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Application Data\
Windows Vista: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\

[LOCAL] — The default location for system-specific application settings
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\
Windows Vista: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\

[PUBLICDATA] — The default location for cross-user application settings
Windows XP: C:\Documents and settings\All Users\Application Data\
Windows Vista: C:\ProgramData\

[PUBLIC] — The default location for cross-user system settings
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\
Windows Vista: C:\Users\Public\

[SAVEDGAMES] — The Windows Vista default Saved Games folder
Windows Vista: C:\Users\[DOCUMENTS]\Saved Games\

You can also take a look at the official support Knowledgebase article that contains further information about backing up and restoring Steam games.

Refresh PC is a free program for Windows that adds a similar restoration option to current Microsoft operating systems. The freeware is not restoring the whole system like Windows 8′s feature, but only select parts of it.

Refresh PC offers to restore all Registry settings and system services to their default state. Say you have used Windows tweakers or manual editing of the Registry. Later you found out that the settings caused problems that you cannot seem to fix anymore. Another example would be a virus attack or other malicious code that changed system settings. And while you managed to clean the malware from your system, you do not know which Registry settings you need to change to restore the system to its previous state.

That’s where RefreshPc offers to help as it can reset those settings when you run it.

You need to install the program after you have downloaded it. The program recommends to create a System Restore point when you run it which you should create unless you are using other means of backup. Just make sure you have a backup in reach in case you need to restore your system.

The program detects your operating system and version on startup, and displays the information in the program interface.

The interface itself has only one button that will restore the settings to their factory defaults when activated.

RefreshPC restores the Registry settings and system services, and cleans the temp folders and prefetch files at the same time. There is no option to select only some of the options. When you press the button, all actions are carried out.

Refreshing the system services will restore the services to their initial values. The Registry refresh requires some explanation. The program will only reset Registry settings that ship with Windows. It will not reset keys that have been added by third party installations.

RefreshPC can be a handy tool if other means of restoration like using system restore or backups have not been successful. The program can only be used if it is possible to boot into the Windows installation, which limits its reach somewhat. An option to only select some of the refresh options in the interface would be handy as well.

The application is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system, from Windows XP to Windows 7. It can be downloaded from the developer website.

The basic concept of the service has not changed at all, and I suggest you take a look at our initial AVG LiveKive review for a detailed feature walk through.

Only that much here: LiveKive is only available for Windows and Macintosh, which is the biggest limitation at this point in time. Windows or Mac only users should not have a problem with it but if you want to access and backup data from your Linux box or a mobile device then you cannot really use LiveKive for that.

The first 5 Gigabytes appear to be still free for everyone, even new users who sign up for the service now after the launch of the backup service.

Options to upgrade the account are presented to you in the account options after you have signed in on the LiveKive website.

You can increase the storage space to 25, 50 or unlimited Gigabytes at the moment. The unlimited option is a promotional subscription right now which will not be available forever. Prices for an upgrade are $49.99, $59.99 or $79.99 per year. Keep n mind that you only get 20 or 45 additional Gigabytes in the first two subscription plans.

If you compare the pricing with other online backup services such as Amazon CloudDrive, Dropbox or Sugarsync you will come to the conclusion that the 25 Gigabyte price is a bit on the high side, the 50 Gigabyte price about right and the unlimited price a bargain if you look only at the per Gigabyte pricing.

I have made a small chart that visualizes the storage costs at several popular online backup services (all prices per year)

The unlimited deal is a lot cheaper than the top of the line products offered by Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive or SugarSync. But there is a catch. If you open the Terms of Service you read under g) Fair Usage Policy.

The vast majority of AVG’s customers (that is more than 95%) of this online backup facility will not use the Services excessively. AVG will determine from time to time what is deemed excessive usage in relation to typical uses of the Services. Currently the usage range per customer is estimated well below 500GB of online storage space. This estimate is subject to periodic review based on future consumer behaviour and usage of the Services, and if amended, will be posted on the relevant AVG product specific webpage. In the event you chose an unlimited storage option for the AVG Paid Services, your usage of the Services if in excess of 500GB may at AVG’s sole discretion be subject to additional usage fees..

You effectively get 500 Gigabytes. After that it is up to AVG, they may charge you $15 for every 10 Gigabytes in exceed of that figure. (via)

AVG reserves the right to apply additional charges for your excessive usage of the AVG Paid Services which amounts to (the equivalent of) 15 USD per annum per 10 GB pro-rated for each month of excessive usage and/or to apply a Restriction.

It is not only about how much you can store online, but also about other factors like reliability, the software or speed.

New users who are not sure if LiveLive is the right service for them should sign up for a free account first to play around with the backup interface and service.

Generally speaking, you have three different situations that you need to be prepared for: Corrupt or overwritten headers, data loss on the hard drive and forgetting the True Crypt password.

A few years ago a friend of mine accidentally quick formatted a True Crypt encrypted partition on his computer which had the consequence that all data on the disk became inaccessible since he did not have a backup header.

To avoid those horror scenarios, backups are important. Here is what you can do to prepare for True Crypt emergencies:

True Crypt Password

If you forget the password, the data on the True Crypt volume becomes inaccessible. You have two options here to avoid this worst case scenario. You can either write down your password in a secure location, or create a backup header with a different, basic password. Both options are not ideal as it gives attackers more options to discover the password.

After you create a volume, back up its header to a file (select Tools -> Backup Volume Header) before you allow a non-admin user to use the volume. Note that the volume header (which is encrypted with a header key derived from a password/keyfile) contains the master key with which the volume is encrypted. Then ask the user to choose a password, and set it for him/her (Volumes -> Change Volume Password)

It is generally not advised to create a second header with a different weaker password for emergencies. You could write down the password and store it in a safe location, for instance at your parent’s house or a friend’s house.

Backing Up True Crypt Headers

True Crypt headers can be backed up and restored. This is important if the partition header becomes corrupt or is changed by malicious code or tools like format that modify the header. A click on Tools in the main True Crypt application window displays the options to backup and restore the True Crypt header.

The header is worthless without the password, keep that in mind. To Backup the header select Tools > Backup Volume Header after selecting an unmounted True Crypt volume (via Select File or Select Device). The Restore Volume Header function works in a similar fashion.

Backup data on a True Crypt volume

The third and final preparation is to backup the data that is stored on a True Crypt volume. True Crypt volumes are affected by hard disk failures just like any other storage device. You should therefor back up important data regularly. Since the data is encrypted, it is recommended to back up the data on another encrypted volume.

The suggested way is to create another encrypted True Crypt volume that matches or exceeds the size of the original volume. You then mount both volumes and copy the data from the old volume to the new volume. It is highly suggested that the new volume is located on another drive, local or network, or backup up on backup media like external hard drives, optical discs or the cloud / ftp servers.

The True Crypt documentation contains a guide on how to backup both standard True Crypt volumes and system volumes.

Closing Words

These three steps ensure that you can restore data or the full True Crypt volume in case of corruption or hard drive failures. Anything to add? Let me know in the comments.

AVG announced the LiveKive service in February and promised that a beta would soon follow. The beta has just started and everyone who participates gets 5 Gigabytes of free online storage for a year.

The LiveKive beta is limited, and places are served on a first come first serve basis. You can head over to the beta signup page right now to grab your spot before someone else does.

The beta runs under the codename AVG AirSpace. Users need to register a free account over at the beta signup page after filling out a small survey about online backups. The software client is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, sorry no Linux or Mac support in the beta.

AVG LiveKive Review

Installation of the 16 Megabyte setup file is straightforward and requires no user interaction. A setup assistant is launched after installation. Here it is necessary to enter the email address and password that was used to register the beta account at the AVG website

and enter a name for the PC or device the software is running on

It is optionally possible to click on Data Encryption Settings to create a custom passphrase for the application. AVG LiveKive will create one otherwise automatically.

The main application interface divides information on five pages and subpages that can be reached via tabs at the top.

The status tab displays backup, sync and share activities, queued files, actions that are currently performed, a log and statistics.

The backup tab suggests five pre-defined categories that can be backed up. The categories are desktop, documents, movies, music and pictures, all part of the my documents folder structure.

A click on advanced displays the computer’s folder structure with options to select additional folders and files for backup. A search is provided to find specific files or folders, and a switch to display hidden files and folders as well in the file browser.

The View Restore tab displays all backed up files and folders with options to download or restore selected files or folders. Files and folders are restored by selecting them first in the browser, and clicking on the Download icon afterwards. This opens the page below with options to download or restore the selected files and folders.

The sync tab offers configuration options to synchronize files and folders between different folders. The folders can be located on the same local computer, for instance an internal hard drive and external drive, or two different computer systems.

Data synchronization is setup in four steps: You select a name and optional description in step one. The two folders are selected in the next step. Only folders that have been added to the backup process can be synced. The interface lists all folders and the devices that have been setup for backup.

Files that should not be synchronized are added in the third step. You can add file names and extensions that should not be synchronized. The last step displays a verification of the settings. A click on Start Sync synchronizes the selected folders for the first time. Synchronizations can be scheduled in the status or options.

Share finally can be used to share files and folders with friends, colleagues or business clients. Individual share links can for instance be created in the View / Restore tab.

You can also create a publicly accessible, protected, url that you can use to share data. To do that you need to define a name, password and share folder that is then accessible via a newly generated url. Users can then access the files online if they have the right password.

Users with permission are then able to download folders and all files within, or individual files from the shared space. The owner of the files can change the password at anytime, and delete the share if it is no longer needed.

The preferences contain several interesting options. It is possible to define file size and age limitations, exclude files or folders with wildcards, schedule backups, syncing and sharing of files and configure network settings.

A local copy of data that is backed up can be saved by AVG LiveLive automatically. The local data is prioritized whenever files or folders need to be restored. This improves the speed of large restorations, and can also be beneficial if no Internet connection is available, or if the AVG servers are not reachable. The local copy of the backup needs to be activated in the Copy preferences.

Data that is exchanged with the help of the backup program is encrypted from start to finish, from the user’s computer to the AVG server and the other way round. Data on the AVG server remains encrypted so that no one can access the data on the server without the password.

AVG LiveKive In Short

AVG LiveKive is a file backup, synchronization and sharing solution in the cloud that is currently in beta. Beta users get 5 Gigabytes of free storage space for a year, and can install the software on PCs that run Microsoft Windows.

All activities can be scheduled to run regularly from the Status tab or the Schedule preferences in the program options.

Beta Verdict

No word yet on the pricing. The Get More Space button in the interface leads to a non-existing page on the AVG website. It is apparently not possible to save more than 5 Gigabytes of data in the beta.

The application is a bit slow reaction-wise sometimes. It happens that a click takes a few seconds to process. Not all the time but sometimes. This is likely a beta quirk that will be resolved in the final product.

AVG LiveKive adds a few interesting ideas to the online backup world. Especially the option to store a local copy of the backup is interesting as it offers several advantages and a fallback option. The developers should add the option to create custom categories, Windows Explorer integration, support for other operating systems and devices, and easier options to access backed up files.

The pricing, and the availability of a free account, are the two factors that make or break the product. Users who are experiencing problems should take a look at a sticky post in the AVG LiveKive support forum which lists several issues and fixes.

The only viable solution is to backup the data and move it to another location, either in the cloud or another local storage device like an USB key, preferably encrypted.

SourceBackup is a free software for the Microsoft Windows operating system that has been designed for the specific purpose of backing up source code files. It comes with a few extras that most conventional backup solutions do not offer, more about that later in the review.

So what is the developers intention?

This utility was created to quickly back up source code files to a single archive (zip file) and copy/move them to another computer or simply to archive them.

The program has been specifically designed to work with Visual Studio, but it offers enough customization options to make it compatible with other editors or source code directories.

The main interface displays the core options. Root folder points to the folder the source code is stored in, zip file to the backup name and folder. This will always be placed in the same folder as the source code. Filter finally offers to backup only select file types and not everything that is stored in the selected root folder. Directories will always be backed up and do not need to be specified directly.

The filter pulldown menu can be used to add file filters to the backup process to only include select file types in the backup. The backup software is configured to backup all files, a default filter has been added by the developer to only backup Visual Studio related files. New filters are easily added with a click on the edit button next to the filter selector.

Here it is possible to specify file types that should be included and excluded in the backup.

The three optional items beneath the root folder path are used to append the data to the file name of the backup zip file, show files in the log that have been ignored by the application, and to filter out bin and obj directories automatically.

Users can select to copy or move the created backup after the process finished. Options are available under Progress in the main interface.

A click on the back up button creates the source code backup of the selected root folder based on the filter. The show ignored files option displays all ignored files in red in the log window, which can be used to identify files that have not been included in the backup.

Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 users can register the backup software in External Tools to optimize the workflow.

Source Backup is a free software for the Windows operating system. It requires the Microsoft .NET Framework, and should run under all versions of Windows that are compatible with the Framework. It was tested on a 64-bit Windows 7 Professional system.

BigCloud Archives is a free file archiving and backup solution for Windows, Linux and Macintosh. The developers call it a digital preservation system.

The application combines file archiving, including tagging and categorization with a powerful search and backup capabilities.

The frontend needs getting used to time as it is not as intuitive as it could be. A password needs to be selected on first startup which will be used to encrypt the archive and protect the information from third party access.

Files are grouped into archives of which multiple can be open in tabs at the same time. A new archive is defined by its title, which is the name, and the archive storage location. Each archive starts with zero files and it is up to the user to add files from the local directory or urls.

It is possible to import individual files or folders and all the files they contain. The file import offers a filtering system to improve file identification and decrease the time it takes to import all relevant files.

The application creates file groups automatically. Files are for instance sorted by file path, file type, date of creation or tags. A sidebar on the left offers direct access to all available groups.

Files are displayed with thumbnails, if available, and other information. Filtering options on top can be used to sort files in a different way. It is for instance possible to sort the files by size or date. Images can furthermore be displayed individually or as a slideshow.

Tags are added from the right sidebar after files have been selected. A search on top and another selection menu complete the available options.

Files that are added are analysed by the application before they are shown in the interface.

The archiving software supports the creation of local or remote file backups. The developers are offering a commercial cloud based option to share, sync and backup online. This option is however completely optional.

Take a look at the instructional video below for additional information about the program.

The program offers interesting features to manage and archive files. File import and the time it takes to analyse files are two areas where the program needs improvement.

Bigcloud Archives can be downloaded directly from the developer website.

EASEUS Todo Backup Home 2.0 is a new version of the free backup software. The application supports the creating of disk and partition images to backup an entire hard disk or a partition of it. Besides that it is also possible to backup specific files or folders only. Both options have their advantages. A disk and partition image for instance ensures that everything can be restored, a file and folder backup on the other hand requires less space on the backup drive, disc or server.

A new feature in version 2 is the ability to create incremental backups which saves space and time on consecutive backups as only changed files and folders will be processed in the backup. A scheduler has been added in the new version as well which can be used to schedule backups to run at a specific interval or system event.

The backup app displays four options on startup which all lead to additional screens. Backup and Recovery lead to options allowing the user to create backups or recover previously created backups. The scheduler can be used to configure a regular backup plan and clone offers to create an exact copy of a hard drive or partition.

Backups can be stored on the local computer, the computer network or an ftp server that needs to be configured in the options.

Several tools are available, for instance to create a bootable media builder which can be used to restore data if the operating system is not loading anymore or an image integrity checker to verify that the backup has not been modified or become corrupt.

There is also a new backup management option to manage all previously created backups more easily.

EASEUS Todo Backup Home 2.0 is a handy intuitive backup software for the Windows operating system. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows and available for download at the developer website.

Update: Easeus Todo Backup Free 3.0 has been released. You can check out the new review here on Ghacks.