Additional options are available to save the complete My Documents folder in one backup plan and to save Web Settings which will essentially save Firefox and Internet Explorer cookies and user data. Those predefined backup plans are great for inexperienced users who don’t feel like configuring a backup software.

Custom backup plans can be added which offer two additional options. The first is to create a backup plan for specific folders, partitions or drives of the computer while the second creates a backup plan for specific file extensions. The latter will backup all file extensions of the type on all connected drives. Configuring those custom backup plans is a breeze compared to other backup solutions on the market. Everything can be configured with just a few clicks.

AutoSave Essentials provides a good variety of backup locations. The choice ranges from local hard drives, removable storage devices like USB devices and network / ftp storage. The backup software will automatically recognize if a selected device is not present during scheduled backups and will start the backup as soon as the device comes online again.

Backups can be scheduled to run once a day, week, month, during system start, continuously or manually only. Continuously will monitor the selected files and folders all the time and start the backup whenever file operations take place. Each of the operations will take place in the background with virtually no interference with important system processes or other work that takes place at the same time.

The biggest selling point of AutoSave Essentials is the ease of use. Users who store their important data in the My Documents folder can virtually use the application without interaction of the backup destination drive is the correct one. It works out of the box for those users. Others will have to add backup plans manually but this operating requires minimal user interaction as well.

Avanquest was nice enough to provide me with ten full versions of AutoSave Essentials as an early birthday present to celebrate the third birthday of Ghacks on October 3. If you want to win a full copy of AutoSave Essentials let me know in the comments. Regular users will be at an advantage. So, let me know what you would back up with the software. AutoSave Essentials will run on 32-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista.

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