■<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"> <title>Cobian Backup help files - Tasks</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="CobStyle.css"> <style type="text/css"> .style1 { text-align: center; } .style2 { color: #FF0000; } </style> </head> <body> <div align="center"> <table border="0" width="600" id="table1"> <tr> <td> <h2 class="style1">Tasks</h2> A task can be created or modified using the Task's menu.<h2>General tab</h2> Task name - The name of the task. This will be used many times on the log file and for the compressed file names. You can leave the default ugly name or chose an unique name to every task.Task ID - A unique identification to every task. You cannot modify this.  ID is only used internally by the program. Enabled - (Default checked) If this is unchecked, the task will be ignored when backing up.Group: The number of the group to which the task will belong. Groups are used to organize the list of tasksInclude subdirectories - (Default checked) If checked, when copying folders, it will also recursively copy all the files in the subdirectories. Create separated backups - (Default checked). If you select this check box, it will create a new file or directory every time the item is copied. The date and time will be used as a part of the new file name. Example: Item1 2002-01-11 ; 12;00.zip. If unchecked, the destination files will be overwritten. There is one disadvantage in overwriting the backups: If the backup fails for some reason in the middle of the operation, you could end up having a bad backup , because the previous one will be replaced by a bad one. Use file attribute logic: Sometimes, you cannot use the archive attributes methods (for example, if the source is in a Linux partition). In this case, you may want to uncheck this option. The program will then compare the time stamps of the source and the destination when making incremental or differential backups. This is a very LIMITED solution: it won't work with archives or FTP files. Use Volume Shadow Copies: Use Volume Shadow Services to copy locked files. Please read more about the requirements and other considerations for <a href="vss_en.htm">VSS here</a>. Cobian Backup supports 4 types of tasks:Full backups: Every single file in the source will be copied or compressed. If you are overwriting, every file will be replaced. If Overwrite is unchecked, you will have several copies of the same source.Incremental -  The program will check if the source has been changed from the last backup. If there is no need to copy the file, it will be skipped, saving backup time. The incremental procedure checks the Archive bit attribute of the file. You may want to manually reset the attribute to force a full backup: use the "Set the archive attributes" on the Task menu. Differential: The program will check if the source has been changed from the last FULL backup. If there is no need to copy the file, it will be skipped, saving backup time. The differential procedure checks the Archive bit attribute of the file. You may want to manually reset the attribute to force a full backup: use the "Set the archive attributes" on the Task menu. Dummy task: This backup doesn't need a source or a destination. It is useful to use the task just as an scheduler to execute applications, close services, reboot the computer, etc.<h2>Files tab</h2> Source - Enter the files, directories or/and FTP sources to backup. Please note that a backup FROM a FTP must be full. Other backup types will be ignored and the backup will made full. You must have enough space in the temporary directory to download the whole FTP source if necessary. Destination - Enter the destination directory, local or/and FTP . You can have multiple directories as destinations. A copy of the backup will be placed on every destination directory. <h2>Schedule tab</h2> Backup type: Select how often your backup will be executed. Once: basically, this copies the file or folder at the given date and time. Daily: backups the item every day at the given time. Weekly: backups the item once a week at the given day of the week. Monthly: backups the item once a month, at the given day and time. Yearly: backups the task once a year, at the given day and time. Timer: repeatedly backups the item every X minutes. Manual: executes only if the user click on Backup now. Not scheduled. <h2>Dynamics tab</h2> Priority: A higer priority will guarantee that the task is executed before other taska that are waiting to be backed up in the queue Full copies to keep: If your backup is set to NOT overwrite existing backups, every new backup will create a new file or directory with the same name, but with the date and time of the backup as a complement. For example: If the original file is SimCity.exe, and the backup is NOT set to overwrite, every new backup will create: SimCity.exe SimCity 2003-04-13 12;22.exe SimCity 2003-04-14 12;22.exe SimCity 2003-04-15 12;22.exe , etc Now it's easy to maintain a limited number of FULL copies of every backup and delete the old ones. On the backup options you can set that you want, for example, maintain only 2 full copies of the backup. Note that if your task is incremental or differential, the backup program will keep or delete the whole set of 1 full backup plus its associated child backups every time it deletes something. The older backups will be deleted then. You can always PARK a backup to prevent it from being deleted. This is specially important for incremental backups when the first backup will usually be full and the next backup only partial. If you have multiple destinations, then this number represents the TOTAL number of copies to keep. So if you introduce 4 in this field and you have 2 destinations, the program will keep 2 copies in every destination. To maintain 4 copies per destination, enter 8 in this field. Make a full backup every:  If you have scheduled a differential or incremental backup then you can program it so, that every X backups will be made full. For example, if you enter the number 3 here, then the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, etc backups will be full. This feature only works if you are not overwriting your backups. Differential  copies to keep:  Differential backups are redundant, so now you can limit those as well Fixed day for full backup: You can now select one  day to force a full backup. This is a better method to use than "Make a full backup every..." because it doesn't depend on the presence of empty backups. <h2>Archive tab</h2> Compression: Choose the method of compression to use (none, Zip or 7zip) WARNING - If you are overwriting existing backups AND using compression, you will obtain some king of mirror: if a file was deleted from the source, it will be ALSO be deleted from the compressed backup. This will not happen if the backup is uncompressed or if you are not overwriting. In this version of Cobian Backup you cannot refresh archives created with the 7zip method, so if you are overwritting backups (not creating separated copies), and using 7zip, your backup will be forced to FULL. Creating separated backups will work fine as incremental or differential. This limitation may be removed in future versions. Split the zip files in blocks: If checked, the final compressed archive will be split into blocks. Useful if you want to backup the parts into removable media. Archive  comment: Commentary to be include into the archive Encryption type: Choose the method to use with encryption. <a href="compenc_en.htm">For more information about compression and encryption click here</a>. <h2>Special tab</h2> Here you can add a list of files/directories that you can exclude or include into the backup. You can also use masks: Example *.txt. Here you can exclude/include: 1) Files. Just select the file with the "Add file" button 2) Directories: Just select a directory using the "Add directory" button 3) Enter a mask. You can use simply masks like *.txt to exclude or include all the text files or you can use a complex mask like *\Directory\*\*.txt This will include/exclude all the text files in any path  that contains a folder called Directory. When using FTP sources, only simple masks can be used. Masks by size or date will be ignored then. <h2>Events tab</h2> Before/After backup: You can specify some events that will occur before the backup starts and some events after the backup ends. This can be convenient if you want to backup some file that is in use by some application. Before backup, close the other program and after backup, start it again. You can stop/start services as well. You can close a program using the window's caption (or a portion of it). In this version, you can also enter a window's class name. This class name cannot be easily known but if you are a programmer or an advanced user, you can use tools like Spy++ to get the class name of some window. In this case you need to enter the class name in the form: class:the_class_name including the word "class:" with the colon. If you are using the events "Execute" or "Execute and wait" you can pass as parameters the source or the destination. To do so: * Select the event and select the executable to run. * A dialog will be shown when you can enter some parameters. Here you can enter any parameter you want, like a filename, etc. The files/directories will be passed using a quoted string to avoid problems with long file names. You may need administrators rights to close some programs or to start/stop services. <h2>Advanced tab</h2> Clear the archive attribute: The program uses the archive bit of the attribute of a file to decide which files must be copied when the backup is differential or incremental. If you uncheck this option the attributes will not be cleared. This is useful if you want to have the same source in several different tasks. Mirror task: If a file is deleted in the source, it will also be deleted from the destination. This works only with uncompressed backups and its a VERY DANGEROUS option to check. You should NEVER check this option if you really care for your data. To make this operation somewhat safer, a "safe mirror" option can be chosen in the Options dialog. If Safe Mirror is selected, files with non-existing source counterparts will be moved to the selected directory. Use absolute paths: When using uncompressed backup, the backup will recreate the whole path of the original file. Always create top parent directory: An extra directory will be created to store the files. Run the task as another user: If your task needs to access some resources for which you don't have permissions,  just select this option and enter the user name and password to use. When the backup begins, the program will the try to logon as the given user and logout when the task ends. Abort if failed: If the logon failed, just abort the task and don't try to continue. ID: name of the account Domain: Domain name to which the user name belongs. Enter a dot if the accounts belong to the local machine only. Password: The password used to logon. <a href="index_en.htm">Index</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td> ⌐2000-2012 by Luis Cobian All rights reserved</td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>