Were you a GoBack addict before Rollback?

[backupordie]

I was attending a software convention many years ago when I
watched someone deliberately wreck the registry in Windows 98.
Within a couple of minutes the system was restored. That
demonstration made GoBack seem like it had magical powers.

Shortly after I returned home I purchased a copy. Back in those
days a 20 GB hard drive was considered humongous!

GoBack had flaws. It chopped off a section of your drive for itself
and it did slow down your operating system. Also, if you wanted
to run a defrag or do anything considered to be "massive disk
activity" you had to disable GoBack.

I'm sure a lot of folks tried and dumped GoBack. I didn't! I became
addicted to that log it kept. The idea that I could scroll to the exact
spot in the log before something bad happened was all I cared about.

I have to admit, I'm very sad about the end of GoBack. I won't
mention any names, but the software company that purchased
GoBack is notorious for buying up popular apps and letting them
rot. A good but ruthless business strategy if you think about.
Buy an app that everyone likes and spend nothing updating the
program. You'll sell enough copies based on the app's previous
reputation. By the time your customers realize the app has been
abandoned you've made a small fortune.

I hope you all create traditional image backups. If you don't your
system is going to say "bye-bye" one of these days and the hundreds
of hours you've spent making everything work exactly like you wanted
will be gone forever!

I purchased Rollback v9.0 because I felt almost "naked" without that
ability to immediately recover from a problem. The trouble I'm having
installing this app may not be resolved for many weeks, if ever.

I guess I'll have to rely on my other backup software like most people
do. Still, as a former GoBack addict I would feel a lot better if I could
get Rollback up and running.

[Baldrick]

Hi backupordie

I too am an ex GoBack user (from way back when it was a Roxio product) and it is only due to the lamentable treatment of 'that software company' that I moved over to RB Rx (v8 was my first encounter) and I have to say that I am more of a fan of RB Rx than I was of GoBack as it is so much more flexible...in the final analysis...and much quicker.

Anyway, you have taken the plunge and so welcome...but please let us have more details as to your issues and we will try to help you.

Awaiting the detail.

[bmck]

Backupordie,

I agree with everything you said. GoBack was great. I never noticed the performance hit as I have always had it installed.

Originally Posted by backupordie

The idea that I could scroll to the exact
spot in the log before something bad happened was all I cared about.

This was the key. I installed it on all my customers' sites. "Whoops. I shouldn't really have closed the period yet - I just found another invoice to enter" - With GoBack, you could find the most recent safe point before the disaster. In most cases, it was only a few seconds before.

I am trying to come to grips with configuring Rollback to offer similar capability. At the moment, I have set up scheduled hourly snapshots. Worst case is I lose an hour's work subsequent to a recovery.

Of course, this leads to a plethora of snapshots. I have set it up to delete unlocked hourly snapshots that are 7 days old.

This should leave my Daily 1st Boot snapshots in place.

I also have a weekly schedule that creates locked snapshots.

I would be interested in how others have set up their scheduled tasks.

Brian

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by bmck

Backupordie,

I agree with everything you said. GoBack was great. I never noticed the performance hit as I have always had it installed.



This was the key. I installed it on all my customers' sites. "Whoops. I shouldn't really have closed the period yet - I just found another invoice to enter" - With GoBack, you could find the most recent safe point before the disaster. In most cases, it was only a few seconds before.

I am trying to come to grips with configuring Rollback to offer similar capability. At the moment, I have set up scheduled hourly snapshots. Worst case is I lose an hour's work subsequent to a recovery.

Of course, this leads to a plethora of snapshots. I have set it up to delete unlocked hourly snapshots that are 7 days old.

This should leave my Daily 1st Boot snapshots in place.

I also have a weekly schedule that creates locked snapshots.

I would be interested in how others have set up their scheduled tasks.

Brian

I used to run an hourly schedule but have found that a two hourly schedule is a better compromise in terms of availability and no. of snapshots. I delete unlocked snapshots after 5 days, but go for a complete image weekly...as a overall back up.

In tems of recovery I either rollback a couple of hours or if it is a specific do***ent usually right click & 'Restore from Snapshot'.

[bmck]

Baldrick,

How do you set up a two-hourly schedule?

Brian

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by bmck

Baldrick,

How do you set up a two-hourly schedule?

Brian

Create .bat file with the following entries:

"@ECHO OFF
ECHO Starting snapshot
shieldcmd.exe /snapshot /n "whatever you want as a title" /d "whatever you want as a description"
ECHO Snapshot finished"

and then set it up to run under the Windows Scheduler every 2 hours or on whatever interval you want...simples as they say.

Hope that helps?

Regards



Baldrick

[FyrmnJ]

Originally Posted by Baldrick

Create .bat file with the following entries:

"@ECHO OFF
ECHO Starting snapshot
shieldcmd.exe /snapshot /n "whatever you want as a title" /d "whatever you want as a description"
ECHO Snapshot finished"

and then set it up to run under the Windows Scheduler every 2 hours or on whatever interval you want...simples as they say.

Hope that helps?

Regards



Baldrick

I too had used GoBack for many years but I must say that RollbackRX beats Goback in everyway. I have made this batch file and the batch file works but I cant get it into task scheduler to work. Could You give me step by step instructions on entering it into task scheduler. I am using RollbackRX Ver.9 and windows7 RC.
FyrmnJ in Philly

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by FyrmnJ

I too had used GoBack for many years but I must say that RollbackRX beats Goback in everyway. I have made this batch file and the batch file works but I cant get it into task scheduler to work. Could You give me step by step instructions on entering it into task scheduler. I am using RollbackRX Ver.9 and windows7 RC.
FyrmnJ in Philly

I use XP so am not sure if the process is the same but under XP you would go to the Control Panel, righ click on the Scheduled Task icon and select OPEN (I prefer this approach to using the wizard provided under Add a Scheduled Task).

Right click anywhere in the Explorer pane, select New/Scheduled Task, and that should create a new entry under the scheduler call 'New Task' (you can change the name to what you like by highlighting & pressing F2, etc.).

Right click the new task icon & select Properties. Under the TASK tab & 'Run' enter:

"C:\path of where ever you have saved the .bat\whatever the .bat file"

Under 'Start in' enter:

"C:\path of where ever you have saved the .bat"

Under 'Run as' select from the drop down "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM".

Then check 'Enabled (Scheduled task runs at specific times)'

Under the SCHEDULE tab select a Daily schedule starting at whatever time you like, ie, 00:00 would be midnight, etc., and then click on the 'Advanced' tab to the right of where you have set the schedule to 'Daily' From there you can set the task to run every 2 hours or however long you want during the day.

Note that the first snapshot run under the schedule will be 2 hours after the next in the schedule, after you have booted, based on the start time that you stated at the time you set after selecting a Daily schedule. So if you set 00:00, ie, midnight and you boot up at 07:30 the next scheduled snapshot will be taken at 10:00 and then every 2 hours until you close down.

I would recommend a snapshot at start of day, ie, when you boot; this scheduled via RB Rx's internal scheduler, and then the above.

Seems to work for me.

Hope that helps?

Baldrick

[FyrmnJ]

OK Baldrick, that did it....its working like a charm. Thanks

FyrmnJ in Philly

"If all is not lost, where is it"?

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by FyrmnJ

OK Baldrick, that did it....its working like a charm. Thanks

FyrmnJ in Philly

"If all is not lost, where is it"?

Hi FyrmnJ

Glad to hear that. A pleasure to help out. Stick around as this is a great forum and building...