Saving your WinXP and Application Settings

to make Reinstall Easy

*** my own Batch file included at the bottom for reference ***

Everyone knows what a hassle it is, when you need to reinstall Windows and then have to re-configure EVERYTHING from scratch.  There must be a better way.  There is ! !

This page shows you how to backup all the special, customized settings that each user makes  -  and the next time you need to reinstall XP, or get a new machine and install a fresh copy of Windows  -  you can instantly configure the whole thing with a single drag and drop.

IMPORTANT:  this is not a traditional backup, where all your important working files are saved.  This is a quick backup that saves your settings, to make reinstallation quick and easy.  You should also run the huge, slow, traditional backup regularly - to an external hard drive.

Defining our Solution

Basically, no one does this - but everyone should.  When you reach that point that we all reach, where you need to reinstall Windows, or setup a new machine  .  .  .  typically you will need to go through many hours of work re-configuring.  This solution then, should satisfy the following:

• it should be a self-contained, single batch file that does it all
• the batch file needs to save all your important settings for both Windows and customized applications
• the batch file needs to run automatically every time you start-up Windows
• the batch file should NEVER prompt you for anything (such as asking you whether you want to delete a file, or asking you whether a command is referring to a file or Directory, etc.)

Key Concepts

• Xcopy and it's switches are the core component of this backup method

• the little-known /d switch  -  to create a successful backup batch file, is the switches used with Xcopy.  It has a relatively unknown switch,  /d  that acts as a incremental backup.  The definitaion of /d is:   "copies only those files whose  source time is newer than the destination time".  So, if you have previously copied a folder with 95 files in it, and only 6 of them have changed, then xcopy /d will only copy the changed files.

• the Xcopy syntax for the 3 types of lines you will need to use:
  Copy a single file:                                   xcopy "c:\ . . .\filename" "e:\ . . .\ *.*" /d/y
  Copy a folder, files, and subfolders:        xcopy "c:\ . . .\foldername\*.*" "e:\ . . .\ *.*"   /d/i/c/h/v/e/r/s/y
  Copy a file that is flagged Read-Only, System, or Hidden:
                      attrib "c:\ . . . \filename" -h -s -r
                      xcopy "c:\ . . .\filename" "e:\ . . .\ *.*" /d/y
                      attrib "c:\ . . . \filename" +h +s +r     (personally, I skip this line, since it never hurts to
                                                                              leave them wide open, so long as you know what you are doing)

• create a folder to store your backup and make sure the folder is on a different partition than your Windows partition !!  If you have more than one hard drive then place it on the 2nd drive.  For example, you have Windows XP on C drive, and that drive is partitioned into C and D.  But you have a 2nd hard drive that is partitioned into E and F.  You would then create your backup folder on either E or F.  Then if your boot drive goes bad, you have your backups.

• make your backup folder structure so that it mirrors the folder structure of your hard drive boot partition.  This makes it easy to restore the files by just dragging the contents on the root of the folder to your hard drive root
• to run the batch file automatically each time you startup Windows, save it to:

\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Files/Folders to backup Manually

anything that is huge should be periodically backed up manually.  The whole idea is that this batch file should run very fast during bootup, and should therefore only backup small folders and files.

Therefore, you should backup Outlook's personal mailbox file manually.  In addition, if you have tons of Favorites then back that up manually also"
        \Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.pst
        \Documents and Settings\username\Favorites

*** alternatively, you can create another small batch file with only those lines in it, to backup those large files/folders.  Do not put this batch file in your Starup folder, but run it man ually once in a while

*** or add these to your batch file, and put "REM" (Remark) in front of those lines.  The batch file will ignore those lines.  Then once if a while, delete the "REM" in front of those lines, run the batch file, then put them back in.

Which files and folders to Backup with your Batch File

NOTE:  where you see the string   " . . . "   replace it with the path to your own application

3 XP Boot files
        boot.ini,  NTLDR, and NTdetect.com

IE Favorites – the entire Favorites folder at:
        \Documents and Settings\username\Favorites

Photoshop
        \ . . . \Photoshop\Presets
        \ . . . \Photoshop\Palettes

Music Match
        Program Files\MUSICMATCH\MUSICMATCH Jukebox\mmcd.ini
        Program Files\MUSICMATCH\MUSICMATCH Jukebox\RECache.idx

Adobe Premiere – the “pra”, “prx”, and “prm” files (WMV Export custom profiles) at:
        \ . . . \premiere\plug-ins
And the custom MPEG export profiles - ini files at:
        \Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\MPEG\Settings
And any custom motion files you may have created at:
    \ . . . \premiere\motion

Microsoft Word's "Rormal" template - quite often, users modify this and you should save it if you are one of them:
        \Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dot

Restoring

You can edit the backup file to convert it to a restore file, but the easiest way is to simply drag the root folder and drop it on your C drive in Windows Explorer.

My Own Batch File, "settings-backup.bat"

Here I created a folder on my E drive called "Backup".   This file save all my settings and important files and folder to that folder:

xcopy c:\boot.ini "g:\backups\settings\c-drive\*.*" /d/y
xcopy c:\ntdetect.com "g:\backups\settings\c-drive\*.*" /d/y
xcopy c:\ntldr "g:\backups\settings\c-drive\*.*" /d/y

xcopy "c:\Program Files\Photoshop\Presets\*.*" "E:\Backup\Program Files\Photoshop\Presets\*.*" /d/i/c/h/v/e/r/s/y
xcopy "c:\Program Files\Photoshop\Palettes\*.*" "E:\Backup\Program Files\Photoshop\Palettes\*.*" /d/i/c/h/v/e/r/s/y

xcopy "c:\Program Files\MUSICMATCH\MUSICMATCH Jukebox\mmcd.ini" "E:\Backup\Program Files\MUSICMATCH\MUSICMATCH Jukebox\*.*" /d/y
xcopy "c:\Program Files\MUSICMATCH\MUSICMATCH Jukebox\RECache.idx" "E:\Backup\Program Files\MUSICMATCH\MUSICMATCH Jukebox\*.*" /d/y

xcopy "c:\Program Files\MemoClip\Data\options.ini" "E:\Backup\Program Files\MemoClip\Data\*.*" /d/y

xcopy "c:\Program Files\MemoClip\Data\replace.dat" "E:\Backup\Program Files\MemoClip\Data\*.*" /d/y

xcopy "c:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\MPEG\Settings\*.ini" "E:\Backup\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\MPEG\Settings\*.*" /d/y

xcopy "c:\Program Files\premiere\motion\*.*" "E:\Backup\Program Files\premiere\motion\*.*" /d/i/c/h/v/e/r/s/y

xcopy "c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Dynamic Favorites\*.*" "E:\Backup\Documents and Settings\All Users\Dynamic Favorites\*.*" /d/i/c/h/v/e/r/s/y

attrib "c:\Program Files\Second Copy\Profiles.dat" -h -s -r
xcopy "c:\Program Files\Second Copy\Profiles.dat" "E:\Backup\Program Files\Second Copy\*.*" /d/y

xcopy "c:\Documents and Settings\Ken\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dot" "E:\Backup\Documents and Settings\Ken\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\*.*" /d/y

REM xcopy "c:\Documents and Settings\Ken\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.pst" "E:\Backup\Documents and Settings\Ken\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\*.*" /d/y

exit