Fab's AutoBackup 7 Pro - a must have tool for techs

[sapphirescales]

@fabs Isn't there a way you could write the functionality into your software itself instead of relying on nirsoft's utilities? Maybe you could do a collab with him or come to an agreement to integrate his software into yours so you don't have to write it from scratch.

 

[britechguy]

Isn't there a way you could write the functionality into your software itself instead of relying on nirsoft's utilities?

The problem being that it's the functionality, and how it's written, that's what's being flagged. Lots of NirSoft Utilities "look like malware" to security suites, because, if you're not paying attention to the source, it is structurally similar to malware. But that's true of anyone using said functionality, so were what you to propose be done, then Fabs would be picked up as possibly malicious.

In the end, the fix for this is whitelisting by the scanners. It would be crazy to ignore the structural hallmarks of malware in general, but it's dirt simple to review, when those hallmarks are observed, what the actual source is. Some sources are not malicious, nor is the code when being used by those sources.

 

[sapphirescales]

The problem being that it's the functionality, and how it's written, that's what's being flagged.

True but I'm assuming @fabs can get his software whitelisted by Microsoft since nirsoft doesn't seem to give a crap whether his tools are detected as malware or not. Unless Defender doesn't take whitelisting into account when a program does something "suspicious."

 

[fabs]

@fabs Isn't there a way you could write the functionality into your software itself instead of relying on nirsoft's utilities? Maybe you could do a collab with him or come to an agreement to integrate his software into yours so you don't have to write it from scratch.

I already had some contacts with him to just be allowed to distribute his tools with Fab's but that's it.

True but I'm assuming @fabs can get his software whitelisted by Microsoft since nirsoft doesn't seem to give a crap whether his tools are detected as malware or not. Unless Defender doesn't take whitelisting into account when a program does something "suspicious."

I will not go further as I definitely do not want to integrate such code that WILL be flagged .There's no possible whitelist for that kind of behavior, even if I DO give a ... about my code. Integrating those tools like they are today is clearly the less worst solution.

 

[britechguy]

since nirsoft doesn't seem to give a crap whether his tools are detected as malware or not.

You have no idea whether Nir Sofer has ever requested these to be whitelisted or not. Nor, for that matter, do I.

I can say, with assurance, that I have made that request through the Feedback Hub (which Microsoft definitely monitors, I've had several issues resolved as a direct result of putting in feedback there). I don't know for certain that it has been ignored entirely, but no useful action has been taken, either.

If anyone feels the urge to read that feedback and either comment on it, upvote it, or both: https://aka.ms/AAkup43

 

[sapphirescales]

There's no possible whitelist for that kind of behavior

Well that sucks. You can't get a certificate from Microsoft that would allow your software to do the same things that nirsoft utilities do?

 

[fabs]

Well that sucks. You can't get a certificate from Microsoft that would allow your software to do the same things that nirsoft utilities do?

I don't think that's even possible. I've never heard about such a "certificate from microsoft" thing.
The only certificate (not from micrsoft though) I have is my code signing certificate but nothing else.

There are some others developers here, so, perhaps one of them will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[britechguy]

@fabs,

What follows is probably "a stupid question" but I know I can get a much faster answer by asking than by digging through documentation.

I have just purchased a new laptop and, as part of the process, have become a subscriber to M365 Family. So, on the new machine, all of the "classic libraries" like Documents, Music, etc., are actually located on OneDrive, not the computer itself. The machine which I will be backing up for restoration on the new machine uses the same Microsoft Account linked Windows user account, but everything is stored on local storage on this source machine.

Will Fabs Autobackup handle this gracefully, without my having to do anything specific, or do I need to take certain precautions/make certain tweaks, when doing the restore?

Thanks again for this tool. It is, truly, *fab*!

 

[fabs]

@fabs,

What follows is probably "a stupid question" but I know I can get a much faster answer by asking than by digging through documentation.

I have just purchased a new laptop and, as part of the process, have become a subscriber to M365 Family. So, on the new machine, all of the "classic libraries" like Documents, Music, etc., are actually located on OneDrive, not the computer itself. The machine which I will be backing up for restoration on the new machine uses the same Microsoft Account linked Windows user account, but everything is stored on local storage on this source machine.

Will Fabs Autobackup handle this gracefully, without my having to do anything specific, or do I need to take certain precautions/make certain tweaks, when doing the restore?

Thanks again for this tool. It is, truly, *fab*!

To make it work the best, you need to be logged on as the user account that has its folders redirected to OneDrive. It must be administrator and connected to the internet so the files that are only online will be downloaded and copied.

Then, you'll be able to restore the files as usual on the new machine.

 

[britechguy]

@fabs,

Thanks for your reply. But I want to be clear about a couple of things:

1. I will be logged in using the same MS linked Windows user accounts on both machines. Both are administrators (I always "run myself" as an admin - standard accounts are too much of a PITA for the kinds of stuff I need to do routinely).

2. The source machine has all its user data files stored locally. So using Fabs Autobackup to back them up is not a problem.

3. The destination machine will have all its user data folders/libraries now associated with OneDrive space in the cloud. I would be restoring from a backup taken on a machine where that was not the case to one where it is.

The only reason I have added the above is your comment, "connected to the internet so the files that are only online will be downloaded and copied," since there will be no files copied from online from the source machine, and that small bit confuses me.

 

[fabs]

Sorry, I understood that files were on OneDrive on the old machine.
There should not be any trouble doing such a migration since you set up your accounts as administrators.

Anyway, I recommend that you set back Windows folders to their defaults (locally). That's what I would do if I were in this case (personal preference).

 

[JoelM]

Anyway, I recommend that you set back Windows folders to their defaults (locally). That's what I would do if I were in this case (personal preference).

This is my process. If the old machine was set to local folders then I have the new machine set to local folders. Once the FABs restore is done then I switch it to the OneDrive folders and let it start syncing to the cloud for backup. It works cleaner this way.

 

[britechguy]

This is my process.

Anyone care to describe the process, step-by-step, or point to a nice resource for "disconnecting then reconnecting" OneDrive in this way?

 

[JoelM]

Anyone care to describe the process, step-by-step, or point to a nice resource for "disconnecting then reconnecting" OneDrive in this way?

In the OneDrive settings look at the Sync and backup section. The top option on mine is backup important PC folders to OneDrive. There is a button there to Manage Backup. This is where you can choose the desktop, documents & pictures folders. It will redirect the system folders to the onedrive folder and then move all the files there for automatic cloud sync.

 

[fincoder]

I can't see why it would be a problem transferring using Fabs into linked to OneDrive. Wouldn't it be the same as manually copying files into the OneDrive folder? That's what OneDrive is for. I've transferred using Fabs into relocated folders (data stored on a larger secondary drive), worked fine, should be no different if the folders are relocated to OneDrive.

@britechguy if you've already setup OneDrive on the new machine, I wouldn't bother changing that setup, just go ahead and do the transfer.

 

[britechguy]

@fincoder: Thanks. What you've said is what I presumed, but I've also learned that what makes logical sense doesn't necessarily carry over to actual real-world actions.

One of my favorite quotations (unattributed, as I've never been able to find a citation for who said it first):
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.

 

[britechguy]

Well, I'm having some "interesting" behaviors this morning when trying to restore on the machine that's using OneDrive, and I don't know if it's an issue with that, or with Fabs, or perhaps a combination of the two. Fabs keeps "black screening" over itself, with no information offered, then going back to the deep grey overlay where you can see the underlying Fabs window, doing this cyclically, but with no status information being shown about what's happening.

I have to leave to see a client in about 45 minutes, and will just let it run for the time I'm gone and see if it finishes. The mouse icon goes from pointer to hourglass when the black screen comes up, but even when it's going back to the deep grey overlay I'm not getting the usual "back and forth progress bar with info about what's happening.

Addendum: After seeming to get completely stuck on the Edge Chromium profile (in the middle of which the black screening occurred) after about 10 minutes of that it completed. Now it's doing Desktop, My Documents, My Pictures, etc. but they seem to be mooving awfully fast. During the "blackout period" task manager showed Fabs as getting quite a significant slice of CPU time, so it wasn't dead.

Addendum 2 (a bit over 4 hours later): Fabs is crawling along. The size of the total files to copy is 87.7 GB and the copied size is currently only 408 MB. Getting scads of amber warning messages that "Copied file's size does not match original file."

 

[britechguy]

I gave up with the machine this morning, and I am now inclined to believe that my external backup drive might be failing. I'm going to try again with a different backup drive that's currently being backed up to by Fabs.

I backed up all of the data from the machine I'm typing from and am in the process of restoring it to my new laptop. I did get an interesting warning, and a kinda warranted one, but I'm not quite sure what the end result will be. I'll see in the morning.

The source machine has a 1TB SSD, and the total data copied amounted to 512.3 GB. The target machine has only a 512GB SSD, but, it's also set up such that all of my classic user libraries are no longer on the physical C: drive, but in OneDrive, which has way more than enough capacity to handle 512.3 GB. But, when I started Fabs and it did its initial check, I got a warning that there was 105GB of data in excess of the capacity that was available on C: (which is true, strictly speaking). I gave Fabs the go-ahead to continue restoring, figuring that during that process OneDrive will end up handling virtually all that data and no issue should occur. That's certainly what I hope happens, anyway.

 

[Porthos]

I got a warning that there was 105GB of data in excess of the capacity that was available on C: (which is true, strictly speaking). I gave Fabs the go-ahead to continue restoring, figuring that during that process OneDrive will end up handling virtually all that data and no issue should occur. That's certainly what I hope happens, anyway.

The one drive does not instantly upload the files. The new computer has to have the free space for all of the files initially.

 

[britechguy]

The one drive does not instantly upload the files. The new computer has to have the free space for all of the files initially.

I knew the former. But the Fabs backup process took 6 hours, and I expected the restore to take at least as long. I'd hope that OneDrive would be "shoveling out" files to cloud storage while all this is going on and the space freed up by said shoveling would be available as "the temporary local resting place" for files being brought in by Fabs.

That being said, there was a OneDrive disconnect burp overnight, so things did not go tidily, but that's not the fault of Fabs. From what I could see (and I'll check the documentation) it's possible to re-run Fabs and have it skip over existing files. I may have to try that, but it seems it was old files I kept under Public where the issue started, so I may not bother.