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

[fabs]

For me it's not a matter of the text file being put on the desktop. What happens is that the wifi keys are not imported into the windows settings on the first restore. Once the first restore is finished if I click the back button then forward again to have it do another restore then the wifi keys are imported into the registry.
The same second restore will then also put the product key txt file on the desktop and also the QB key text file on the desktop if they have Quickbooks installed. These are never done on the first restore.
This is the same everytime I use Fabs and even verified with a brand new download of the Fabs software. It's not a make or break problem I just have to remember to run the restore the second time and sometimes I forget. It has been a glitch that has happened for me for a couple of years now.

Well,
this needs to be sorted out anyway.
Now, I need to reproduce your workflow :
- What kind of path do you use for Fab's executable (local, external drive, network path?)
- What kind of path do you use to store the backup ? Or is that a disk to disk transfer maybe ?
If you think about something else that could be relevant, please let me know.

 

[frase]

Just tested right now. No problem with this...
Perhaps you have set a ReportsStorage variable under [CONFIG] section in your autobackup.ini file ?
If so, it explains why this will never go to the desktop.
Other possible thing : has this report ever been generated ? The fact it comes from an external drive is not a problem. A possible cause would be a corrupted remote software hive so the tool could not grab anything from it, leading to nothing restored since there was nothing to get.

Thanks for the reply, this is the first time it occured [Latest Update] Pro and it generally does; all I got was the log.
A warning came up as well that the drive will not be bootable after backup as well. I have never seen this before either. I did not get a screenshot at the time though.

 

[fincoder]

A warning came up as well that the drive will not be bootable after backup as well.

The warning says the drive MAY not be bootable. That's a disclaimer, happens automatically whenever it's run. It's recently been added by @fabs because of some rare situation (can't remember the details). Whenever I've had to reboot using that drive it worked anyway.

 

[JoelM]

Well,
this needs to be sorted out anyway.
Now, I need to reproduce your workflow :
- What kind of path do you use for Fab's executable (local, external drive, network path?)
- What kind of path do you use to store the backup ? Or is that a disk to disk transfer maybe ?
If you think about something else that could be relevant, please let me know.

I have Fabs in a folder in the root directory of an external USB hard drive.
I store the backup in on the same USB external hard drive. I just create a folder in the root directory for the backup.
I then move the external hard drive to the new computer and run the restore function of Fabs.
All goes good with no errors in the log.
I will look at the known networks in the wifi settings. It will show no known networks unless I added mine during setup of the machine. I then run the restore a second time which runs very fast as there is no new data to transfer. Once this finishes I can look in the wifi settings and see it added the profiles from the backup. I will also then see the product key txt file on the desktop which was not there after the first restore.

 

[fabs]

I have Fabs in a folder in the root directory of an external USB hard drive.
I store the backup in on the same USB external hard drive. I just create a folder in the root directory for the backup.
I then move the external hard drive to the new computer and run the restore function of Fabs.
All goes good with no errors in the log.
I will look at the known networks in the wifi settings. It will show no known networks unless I added mine during setup of the machine. I then run the restore a second time which runs very fast as there is no new data to transfer. Once this finishes I can look in the wifi settings and see it added the profiles from the backup. I will also then see the product key txt file on the desktop which was not there after the first restore.

Thanks for such a detailed response.
I have been able to reproduce the issue: it happens if public items (like documents for example) are involved in restore process (maybe transfer too). When you go back and run the job again, there are no more public files to copy except those coming from extractions like so they are this time processed as expected.
Now I have to find out why and fix it once for all.

 

[fabs]

I got it: an old glitch in the code.

 

[Larry Sabo]

While listing cloud files (not just OneDrive) next Fab's version will check if current file's path matches with (*) Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos or Downloads paths. If this is the case, they will be excluded from cloud files copy, avoiding double backup/transfer.

I don't believe that new version has been released yet, so what is the SOP for restoring Fabs back-ups to avoid duplication where a re-install of Windows and MS365 is involved?

I think it's that I install Window and MS365, let OneDrive download the data, then run the restore from the Fabs back-up I made. That should (I hope) only restore files that have not been downloaded from OneDrive -- provided that the User\OneDrive folders include the same primary user folders (*) on both the old and new Windows installations.

 

[fabs]

I don't believe that new version has been released yet, so what is the SOP for restoring Fabs back-ups to avoid duplication where a re-install of Windows and MS365 is involved?

I think it's that I install Window and MS365, let OneDrive download the data, then run the restore from the Fabs back-up I made. That should (I hope) only restore files that have not been downloaded from OneDrive -- provided that the User\OneDrive folders include the same primary user folders (*) on both the old and new Windows installations.

Well, that's not really an M365 but a OneDrive thing. If you choose to keep OneDrive redirected folders, then letting it resync before restore sounds like a good practice to me.
And that's right: this version avoiding duplicates has not been released yet. Still some things to polish with this one.

 

[Larry Sabo]

If you choose to keep OneDrive redirected folders, then letting it resync before restore sounds like a good practice to me.

Thanks, @fabs.

 

[Diggs]

That should (I hope) only restore files that have not been downloaded from OneDrive

That's the problem I've had with Google Drive. If I reactivate Google Drive on the new computer after a FABs restore then everything in Drive gets duplicated both places (local and cloud). I've tried to turn off those things in FABs that are backed up by Drive and then let Drive restore them. This can be gigabytes upon gigabytes of data. Not a good solution and easy to miss something. I've always struggled with a good solution for compatibility of FABs and Google/One Drive.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I've tried to turn off those things in FABs that are backed up by Drive and then let Drive restore them.

I'll restore files from OneDrive/Google Drive before restoring the Fabs back-up. That should solve the problem. You would think that OneDrive/Google Drive would check for and skip the existence of files in both locations (PC and the cloud) before or during the resync. Very poor that it doesn't.

I don't know what confusion can be caused by setting up Windows and OneDrive/Google Drive first and then restoring the user from the Fabs back-up, but I'll soon find out.

Edit to add: I forgot to check whether the customer had Google Drive installed. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Diggs]

Very poor that it doesn't.

^This!!!!

restoring the user from the Fabs back-up

Does Fabs recognize the files already transferred by One/Google Drive as the same and therefore won't transfer what it has in its backup or do you need to manually start excluding folders and directories from the Fabs restore?

 

[britechguy]

I am a bit confused here (no surprise, actually). I had thought that Fabs did NOT backup anything that was kept on cloud storage unless someone explicitly changes settings to make it do so.

It makes no sense, really, for Fabs to be backing up cloud stored files as far as I'm concerned, because these sync back when the same accounts for the same cloud services are restored on the target machine.

I'm guessing I'm wrong, but if I am, I think it would be a good addition to Fabs to make backup by Fabs of any cloud stored material optional.

 

[Diggs]

I had thought that Fabs did NOT backup anything that was kept on cloud storage

It may not back up the folder called Drive but Google Drive by default backs up Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc. and so does Fabs.

 

[Larry Sabo]

It makes no sense, really, for Fabs to be backing up cloud stored files as far as I'm concerned, because these sync back when the same accounts for the same cloud services are restored on the target machine.

Except that when the MS account cannot be recovered and the user stands to lose all their data if it's not backed up locally. I'm dealing with exactly this today. I'm going to have to set up her new laptop with a local account because her MS account cannot be recovered (so far). I've had another customer who lost access to all their data for the same reason, after his account got compromised and MS refused to deal with him further.

 

[britechguy]

It may not back up the folder called Drive but Google Drive by default backs up Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc. and so does Fabs.

I guess I turned that off for Google Drive whenever I set it up "way back when." The only cloud backup I have for those items (and not Downloads, only Documents, Desktop, Photos, and Music) are to OneDrive.

In any event, I think it would be a good idea if one could tell Fabs NOT to backup anything that is on Google Drive, OneDrive, or any one of the other common file sharing services where those are integrated with File Explorer. I use Google Desktop for Windows so my primary UI with Google Drive is through File Explorer.

In the final analysis, I don't need or want Fabs (or even my computer's backup software) to backup files not local to the machine.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Does Fabs recognize the files already transferred by One/Google Drive as the same and therefore won't transfer what it has in its backup or do you need to manually start excluding folders and directories from the Fabs restore?

So long as the paths are the same, I expect Fabs to skip restoring those files. The risk is that the new computer will not have the primary folders is the same place as they were on the computer that was backed using Fabs, so the user now has User\Documents (etc.) but the back-up was from a computer with User\OneDrive\Documents (etc.).

 

[fabs]

So long as the paths are the same, I expect Fabs to skip restoring those files. The risk is that the new computer will not have the primary folders is the same place as they were on the computer that was backed using Fabs, so the user now has User\Documents (etc.) but the back-up was from a computer with User\OneDrive\Documents (etc.).

Fab's will compare file's size and dates. If they're the same then it will skip them. If there's a difference, then it will ask how to deal with conflicts.

 

[Diggs]

Fab's will compare file's size and dates.

File size would be the same. Dates would be different. What happens?

To elaborate, every time I've seen Google Drive activated after a Fabs restore it duplicates the files. They always are the same size and name but have different dates.

 

[fabs]

File size would be the same. Dates would be different. What happens?

Then it asks how to deal with it: keep newest, keep oldest, keep both (and make a duplicate)