In part 1, I covered how to use robocopy, which is part of Windows Vista. Now we’ll use that knowledge to create a scheduled task and have regular backups.
Using Vista, you’ll want to run Task Scheduler (try pressing the windows key and typing this in, it should appear pretty swiftly). You’ll probably need to press continue to get past the UAC prompt. The Task Scheduler screen is very busy and has a lot of options. For our purpose, try looking on the right for an item called Create Basic Task. If you can’t find it there, it should be under the action menu.
This will launch the Create Basic Task Wizard, now give this a name (Backup is ok) and click Next.
This goes to the Trigger screen, which dictates how often the backup will be done. Take your pick, but I’ll go for Daily. You’ll then be asked about the exact time you want it to run and for this backup it doesn’t matter too much for most people, unless you know you’ll be doing something really important every day and you don’t want it disturbed. I’ll pick 9:00:00 am every 1 days and click Next.
Now we’re at the Action screen and we want to start a program, so click Next. Here’s the important part, you need to select the program to run, which is robocopy, you can either just type robocopy or click browse and find C:\Windows\System32\robocopy.exe. Now you need to enter the parameters into the Add arguments (optional) box. These will be whatever you’ve decided based on Part 1, in my case “C:\Users\MyUser\Pictures” “G:\MyBackup\Pictures” /MIR /XJD /R:5 /W:15
Click Next and then Finish and it’s all setup.
Now if you want to see if it will all work, you should be able to see you backup task, right-click it and choose Run. You should have a command prompt window appear, unless you disabled that in your robocopy command. You’ll also be able to see the Last Run Result, which will be the exit code robocopy gives. Generally you should get 0,1,2 or 3 (0x0, 0x1, 0x2, 0x3), but consult Robocopy exit codes if you’re not sure. At times I’ve gotten 16 (0x10) when my external drive hasn’t been connected too.
Happy backing up and don’t forget to check your backup is what you expect! Comments and suggestions welcome.
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