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This document will show you how to backup your important data files for many popular windows programs. It will show you the most popular file locationsfor the different programs and applications.Recommended backup program: VersionBackup Free Edition Unhiding hidden files and folders To get started, many of these file locations are in folders that are hidden in windows, so first of all you need to set Windows to Show hidden files and folders. It is also good to set Windows to display the three letter extension for data files. The instructions for this are below: Windows XP, Windows ME and Windows 2000 [+] Windows Vista [+] Windows 98 [+] Windows 95 [+] Searching for Files Some of the data files, such as outlook, are kept in hidden folders that we need to search for. So when we use Windows Search we need to set it to search hidden files and folders. Follow the instuctions below: Windows XP [+] Windows Vista [+] Windows Environment Variables There are some Windows system environment variables that you should be aware of while reading this backup document. Often times we need to find the Application Data folder, or your Windows Username folder, or the Program Files folder. Windows keeps track of these folders in certain variables as follows:
An easy way to get to these folders is by clicking on START -> Run... and then typing in one of the variables above including the % and pressing OK. NOTE: %username% will not get you to a folder because it just contains your username, but it can be used in connection with the other variables. For example: Typing in C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings will open up your Local Settings folder. My Documents Most of your important documents are stored in My Documents. But you can't just select the My Documents folder from your Desktop or your Start Menu because those are just shortcuts to My Documents and you would only be backing up a shortcut. Also, in your backup program usually you have a Look In or Location field with a drop down arrow. The first option is usually My Documents. But if you click on it then you have to select all your folders and files seperately. So here is the location of the My Documents folder for different operating systems: Backup
Copy the My Documents folder from the location above to your backup device. Restore To restore your My Documents, copy the folder you made a backup of to one of the locations above. Shared Documents / Public Folder In your backup program usually you have a Look In or Location field with a drop down arrow. Click on this drop down arrow and navigate to: Backup
Copy the Documents or Public folder from the location above to your backup device. Restore To restore your Shared Documents, copy the folder you made a backup of to one of the locations above. iTunes The iTunes music folder is usually contained in the My Music folder. Your playlists are located in the iTunes folder in a file called iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library.itl. To backup the iTunes music copy the iTunes folder from the location below that is appropriate for your operating system:Backup
Restore To restore your iTunes music copy the backup you made of the iTunes folder back to the appropriate location above. Desktop Many users put important files and folders right on their windows desktop. The desktop folder is usually located at %USERPROFILE%\Desktop An easy way to copy all the files on the desktop is to copy the folder Desktop from the location below for the appropriate operating system: Backup
Restore To restore your desktop copy the backup you made of the desktop folder back to the appropriate location above. IE Favorites All of your Internet Explorer Favorites or Bookmarks are located in a folder called Favorites usually at %USERPROFILE%\Favorites Backup An easy way to backup all your favorite website locations is to copy the Favorites folder from the appropriate location below according to your operating system:
Restore To restore your IE Favorites copy the backup you made of the Favorites folder back to the appropriate location above. America Online Backup America Online (AOL) puts your emails, personal filing cabinet and AOL Favorites in a folder called organize. The best way to find this folder is to do a search for it. But first make sure you have set windows to view hidden files and folders and have setup search to search hidden folders. Then click on Start -> Search -> All Files and Folders. Then type in organize and click on Search. You may have had to reinstall America Online a few times, so there might be a few organize folders. Right click on the first one and select Properties. Look at the size. Then click Ok. Right Click on the next organize folder and keep going down the list until you find the biggest one. That is the organize folder you will probably be wanting to back up. Below are the different locations for the organize folder in different versions of windows and AOL:
Copy the organize folder from the location above to your backup device. Restore To restore America Online organize folder copy the backup you made to one of the locations above. Firefox Mozilla Firefox puts your profile settings and bookmarks (favorites) in a folder called Profiles. This folder is in different locations for different operating systems. Backup To backup your firefox profile use the chart below. Copy the Profiles folder to your backup device. An easy way to get to the folder is by copying the information below and pasting it in START -> Run...
For more information about profile folder locations for Mozilla Firefox see: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder#What_is_in_my_profile? and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox Restore To restore your Firefox profile settings and bookmarks, copy the Profiles folder you backed up to the same locations above. Outlook Microsoft Outlook stores your Inbox (all your email messages), your Calendar, and your Contacts in a .pst file. This file is usually called outlook.pst. If you backup this file you will NOT be backing up your Outlook bar shortcuts, your signatures, your rules, or your mail account settings. But we will show you how to back these up separately. Outlook Inbox, Calendar, and Outbox (outlook.pst) Backup Most web pages show you how to find the location of your outlook.pst file by using Outlook. But I want to show you how to find outlook.pst in case Outlook will not start, or in case the computer will not start and you are accessing the hard drive from another computer. There are a couple of standard locations listed below, but you may also search for outlook.pst as follows. First make sure that Search is set to Search hidden files and folders. Then click on Start -> Search and type in outlook.pst in the search box. If there are multiple users, you may find multiple outlook.pst files. Also, the file may have been renamed. In that case search for *.pst and it will find all outlook .pst files. When you find the file you are looking for, click on it with the right mouse button and select Open containing folder. Then you can copy the file to your backup device. The usual location for outlook.pst is in a folder called Outlook in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\ or %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\
Restore If you are copying Outlook to a new computer or restoring Outlook on a computer that crashed you can just copy the outlook.pst file back to the locations above. However, if you already started an outlook.pst file on the computer and you still need to get your backup you can Import the backed up file into your Outlook as follows:
Outlook Bar Shorcuts, Rules and Nicknames To backup Outlook Bar Shortcuts, Rules Wizard rules, and Nicknames, you have to backup all the files in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Outlook. This will include: A .FAV file Outlook Bar Shortcuts
The Outlook folder containing these files can be found in the following places:
Outlook Signatures Your Outlook Signatures can be found in a folder called Signatures in the following folder: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\
Outlook Mail Account Settings The Mail Account Settings are the settings for your email including POP3, SMTP, port and login settings for your mail server. These settings are kept in the windows registry instead of in a file. If the computer you are working on can start then you can access the registry using REGEDIT. [+] However, if the computer can't start and you are accessing the hard drive from another computer (possibly through networking or with a windows PE boot CD) then you need to be able to access the registry of another computer. For instructions on how to do this click on the plus symbol below:
Export Outlook Mail Account Settings Key
For more info see the following web pages:
Restore To restore the Outlook Mail Account Settings, on the computer you want to restore to, find the file we exported above. Should be named something like outlook-settings.reg. Double click on it and then answer Yes. When you run Outlook all the settings will be there but you will have to retype your password. Possible Error Messages Note:If when you start Outlook you get an error message that reads similar to: "The path Specified for the file ... outlook.pst is not valid", that means the username is different on the computer then it previously was. Just navigate to the outlook.pst file under the new username to fix the problem. (Usually %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook) Note:If when you start Outlook you get an error message that reads similar to: "Unable to logon to the server using Distibuted Password Authentication", then in Outlook click on Tools -> Accounts -> Mail. Then double click your account's server name. Click on Servers and uncheck "Log on Using Password Authentication" and click OK. Outlook Express Microsoft Outlook Express stores your email messages (inbox and outbox) and you contacts in a folder on the hard drive. But this does not always contain your .WAB file (Windows Address Book) or you mail account settings for Outlook Express. We will show you how to backup all of these serparately. Outlook Express Emails Backup Make sure your windows explorer is set to
view hidden files and folders. There is a hidden folder
in %APPDATA%\Identities\{0DBE7094-4096-4B5A-B538-C54D129A60E4}\Microsoft
called Outlook Express. This folder should contain files
that look like:
Note that {0DBE7094-4096-4B5A-B538-C54D129A60E4} can be any random characters and numbers.
Copy the Outlook Express folder to your backup device. Restore To restore your email messages, copy the Outlook Express folder that you backed up to the locations above. Remember that the random numbers and letters above ({random}) will be different on a new installation of windows. Outlook Express Address Book The Outlook Express address book is stored in a file that is called %USERNAME%.wab . It is in a folder called %APPDATA\Microsoft\Address Book Backup
Copy the Address Book folder to your backup device. Restore To restore the Outlook Express address book, copy the Address Book folder that you made a backup of into the locations above. Outlook Express Mail Account Settings Microsoft Outlook Express does not put your mail account settings (pop3, smtp, login, server, port) in a file. Instead it stores this information in the registry. The location of this key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Account Manager If the computer you are working on can start then you can access the registry using REGEDIT. [+] However, if the computer can't start and you are accessing the hard drive from another computer (possibly through networking or with a windows PE boot CD) then you need to be able to access the registry of another computer. For instructions on how to do this click on the plus symbol below:
Export Outlook Express Mail Account Settings Key
Restore To restore the Outlook Express Mail Account Settings, on the computer you want to restore to, find the file we exported above. Should be named something like oe-settings.reg. Double click on it and then answer Yes. When you run Outlook Express all the settings will be there but you will have to retype your password. Windows Mail (Vista) Microsft Windows Vista Windows Mail program stores your emails in one location and sores your mail account settings in another location and your contacts in another location. We will show you how to back up each folder.Windows Mail Emails Backup To backup your Windows Mail Emails:
Restore To restore Windows Mail Emails, take the backup of the Windows Mail folder that you made and copy it to the location above. Windows Mail Contacts Backup Windows Mail Contacts are stored at %USERPROFILE%\Contacts. To backup contacts:
Restore To restore your Windows Mail contacts go to the location above and paste in the Contacts folder. Windows Mail Account Settings Windows Vista stores the Windows Mail Account Settings including server login, pop3, smtp, and port information in files with an .oeaccount extenstion. They are stored in a folder called Windows Mail in %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft. You already backed up these settings if you backed up all your emails in the Windows Mail folder by copying the Windows Mail folder to your backup drive. However, Windows will not know how to access these settings without having information inserted into the windows registry. So you will want to back up two keys in the Windows registry: Backup Open regedit by clicking on start and typing in regedit
into the "start search" box and press ENTER. Navigate to the following key:
Restore To restore the windows mail account settings on a new PC or a freshly installed Windows Vista find the two .reg files you created. Double Click on the first one. And answer Yes to import it into the registry. For example, double click on windowsmail.reg and answer yes to insert it into the windows registry. Do the same for iam.reg. Restart Windows and then access Windows Mail. Note: You will still have to re-enter your mail account password to send and receive mail.Quicken Intuit Quicken Data Files are stored in different folders depending on the version of Quicken. The main data file has a .QDF extenstion for Quicken Data File. Is is usually called QDATA.QDF. You can search the hard drive for *.QDF files to find the location. You may want to backup the entire folder that contains your Quicken Data File because they also have some .QSD, .QEL, .QIF, and .QDB files that may be created with your data file. Backup The default location for Quicken Data files for different versions of Quicken are listed below: C:\QuickenW
Since Quicken could be in different places, it is best to use Windows Search to search for *.QDF Quickbooks Intuit Quickbooks usually places the data file in:
But users often times save their Quickbooks data file in other locations. The extension is .QBW so it is usually best to do a search for *.QBW to find all the Quickbooks data files. Thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird stores your messages, address book and settings in a folder called Profiles. This folder can usually be found at %APPDATA%\Thunderbird
Copy the Profiles folder from the location above to your backup device. For more information see: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird Restore To restore your Thundbird emails and settings copy the Profiles folder you made a backup of into the appropriate location above. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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