Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

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Matt
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Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by Matt »

I have PC+ set up in the C:\PCPLUS11 folder. Within this folder I have a subfolder (C:\PCPLUS11\TEST) with a second instance of PC+ set up that I use for testing. Up until just recently, whenever I did a backup the program would only create a backup for the files within that folder. However, in the past couple of weeks something has changed and now when I do a backup the program is creating a backup of the data in both the primary (C:\PCPLUS11) and the subfolder (C:\PCPLUS11\TEST) and combining the data in both folders into one backup file. I was not having this problem prior to installing the 12/6/10 v11 Maintenance Release so I'm thinking that something in this release may have caused the backup process to work differently than it had in the past. Has anyone else noticed this problem? If I want to have a separate instance of PC+ set up on my computer do I now need to set it up in a completely different root folder (e.g. C:\TEST) in order for the backup process to backup just that folder?

Zorak
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Re: Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by Zorak »

The way the backup program works is to catch all DBFs in the program directory. I wouldn't know why it wasn't backing up all these files all along, because the program has honestly worked that way for years, probably going back to at least Version 7.

Matt
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Re: Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by Matt »

Very interesting. If the backup contains two separate sets of PC+ files how does the program know which ones to restore when doing a restore within an individual directory? Or does it go ahead and restore both instances on both the primary folder and subfolder?

NeilZ
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Re: Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by NeilZ »

matt wrote:Very interesting. If the backup contains two separate sets of PC+ files how does the program know which ones to restore when doing a restore within an individual directory? Or does it go ahead and restore both instances on both the primary folder and subfolder?
More than likely, as the main backup creates a ZIP file, and that's the way most ZIP archivers work.

FWIW .. it may be a better idea to install your test setup to a completely different directory, say C:\PCPLUS11TEST and move the data there, then delete the TEST directory from under C:\PCPLUS11.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

Zorak
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Re: Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by Zorak »

It is programmed to find all the DBF, FPT, and PCA files and uses the first two letters of the file name to determine whether it should be included in the backup. If you make an all data files backup, it grabs all the data files. If you make a Contributions backup, it grabs everything that starts with "CO".

If you look inside the backup file, it keeps the file structure in place. It doesn't have to differentiate between the two different installations, it just stores everything in the backup exactly as it finds them. When you restore that backup, it will write all those files into your program directory, data directory, second installation directory, exactly in the structure that it found them in originally.

Matt
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Re: Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by Matt »

Thank you Neil and Zorak. I did some more testing and found that the backup process and the restoring of the backups worked exactly as described below. I also figured out why I just noticed this. In the past I had set up a separate sub folder within the PCPLUS primary folder for each installation of PC+. When you do a backup on the separate sub folder it only backs up the files within that sub folder. However, in late December I set up a new installation of PC+ in a sub folder "TEST" within the existing installation of PC+ in the C:\PCPLUS11 folder. As a result, when I backed up the C:\PCPLUS11 primary folder it also backed up the contents of the TEST subfolder.

Lesson learned: If you have multiple installations of PC+ loaded on your computer, and you only want one installation included when creating a backup file, this installation must be in a stand alone directory.

NeilZ
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Re: Problem With Backup Pulling Multiple Folders

Post by NeilZ »

FWIW .. I have v10 & 11 on one machine, and my test setup on my Win7 box. Keep them completely separate ;)
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

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