Easy backup of user/app data, desktop, downloads,

Clef · 12 Jul 2020

Hi, I have to administer my moms computer remotely and she doesn’t have an external drive or usb stick. I set her up with DropBox and could possibly setup a WebDav server for her but I need to backup her user data/prodile so I could restore to this machine or another one. She mainly has files on desktop and downloads, and then uses apps like firefox, libreoffice, zoom, skype, and acrobat reader. I’m not really a windows user so don’t know what the easiest way to do this would be. I set her up with Firefox sync so i can at least keep the browser info easily accessed. I tries to get her to only keep files in DropBox but things inevitably end up on desktop and downloads

Callender · 12 Jul 2020

Consider using this:

PCData Back

Clef · 12 Jul 2020

That looks like a very useful program thanks. Do you know if I can backup to a webdav server? She also has an older laptop, is there a way to backup to another machine over the network? How would i connect the two machines. Thinking webdav might be easiest but not sure if i run the risk of the backup getting corrupt.

Callender · 12 Jul 2020

I don't know anything about that. As far as I can work out the backup can be saved anywhere as long as it can be seen by the machine on which the profile is being restored.

EDIT: Maybe create a small partition for profile backup purposes.

Lance1 · 12 Jul 2020

Clef said:

That looks like a very useful program thanks. Do you know if I can backup to a webdav server? She also has an older laptop, is there a way to backup to another machine over the network? How would i connect the two machines. Thinking webdav might be easiest but not sure if i run the risk of the backup getting corrupt.

This one look promising WebDAV Backup Software Client Not free, but most good backup solutions are not anyway.

Clef · 12 Jul 2020

Duplicati looks interesting as well. Guess I will try out a few.

Callender · 12 Jul 2020

You could also look at:

https://beanland.net.au/AutoVer/

It should work with network drives but probably won't back up an entire user profile but you can select any folders that you want to back up. I used it in my old workplace to backup a shared Access database on a network drive but have not use it since then and that was 7 or 8 years ago.

Steve C · 13 Jul 2020

Does she have a laptop or desktop PC? For either you could create a separate backup partition on the main disk and use Macrium Reflect Free to schedule full system backups to that partition. However, this dos not protect against disk failures. If she has a desktop, a better solution is to install another internal drive or connect and external USB drive and schedule Reflect backups to that. You can also control these backups remotely.

I use the Reflect backup to an external drive method to backup my father's PC.

Clef · 13 Jul 2020

She has a laptop. 2 inspirons, a newer one and an okder ine which was why I was interested in networking them together over wifi so that maybe i could save the backup to the older one. Might try webdav first.