Important Notice
The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software,
purely for historical purposes.
If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming,
you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully
out of date.
MSBACKUP--Notes
◄Example► ◄Syntax►
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MSBACKUP──Notes
Must start MSBACKUP from a hard disk
MSBACKUP program files must be located on your hard disk. You cannot start
MSBACKUP from a floppy disk.
Backup catalogs
As part of the backup process, MSBACKUP creates a backup catalog that
contains information about the files you backed up. When you need to restore
one or more files, you can load the backup catalog and easily select files
from a backup set. The backup catalog includes information about the:
♦ Backed-up disk's directory structure.
♦ Names, sizes, and attributes of the directories and files that were
selected.
♦ Total number of files.
♦ Total size of the backup.
♦ Name of the setup file that was used.
♦ Date the backup was made.
MSBACKUP gives each catalog file a unique name that helps you identify a
backup set. Each character in the catalog name contains information about a
particular backup set. For example, consider a typical catalog name such as
CD20823A.FUL. Reading left to right, the character(s) in the filename mean
the following:
Character(s) Meaning
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C The first drive backed up in this set.
D The last drive backed up in this set. (If only one drive was
backed up, this letter will be the same as the first drive
that was backed up.)
2 The last digit of the year, as determined by the system date.
In the example, the year is 1992.
08 The month the backup set was created.
23 The day of the month the backup set was created.
A The position in the sequence of this backup. If more than one
backup of the same drive(s) is performed on the same day and
the Keep Old Backup Catalogs option is set to On, MSBACKUP
assigns a letter from A to Z to indicate the order in which
the backups were performed (A is the first backup you created
that day, B is the second, C the third, and so on). If the
Keep Old Backup Catalogs option is set to Off, this alternates
between A and B.
FUL The backup type──FUL indicates a full backup, INC indicates an
incremental backup, and DIF indicates a differential backup.
You can easily locate the catalog for a backup set by using the information
contained in the catalog filenames, even if you have many catalog files in
your directory.
Each time you perform a full backup using a specific setup file, MSBACKUP
creates a master catalog. The master catalog keeps track of all the backup
catalogs made during the backup cycle. When the next full backup is
performed and a new backup cycle begins, a new master catalog is created.
The master catalog is used if you need to restore a complete backup cycle.
When you load the master catalog, the catalogs of all the backups that were
created during the backup cycle are automatically merged. Then the latest
version of each backed-up file can be automatically restored (or you can
choose to restore an earlier version).
You can choose whether you want to keep all of the old catalogs or only the
current catalogs on your hard disk. The catalogs will remain part of your
backup sets.
When you back up files, MSBACKUP places one copy of the backup catalog on
your hard disk, and a second copy on the disk or network drive that contains
your backup set.
Restoring Older Backups using MS-DOS 6.22 Backup
The Backup programs included with MS-DOS version 6.22 cannot usually restore
backups made with MS-DOS version 6 or 6.2. (Also, Microsoft Backup does not
restore backups made by using the BACKUP.EXE program, which came with MS-DOS
version 5 and earlier. For information about restoring such backups, see the
<RESTORE> command.)
If you try to restore a backup made with the MS-DOS 6 or 6.2 and Microsoft
Backup displays an error message, you need to use the MS-DOS 6 or 6.2
versions of Backup instead. If you do not currently have one of these
versions of Backup on your computer, you will need to retrieve the older
version of Backup from your MS-DOS 6 or 6.2 distribution disks. For more
information, see the README.TXT file (located in the directory that contains
your MS-DOS files).
MS-DOS 6.22 Backup for MS-DOS (MSBACKUP.EXE) can restore older compressed
backups if DoubleSpace is installed (that is, DBLSPACE.BIN is loaded in
memory).
Both MS-DOS 6.22 Backup programs can restore MS-DOS 6 and 6.2 backups made
without data compression. If you unchecked the Compress Backup Data box in
the Backup Options dialog before you backed up, you should have no problems
restoring your data using the MS-DOS version 6.22 Backup programs.
Insufficient memory
If you receive a message stating that you have insufficient memory, do the
following:
1 Make sure you have at lease 512K of memory on your computer.
2 Quit MSBACKUP, remove all memory-resident programs from memory, and try
using MSBACKUP again.
3 Choose the Options button on the Backup screen to display the Disk Backup
Options dialog box. Turn off the Compress Backup Data option and then
choose OK.
The MSDOSDATA environment variable
Backup for MS-DOS uses the MSDOSDATA environment variable to determine the
location of configuration information, backup sets, and catalogs. Backup for
MS-DOS first searches for the MSDOSDATA environment variable. If this
environment variable is not defined, the program searches the directory from
which you started the program. If the program does not find the file, the
program creates it using default values and places it in the directory.
The MSDOSDATA environment variable is useful if you share the Backup for
MS-DOS program files with others, but use your own configuration. For
example, suppose the program files are located on drive P, a
read-and-execute-only network server, and you want to use your own
configuration, backup sets, and catalogs. To specify that Backup for MS-DOS
use the configuration information, backup sets, and catalogs located in the
BACKUP directory on your drive C, add the following line to your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
set msdosdata=c:\backup
To start Backup for MS-DOS, type the following at the command line:
p:\msbackup
Changes you make to the configuration of Backup for MS-DOS are saved in the
BACKUP directory on drive C.
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