Solved Backing up and restoring AppData and Favorites

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Several of my programs store their settings and/or profiles in AppData and some even store a small amount of data in there (post it notes and calendar entries). Whenever I restore my boot drive to an earlier image, I lose any changes in AppData and Favorites that were made since the image was made. If I made copies of the Appdata and Favorites folders, would it be possible to copy them back to restore any changed settings and data after an image restore?

 

[essenbe]

I'm not sure aout AppData but favorites, yes. I have my user folders on another drive, except AppData. I do 1 to 1 backups of those folders daily with Sync Toy. When I do a clean install or an image restore, I presume, the favorites are exactly the same as before the clean install. I assume the AppData would be the same way, but I'm not sure you would want to. It contains tons of stuff that you may not need or want. Perhaps certain folders in there, for instance http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/166067-sticky-notes-backup-restore.html.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Several of my programs store their settings and/or profiles in AppData and some even store a small amount of data in there (post it notes and calendar entries). Whenever I restore my boot drive to an earlier image, I lose any changes in AppData and Favorites that were made since the image was made. If I made copies of the Appdata and Favorites folders, would it be possible to copy them back to restore any changed settings and data after an image restore?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I wanted to keep AppData where it is in C: so it gets backed up with the period system images I make in case I ever want to revert back to an earlier program setting. It's because other settings (and data) also revert back to the earlier version that I wanted to know if I could keep versioned copies of both the AppData and Favorites folders and copy back the portions I needed restored back to the current version after restoring an earlier image. Making those copies should be easy using FreeFileSync (similar to SyncToy) and should be configurable to happen when I do my daily data backups.

 

[whs]

Found it. Favorites is easy. Just copy the folder or export them to a bookmark file from within IE.

AppData is a bit more finagle. You can copy the folder (rather big) but I am not sure whether it will work perfectly after you replaced the one from the image. There may be pointers in the registry that break. I guess it is a matter of trying - make a test.

 

[Britton30]

Would it be better to copy over the items IN the folders instead of the whole folder? I'm assuming the restored image has AppData and Favorites folders already. If there are identical items Windows will ask to replace it, keep both, etc.

 

[essenbe]

I wanted to keep AppData where it is in C: so it gets backed up with the period system images I make in case I ever want to revert back to an earlier program setting. It's because other settings (and data) also revert back to the earlier version that I wanted to know if I could keep versioned copies of both the AppData and Favorites folders and copy back the portions I needed restored back to the current version after restoring an earlier image. Making those copies should be easy using FreeFileSync (similar to SyncToy) and should be configurable to happen when I do my daily data backups.

Lady F., by way of explanation, I moved my user folders to a data drive, however the AppData folder is still on the C drive. I don't back that up, but maybe I should. It can be quite large and have a bunch of stuff I don't care about. Certain folders in AppData I probably should back up, but don't.

 

[whs]

Restoring the bookmark file requires that you first empty the favorites folder completely. Else you will end up with duplicate entries. I would do the same with Appdata because merging can be a pain.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Would it be better to copy over the items IN the folders instead of the whole folder? I'm assuming the restored image has AppData and Favorites folders already. If there are identical items Windows will ask to replace it, keep both, etc.

My AppData folder is only 1.01GB so size doesn't worry me. I clean out temp files daily as part of my anti-malware quick scan routine and I don't have any programs, such as iTunes, that store massive amounts of data in AppData. I would copy back only the program folders within AppData that would need to be brought back to the present. Conversely, if I needed only to restore some previous settings I managed to screw up (I'm good at things like that), instead of restoring the entire C: drive, I could just copy back the offending program folder.

My concern is what Wolfgang brought up: there may be registry links that would break or something else equally insidious.

 

[whs]

As I suggested. Make an image now after you saved the favorites and AppData. Then restore to some earier image and replace favorites and Appdata with those you saved.

If it does not work, restore the image you just made. Easy, peasy.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I wanted to keep AppData where it is in C: so it gets backed up with the period system images I make in case I ever want to revert back to an earlier program setting. It's because other settings (and data) also revert back to the earlier version that I wanted to know if I could keep versioned copies of both the AppData and Favorites folders and copy back the portions I needed restored back to the current version after restoring an earlier image. Making those copies should be easy using FreeFileSync (similar to SyncToy) and should be configurable to happen when I do my daily data backups.

Lady F., by way of explanation, I moved my user folders to a data drive, however the AppData folder is still on the C drive. I don't back that up, but maybe I should. It can be quite large and have a bunch of stuff I don't care about. Certain folders in AppData I probably should back up, but don't.

I left my User folder on C: drive because of the dire warnings I had read about how moving the User folder to another drive would cause an image of the C drive to also include all of the drive the User folder had been moved to be included in the image. At the time, all I thought I would need to move from my SSD would be the data folders (My Documents, My Music, etc.), which was as easy as just dragging them to the E: drive.

Btw, guys, people are starting to respond to the relocated post so maybe we should continue over there.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

As I suggested. Make an image now after you saved the favorites and AppData. Then restore to some earier image and replace favorites and Appdata with those you saved.

If it does not work, restore the image you just made. Easy, peasy.

I'll have to do that (unless someone chimes in with something such as guaranteed computer meltdown if I do so) but it will have to keep for a day or two. I seriously need some serious chill time before I tackle anything new.

 

[essenbe]

Lady F, that warning about the images was only about Windows image backup. Macrium, Paragon nor any other imaging program I am aware of does not do that, only Windows.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Look I am only a clunker at this stuff but going to my Users / John / AppData I just right click then it asks if I want to send it to wherever (stick for example) is this anything near what is needed or am I way off track??
If it is right then it would only be a matter of retrieving it back??

 

[whs]

John, saving it is not the problem. Question is what happens when you restore it to an earlier image. Does it break something ??

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Told you I was a clunker I read it as saving the retrieving

 

[whs]

No problem John. Your method is certainly one that could be used for saving the appdata folder(s).

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

After doing some far...er...fooling around with trying to restore lost data and settings in the three programs that sometimes were giving me grief after I would do an image restore, I determined that backing up and restoring AppData wasn't going to reliably do the job for me plus doing so was being increasingly hairier the more I tried so I've moved on to Plan B.

My desktop calendar program has a way to manually backup both settings and data (in the past I only used it to transfer data between my desktop and my notebook before going on a trip) so I set up a folder in Documents on my E: drive for Calendar Backups with a subfolder for settings and another one for data in it. It takes only a few seconds to make a backup so I'll just have to remember to do so whenever I add entries to the calendar (with me being retired, that doesn't happen often). The folder will get backed up by FreeFileSync when I do my daily backup of the E: drive.

I would occasionally lose some of my settings if I shut down my computer without closing MediaMonkey first (it isn't often that I do that but when I did, it was a PITA to deal with after I restarted). Since there was only one setting that would give me grief when I tried to remember how to reset it, the path and folder and file names of files ripped from CDs, I just did a copy and paste of that setting to a text file I made in the folder where I keep my MediaMonkey installation files (I save the installation files, including older versions, of all the programs I download since the websites I get them from may not have them later on should I need them); the other settings take only a few seconds for me to reset. Now, if I ever forget to close MediaMonkey before shutting down my computer, I can copy and paste the setting back into Media Monkey.

My post it note program, FreeNote, was more of a problem since there was no way I could find to back up the notes. someone recommended 7 Sticky Notes to me a while back but didn't care for it much then because making new notes wasn't as easy as it was with FreeNote and the notes took up more screen real estate. I did use it for some for notes that I didn't need to be in my face at all times since I could roll up the notes and leave only the title showing, cutting down on the screen real estate being occupied. One thing that 7 Sticky notes can do that FreeNote cannot is allow me to manually backup notes and/or set it up to automagically backups notes. I can set how often I want all the notes backed up, where to back them up to, and how many backups to keep (with older ones over that number being automagically deleted). So, I set up a folder on my E: drive to park the backups in, then copied all my old FreeNote notes to new 7 Sticky Note notes, parked the old notes in a pile in one corner, the closed FreeNote and removed from Startup. That way, I can retrieve them later should something go horribly wrong with 7 Sticky Notes.

Ok, I've bored you all long enough.