Staff Desktop XP
Desktop Backup Service
Introduction
This is a pilot system. We will monitor its use and may amend or upgrade it in the future.
What does it let me do?
It allows you to take a backup of your documents (everything in My Documents and any folders within My Documents). The intention is to allow you to backup what you are currently working on, but not archives of old documents etc. Your first backup will backup everything, subsequent backups are incremental - they will only back up what is new or changed since the last backup (adding them to the last backup).
It also takes a backup of your Internet Explorer Favorites, and your Outlook Express Address book (contacts).
It allows you to restore all of your documents, or one or more individual files.
If you have more than one computer - for example, a laptop and a desktop computer, you can back up both (to separate backup files). You cannot accidentally restore your laptop backup to your desktop computer nor vice versa.
You can also use it to transfer your files, address book and Favorites to a new computer. If you are upgrading your computer to a new version of Windows, you can perform a backup beforehand and then restore to the newly named computer after the upgrade.
It is not intended for backing up e-mail messages.
Restrictions
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This service is only available to users of the Staff Desktop service.
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This service is not for the backup of e-mail messages.
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This service is not for the backup of large archives of old documents.
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The service creates a temporary compressed file of your documents on your C: drive; there must be sufficient space on your C: drive for this to be created.
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You must not already use an R: drive - this is used by the backup service.
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The current Zip file format limits the number of member files in a Zip file to 65,535, and the maximum size of both the Zip file itself and any member file to 4 gigabytes.
Since there is limited capacity for the backups, we will monitor usage of this service. We will contact any user if their use of the system appears to be excessive.
Step by Step Guide
If you have problems
Contact your local IT Support staff. Otherwise, contact the Information Technology Service Desk on extension 2320 or e-mail IT.Services@lboro.ac.uk.