Windows Library as Source?

[jdhill]

Windows can organize data by libraries as well as by drives and folders. I find them very convenient and useful.

It would be very helpful if Retrospect could recognize these, but I've failed to find any way to do this, other than essentially recreating a library definition in Retrospect. Functional, but definitely not convenient.

Any thoughts?

Corax

[DavidHertzberg]

I'm a Retrospect Mac administrator, and I haven't had a Windows client since mid-2004.  However, can you define a Subvolume for a Library folder in Retrospect Windows?

[DavidHertzberg]

There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia article that discusses Windows Libraries; I found this article from Microsoft.  It says "A Library doesn’t contain files. Rather, a Library provides a single aggregated view of multiple folders and their contents."  That explains why pages 444-446 of the Retrospect Windows 12 User's Guide don't tell you how to define a Windows Library as a Subvolume.

 

So jdhill is going to have to file a Feature Request; the next post in this thread will be my boilerplate explanation of how to do that.

 

P.S.: I took a further look at the Microsoft article linked to in the first sentence of this post, including the comments.  A number of those comments are not at all complimentary about Windows Libraries; in fact they discuss ways to disable the facility.  So jdhill should be careful using Windows Libraries, and IMHO not expect Retrospect to support them.  Also, Windows Libraries are a facility added in Windows 7; do later versions of Windows support them (I wouldn't know, because I'm a Mac administrator)—or is jdhill stuck on Windows 7?

[DavidHertzberg]

If you think this is a feature that should be added by Retrospect Inc., you will have to submit it as a Support Case.  For English speakers, that is done by going here, and filling out the form (sorry, I don't know what the equivalent addresses are for non-English speakers, but they can figure it out from their appropriate Retrospect website address).  IMHO this is quite reasonable; obliging you to fill out the form provides Retrospect Inc. with useful details about your Retrospect installation that they would otherwise have to query you for.

 

As a result, Retrospect Inc. will pay no attention to your post in this forum.  On 12 December 2016, in response to a letter I snail-mailed to Mayoff,  I received an e-mail through a Mayoff account that was signed by JG Heithcock, CEO, Retrospect, Inc..  In it he says "From reading your letter, I think the main issue is that you view the forums as a good place to talk to us, Retrospect, Inc. But we view the audience of the forums as restricted to our customers [my emphasis]. The one caveat we have made on that is for feature requests, largely as we would like to see if other customers also agree on the desirability and feature set for these requests."

 

That means that the only audience for "Retrospect feature requests" in this forum will be other administrators of Retrospect.  Nevertheless, by posting in this forum you are providing a useful service to us fellow administrator peasants.  Thank you.

 

Please be aware that the "description of your issue" in the Support Case form is IME limited to about 2000 characters by the Support Case software.  If you go over that limit your "description" will be broken up into a "description" plus one or more "additional notes".  The same is true for any additional notes you may later post yourself.  I suggest that, to avoid the appearance of choppiness in your Support Case, you create your case in a post in this forum and then copy it paragraph-by-paragraph to your Support Case. 

 

Note that, despite the new dialogs in the Retrospect Inc. Support Case system urging you to sign up for Annual Support and Maintenance, Mayoff has verbally assured me that you don't need to be signed up for ASM to request a feature—only to get personal assistance in coping with its absence.

 

If this post sounds formulaic, that's because I intend it to be.  I intend to post it in every new thread that appears in this forum, unless the OP indicates that he/she has or will open a Support Case for the feature request that the thread reports.  Of course, Mayoff could take 5 minutes of his time to post a slightly-more-polite version of this post as a  "sticky thread" that will always appear at the top of the forum.  I don't intend to hold my breath until that happens 😞.