XP shared documents backup?

[durielk]

We are running a new Dell 4550 with home XP. I want Retro version 6 make a backup of only the shared documents folder. In the selection screen I can only see the C drive, the share documents folder is somewhere else (i have no idea where). We only have one drive and the 'shared documents' was created with XP, I have no idea why one cannot see it hanging off of 'C'. Sounds like a MS problem but the program is suppose to work with XP!

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

[AmyJ]

The folder is located in the following directory:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents

 

The Shared Directory folder you are referencing is actually only a shortcut to the actual folder in the above path. Retrospect will not show you shortcuts in volume selection windows.

 

 

The following tutorial will walk you through backing up individual folders:

 

http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27527

[olderbutwiser]

I'm using WinXP Pro and Retrospect Professional 6.5. And so I have tried backing up the All Users\Documents folder, but when I do, I find that the folder has been renamed to Shared Documents! For real, as in that is the name in Explorer's address bar! After a bunch of research, I was able to get things back to normal by creating a Documents folder, moving the subfolders back under it, setting its attributes to R at a command prompt, getting the right desktop.ini file in the folder, etc., etc. Very painful! And the last time it happened, I still have not been able to get one of the users to see "Shared Documents" - they still see "Documents." I think this might have something to do with "open file backup"... Now I'm afraid to use Retrospect to backup these folders at all! Am I doing something wrong?

[AmyJ]

Retrospect does not have the ability to change the folder name from Documents to Shared Documents and vice versa. This may have to do with a Service Pack update or computer configuration changes (such as joining a domain, etc.) You may want to research this in the Microsoft Knowledgebase.

[JeffV]

[Edit: Oops...this really was supposed to be a reply to Durielk.]

 

 

 

I'll take a stab at this...it's always challenging to explain! With a little editorializing thrown in because it touches on some favorite subjects.

 

 

 

The folder we know and love as Shared Documents is physically named C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents. Windows, however, logically renames it as Desktop\My Computer\Shared Documents when it shows it to you.

 

 

 

Windows uses what's called a "namespace" to present this folder and other aspects of the operating system in such a way that it is generally not necessary to know where or even what you're looking at, and to provide a consistent presentation for diverse aspects of the OS. For example, Printers and Faxes looks like a folder, but it isn't...it's just part of the Windows "shell" (the part of Windows with which you interact) and doesn't exist as a location on your hard disk. The Fonts folder looks like a folder, and it is, but you don't have to know or care that it's C:\Windows\Fonts. It's presented to you as Desktop\My Computer\Control Panel\Fonts. The My Documents folder is a folder whose physical location is different for every user set up on your computer, but whose logical name is the same for all of them. The results of a Search are shown in a folder window, but may contain objects from many different folders. The Search Results folder exists only for the purposes of the search. You don't have to know or care where they are, either. That's Windows responsibility. Some other products, like digital cameras, PDAs, and some very slick backup products, add their own objects to Windows namespace. I have read that its Microsoft's ultimate goal for Windows to make users completely oblivious to such things as drive letters. The Both Windows and Retrospect will have to evolve some for that to happen! The next version of Windows will get us a lot closer.

 

 

 

Anyway, that's why you didn't know or care where Shared Documents was...until you went to back it up. Unfortunately, as you noticed, Shared Documents does not appear under "My Computer" in Retrospect as it does in Windows Explorer. Retrospect imposes its own namespace on us. What RS calls "My Computer" should really be called something like "My Storage Devices", and RS's "My Network Places" would more accurately be called "Remote Storage Devices". (Oddly, Shared Documents doesn't appear in Windows' own backup program, either, though the rest of the storage namespace does. Shared Documents is not very well implemented in Windows XP, in my opinion. It looks and works like an afterthought, with too much of its "innards" exposed. Regardless...)

 

 

 

For Retrospect's purposes, then you have to choose C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents because that is the physical location, and that's all Retrospect knows. But if you later have to restore it (and you would restore to the same physical folder C:\...\Documents), Windows is smart enough to know that it should show you contents of C:\...\Documents as contents of the Shared Documents logical folder.

 

 

 

I would very much like a future version of Retrospect to use Windows' namespace. But more than that, RS is actually a very smart approach to backup that would seem to lend itself to a drag & drop, object-oriented UI. But it's very Windows 3.1-ish: An endless parade of dialog boxes with listboxes, and "Add" and "Remove" buttons, often several levels deep. It feels like a force-fit with Windows. It gets a tiny bit better in each version, but the RS UI could really use an overhaul.

 

 

 

Hope that helps. Or at least doesn't make it any more confusing!