Questions about Helios Backup

[Andy]

In another place Art asked the following questions about Helios Backup.

My responses are in bold after each questions.

I have 4 questions that pertain to backing up our Helios data. I am using Helios Explorer 9.4, under Windows XP Professional.

1.) Is the compression program WinZip?

Art, I believe that Helios use something like PKZIP - I have also tried (sometime ago) to open the backup file with WinZip - no success

2.) Is there a way to automate backups without opening Utility menu and simply performing the backups without response requirements?

How this brings up an interesting point. I was at the Helios office for 2 days at the end of March (reviewing V10 - well testing would be more honest). I was advised at that time that V10 (due for release at Vegas Show - they have much work to do) WILL NOT include a Backup utilities. They will be suggesting you use MSBackup or a 3rd party utility. So you might as well get ready for that now. I have been working with the MicroSoft Backup in Win2000 and Win XP Pro - they both seem to work great and allow for your desired scheduling and automation. Likely the way for you to go - or 3rd party software - your call

3.) For above question, is there a way of setting up a batch command in conjunction with Windows scheduler to automate backups?

MSBackup likely still the way to go, batch file can work though if you prefer.

4.) Can you set up the Helios Backup to backup a folder with 7 sub-directories (Weeks worth of backups)? I would be willing to perform the daily backup copies inside the Helios\Data folder if it was possible to zip and copy the Data directory plus all sub-folders (Most of our daily salon data files are 250MB+ so I would absolutely need to compress a weeks worth to backup the entire set on a single CD. Neither WinZip nor Veritas DLA supports spanning multiple CDs for this process.

You can not do this automatically with the Helios Utility but you could by the approaches above. CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION - It sounds like you may intend only to create the off-system backup once a week. That would provide you backup in case of data corruption within the Helios Access Databases BUT it would NOT give you backup within that week in case of Hard Drive CRASH. Strongly recommend off-system backups daily and off-site (out of the salon/store at least once a week)

Stomp (Veritas) has a DLA (Drive Letter Access) software that is reliable for accessing a CD R/W drive, but I have our R/W drive installed on our client PC. The software does not support networking and our Helios data is on our main PC or Server. If all 4 questions above could be answered in a positive light, I could backup up all my files in a compressed state, then execute a simple copy command to place files on the CD-R media.


Hope this helps

[Chippp]

Helios used pkzip for file compresion,

You could use widows commander a windows file manager, it has built in pkzip as well as disk spanning.

It my fav file manager!

http://www.ghisler.com/

[Gene]

For a free speedy zip utility, Try ultimate Zip. Even an employee can do it!