■<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"> <title>Cobian Backup 8 FAQ</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="CobStyle.css"> </head> <body> <div align="center"> <table border="0" width="600" id="table1"> <tr> <td> FAQ <a href="#49">Q: I have a question about Cobian Backup 8. What can I do?</a> <a href="#1">Q: Can I use old 3.x and 4.x, 5.x, 6.x and 7.x lists?</a> <a href="#2">Q: In which language was Cobian Backup 8 created? </a> <a href="#51">Q- I'm trying to impersonate a user in a task but it fails. Why?</a> <a href="#52">Q- I have successfully installed the program as a service. It worked fine under some weeks but now I get the error "Engine not found". Why?</a> <a href="#3">Q: I want to close a program. What is the "Window Caption" that I need to enter?</a> <a href="#4">Q: I get a message that says that the engine is not found</a> <a href="#5">Q: My firewall says that Cobian Backup 8 is accessing the network? Why?</a> <a href="#6">Q: I want to translate the program into my language</a> <a href="#7a">Q: Which command line arguments can I use with Cobian Backup 8?</a> <a href="#7">Q: Installing the program as a service, I get an error in the log file. The program cannot access a network drive. Why? </a> <a href="#9">Q: Why the program fails to backup some files? </a> <a href="#10">Q: Is there some Recovery function? </a> <a href="#11">Q: Why the program fails to zip? I have enough free space on the destination drive. </a> <a href="#53">Q-How can I start the backup of all tasks when Windows  starts? And when Windows shuts down?</a> <a href="#12">Q: I use a "Before backup" event to start a program before the backup starts, but I don't see the program. The log file says that the program was successfully started</a><a href="#13">. </a> <a href="#13">Q: I use a "Before backup" event to stop a program before the backup starts. The log file says that the program was no found but the program IS running. </a> <a href="#15">Q: I want your program to create a mirror for me. When I delete the original file, I want the program to delete the backup copy. </a> <a href="#16">Q: I am trying to backup to a CD-RW but I get an error that says "Destination directory no found". Why?</a> <a href="#17">Q: I created a "Before backup" event to close Outlook, but it doesn't close or crashes. Why?</a> <a href="#18">Q: Can I backup directly to a CD-DVD?</a> <a href="#19">Q: I am having some weird errors when uploading/downloading to a FTP, or I cannot connect at all.</a> <a href="#20">Q- Please, I want the program to make a mirror</a><a href="#21">.</a> <a href="#21">Q- My service cannot access my mapped drive Z:. Why?</a> <a href="#22">Q- I get a "No enough space" when compressing, but I do have enough space in the destination.</a> <a href="#24">Q - Why doesn't Cobian Backup 8 work with FastSwitch in Windows XP?</a> <a href="#25">Q- My incremental or differential backup doesn't work. The program seems to copy every file. Why?</a> <a href="#26">Q: I can change the archive attribute manually, yet, the program cannot do the same. Why?</a> <a href="#28">Q - I want to exclude a subdirectory from several folders. For example, I have one subdirectory called Versions in every folder. How do I do?</a> <a href="#29">Q- I backup a task and everything seems to be OK. However I get a message saying that there are some errors. I don't see any other error in the log file. Why?</a> <a href="#30">Q- Can Cobian Backup 8 copy files with file names in Chinese, Japanese or other multi-byte languages?</a> <a href="#31">Q- What plans there are for Cobian Backup 8 after version 7?</a> <a href="#27">Q: The program seems VERY slow when the interface starts up. It's eating up all my machine's resources.</a> <a href="#32">Q- When I want to install the program, I get an error that says that the files could not be unzipped or that the resource file could not be extracted.</a> <a href="#33">Q- I want to make an incremental or differential backup but the program keeps making full backups. Why?</a> <a href="#34">Q- I have 2 tasks that should start at the same time, but the second never seems to start.</a> <a href="#35">Q- I am behind a NAT network system. What  do I do to make the FTP feature to word?</a> <a href="#36">Q- I want to backup to a FTP. I write the address ftp://myserver.com but I get a timeout. I know the address exists.</a> <a href="#37">Q- I want to upload/download a file to/from a FTP. The file is large (>2Gb) and I get a "Range check error"</a> <a href="#38">Q- I would like to backup files that are open exclusively by another application. Is this possible?</a> <a href="#39">Q- Is there any limit for the size of the file for strong encryption?</a> <a href="#40">Q- Please, please pretty please add a mirror function.</a> <a href="#41">Q: Can I run the program without the tray icon?</a> <a href="#42">Q: I have a zip file , created with Cobian Backup 8. The file cannot be open with WinRar or any other program and is 5 GB in size. Why?</a> <a href="#43">Q: How do I exclude the Firefox Cache directory?</a> <a href="#44">Q: Why do you use the archive attribute for incremental backups and not the timestamp as in previous versions?</a> <a href="#45">Q: My service stopped working today. Why?</a> <a href="#46">Q: When uploading/downloading from a FTP server, the services hangs.</a> <a href="#47">Q: The program works fine when running as an administrator or power user in XP/2000 but it refuses to start as a normal user.</a> <a href="#48">Q: AddAware reports libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll to be spyware.</a>   <a name="49"></a>Q: I have a question about Cobian Backup 8. What can I do? Please use the Support forum that you find under the Help menu. Do NOT ask me questions privately by mail, they may never get answered. <a name="50"></a> <a name="1"> </a>Q: Can I use old 3.x and 4.x, 5.x, 6.x and 7.x lists? A: Click the menu List-Import to convert the old format into the new one. The old items will be added to your current list. In this version, only lists that have been created by versions 6,7 and 8 can be imported. <a name="51"></a>Q- I'm trying to impersonate a user in a task but it fails. Why? For this feature to work,, you need to use NT 4.0 SP6 or better (2000/XP/2003/Vista, etc). In some systems like Windows 2000, this function will fail because the normal user of the service/process need to have the SE_TCB_NAME privilege. This means that this will only work if the service is running under the Local System account (Windows 2000 only) <a name="2"></a>Q: In which language was Cobian Backup 8 created? A: Cobian Backup 8 was completely written using Borland Delphi 2006 (Object Pascal). <a name="52"> </a>Q- I have successfully installed the program as a service. It worked fine under some weeks but now I get the error "Engine not found". Why? This can happen if the password of the account that is running the service has changed. Use the Options dialog to change the password of the service.   <a name="3"></a>Q: I want to close a program. What is the "Window Caption" that I need to enter? A: The window caption is the place that contains the title of the window: <img border="0" src="Images/caption.jpg" width="517" height="115"> In this case (picture) I can enter the whole caption "Dokument1-Microsoft Word" or a part of the caption "Dokument1" or "Microsoft Word". Note that you must enter your words EXACTLY as they are found in the window (CASE SENSITIVE). Some programs change the caption of the window depending on  the document that they are using, so try to use a word that you know will be present in the caption when it's time to close the program. Another problem: there can be several windows using the same caption. In this case, only one will be closed. Try to use the exact caption as a parameter when closing programs, but you can also use only a part of the caption if you are sure that only one window contains these words. In this version, you can also enter a window's class name. This class name cannot be easily known but if you are a programmer or an advanced user, you can use tools like Spy++ to get the class name of some window. In this case you need to enter the class name in the form: class:the_class_name including the word "class:" with the colon.   <a name="4"></a>Q: I get a message that says that the engine is not found There are several possibilities here. The user interface is the "dummy" program that you see in the system tray. It must communicate with the engine, that may be running as a service or as an application in the background. First: 1) Check if the service is running (in the case that the program was installed as a service) 2) If the program was installed as an application, re-run the program from the Start menu to be sure that the engine is running (or run the Cobian.exe executable). Another possibility may be  that you entered the wrong account name/password combination when installing the program. To fix this problem, go to Options and try to start the service there. You can also change the logon options in the same place. <a name="5"></a>Q: My firewall says that Cobian Backup 8 is accessing the network? Why? Cobian Backup 8 only uses the Internet for the Check for new versions feature. If you don't like it, just disable it. <a name="6"></a>Q: I want to translate the program into my language A: Use the Translation tool under the menu Tools and send the 2 string files back to me. <a name="7a"></a>Q: Which command line arguments can I use with Cobian Backup 8? A: This version has dropped the special command line utility from older versions. Now you can use the application Cobian.exe from the command line. The arguments are: -nogui  Don't start the user interface -autoclose Close the program when the backup is done -bu Backup all the tasks immediately -list:(ListName) start the program using the list on ListName. If the list name contains spaces, surround THE WHOLE argument between quotes.-m: Opens the interface maximized. No tray icon is shown  Example: Cobian.exe "-list:C:\Program Files\List.lst" -bu -nogui   <a name="53"></a>Q-How can I start the backup of all tasks when Windows  starts? And when Windows shuts down? If you are auto-starting the program, you need to edit the registry. Look at the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Find the value named "Cobian Backup 8" or "Cobian Backup 8user interface". Edit the value adding the parameter -bu after the program name. It's not possible to start a backup when Windows shuts down because the system would kill the service in the middle of the work.   <a name="7"></a>Q: Installing the program as a service, I get an error in the log file. The program cannot access a network drive. Why? A: In order to access a network resource, the service cannot be running as the local system account. One way to fix this problem: * Uninstall the program. * Install it again, but select the option "Use the following account". * Then you can enter a valid user ID and a password. This account must have permission to access the network drive. The other way: * Just go to the Options dialog box and re-enter the logon settings there. <a name="9"></a>Q: Why the program fails to backup some files? A: Windows and some other programs may open some files with exclusive share access. In this case the backup program (and any other program) will fail while trying to copy this file. Solution: close the program that is using the file you are trying to backup. <a name="10"></a>Q: Is there some Recovery function? A: Cobian Backup 8 doesn't use any proprietary format and doesn't need a special recovery function. Just copy/unzip your files back. I don't have ANY plans to make a Recovery function. Please don't ask me about this. <a name="11"></a>Q: Why the program fails to zip? I have enough free space on the destination drive. A: Zip operations uses the temporary directory to compress. If you doesn't have enough free space on your default temporary folder when compressing a BIG file or huge amount of data, the zip file may become corrupted. Change your temporary directory for zip files on the options dialog. <a name="12"></a>Q: I use a "Before backup" event to start a program before the backup starts, but I don't see the program. The log file says that the program was successfully started. A: This information applies to version 7.3 and earlier. Starting from 7.4 the program can now start the programs in the user desktop. You are running the program as a service. A service runs in another desktop context. The program you started IS RUNNING but it's invisible to you, because it was started by a service. You can set the service to run interactively with the desktop, but this is not recommended (this service was not designed with this in mind. Do it at your own risk.). You can also use the program as an application to solve this problem. <a name="13"></a>Q: I use a "Before backup" event to stop a program before the backup starts. The log file says that the program was no found but the program IS running. A:  This information applies to version 7.3 and earlier. Starting from 7.4 the program can now close the programs in the user desktop. You are running the program as a service. A service runs in another desktop context. The program you want to stop is running in another desktop. You can set the service to run interactively with the desktop, but this is not recommended (this service was not designed with this in mind. Do it at your own risk.). You can also use the program as an application to solve this problem. <a name="15"></a>Q: I want your program to create a mirror for me. When I delete the original file, I want the program to delete the backup copy. A:  This is a terrible function to have in a backup program. Please do NOT ask me to add this function. Imagine what would happen if a virus deleted your files and when you go to Cobian Backup 8 to restore the files you find out that Cobian Backup 8 deleted the same files because it is mirroring the information! NEVER ask me to add this. <a name="16"></a>Q: I am trying to backup to a CD-RW but I get an error that says "Destination directory no found". Why? A: This program doesn't include a driver to use with a CD burner. That's why you cannot backup directly onto a CD-RW. Backup onto your hard drive and then you can manually burn the backup onto the CD using your favorite burning software. There are some 3rd party programs as Adaptec Direct CD (Direct Write) which can make it possible for Cobian Backup 8 to interact directly with your CD burner. If you have this or other similar software installed, you can backup directly onto your CD. Be aware that Cobian Backup 8 is a multithreaded program and therefore multiple threads may be accessing your CD at the same time. When zipping, the WHOLE zip operation will go on on the destination directory, and your CD may become unreadable or corrupted. The bottom line is : do NOT backup directly into a CD-RW. <a name="17"></a>Q: I created a "Before backup" event to close Outlook, but it doesn't close or crashes. Why? Outlook is not a "normal" application. It behaves like no other program I know. Sometimes, it doesn't react to the close messages, sometimes it crashes, sometimes it does but raises an exception, etc. So generally speaking, this method doesn't work for Outlook. <a name="18"></a>Q: Can I backup directly to a CD-DVD? Cobian Backup 8 does not contain burning drivers, so you must rely on 3d party drivers. It is NOT recommended to backup directly to a CD. You can use for example, DirectWrite or other tool for this. Be aware that compressing is an operation that does NOT copy the files sequentially, but creates a lot of temporary files, etc, so DO NOT compress to a CD. Copying without compression is not safe either, but if you want SO MUCH to copy directly to the CD,  check the option "Always use ShFileOperation". <a name="19"></a>Q: I am having some weird errors when uploading/downloading to a FTP, or I cannot connect at all. A: Check your firewall. It may be blocking the program. Check also that you are uploading to the right directory. So many people are leaving the Remote Directory field to the default "/". Of course, normally, nobody can upload to the root. <a name="20"></a>Q- Please, I want the program to make a mirror. A: Ehem... <a name="21"></a>Q - My service cannot access my mapped drive Z:. Why? A: Mapped drives may not be available to services. Use UNC paths instead. \\Server\Drive <a name="22"></a>Q- I get a "No enough space" when compressing, but I do have enough space in the destination. A: You may need to have the same amount of space in your temporary directory too. <a name="24"></a> Q - Why doesn't Cobian Backup 8 work with FastSwitch in Windows XP? A- The program CAN work fine with FastSwitch if there other users that are logged on the system are not running Cobian Backup 8 at the same time. <a name="25"></a>Q- My incremental or differential backup doesn't work. The program seems to copy every file. Why? A- Cobian Backup 8 uses the archive bit of the attributes to check if the file has been changed or not. Sometimes the program fails to change the attribute and the file will be copied again next time even if it is not necessary. The archive attribute operation can fail for example if your source is in a Linux or other system that have different attribute formats or if the engine doesn't have permission to change the attribute. <a name="26"></a>Q: I can change the archive attribute manually, yet, the program cannot do the same. Why? A - Remember that the engine can be running under a different account, for example, under LocalSystem. Change the username for the service to match your username. <a name="28"></a>Q - I want to exclude a subdirectory from several folders. For example, I have one subdirectory called Versions in every folder. How do I do? A- Enter a mask of type: Versions\*.* <a name="29"></a>Q- I backup a task and everything seems to be OK. However I get a message saying that there are some errors. I don't see any other error in the log file. Why? Some errors are not critical. For example trying to backup to a non-existing FTP directory will give you an error: the directory doesn't exist. However, the program will create the directory for you and the backup will go on. But there is a warning to you anyway. Check Verbose if you want to see ALL the messages, but be warned, the log file will become HUGE! <a name="30"></a>Q- Can Cobian Backup 8 copy files with file names in Chinese, Japanese or other multi-byte languages? Yes. Cobian Backup 8 is Unicode and it will copy any file, but only if you don't use compression. Zip and SQX methods store the file names as ANSII. The FTP protocol uses mainly ANSII too. So if you just copy locally and without compression, everything will work fine. <a name="31"></a>Q- What plans there are for Cobian Backup 8 after version 7? Version 7 will be the last one supported in Windows 9x. The next version will be Unicode only and will only work in Windows NT-2000-XP-2003, etc. <a name="27"></a>Q: The program seems VERY slow when the interface starts up. It's eating up all my machine's resources. A - The program is calculating the total sizes of the sources. If your sources contain a huge number of file or it is a network source, this can be time consuming. Uncheck the option: Options-Interface-Show sizes <a name="32"></a>Q- When I want to install the program, I get an error that says that the files could not be unzipped or that the resource file could not be extracted. Things to check: 1- Check that you have enough space in your temporary directory to extract the files. 50 Mb of free space should be enough. 2) Check that you have permissions to write and create subfolders on that directory. <a name="33"></a>Q- I want to make an incremental or differential backup but the program keeps making full backups. Why? The program uses the archive bit of the file's attribute to decide if the file has been changed and there is a need to backup the file. If the program fails to reset this attribute back after a backup, the next backup will, once again copy this file even if it has not been changed. The cause because the attribute could not be changed may have been: 1- The user of the program doesn't have permissions to modify the attributes 2- The source files may be placed on a SMB partition which doesn't support Windows file attributes (like a LINUX, MacOS, etc) <a name="34"></a>Q- I have 2 tasks that should start at the same time, but the second never seems to start. Both tasks should start, but sometimes processing the task list can take some time. In some cases, when the program processes the second item it could happen that the time is no more the time of the task, so the second time will not be executed. To be sure, just set the second task to be executed one minute after the first one. This is a very rare problem anyway. <a name="35"></a>Q- I am behind a NAT network system. What  do I do to make the FTP feature to word? Use passive transfers, and set the external NAT IP address in the advanced page of the FTP. If possible, check also NAT fast track. <a name="36"></a>Q- I want to backup to a FTP. I write the address ftp://myserver.com but I get a timeout. I know the address exists. Your address is myserver.com. Leave out the ftp:// protocol. <a name="37"></a>Q- I want to upload/download a file to/from a FTP. The file is large (>2Gb) and I get a "Range check error" Unfortunately, the version of the FTP libraries I am using has a limitation of 2 Gb for the size of the files to upload/download. I will update the program when these libraries get updated in the future to get ride of this limitation. Under the mean time, try compressing the file with splitting. This way you could upload it as chunks of data. <a name="38"></a>Q- I would like to backup files that are open exclusively by another application. Is this possible? If some application is working with a file that is open exclusively, there are several things you may try to do: 1) Use a "Before backup" event to close the application and an "After backup" event to open the application again. 2) Microsoft has a script which close all the open files. This can be used as a batch file in a "Before backup" event and seems to work OK must of the times. This works only in NT based systems, though. <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=290585"> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=290585</a> <a name="39"></a>Q- Is there any limit for the size of the file for strong encryption? Not anymore after version 7.1 <a name="40"></a>Q- Please, please pretty please add a mirror function. No. But I'll tell you a secret. If you create a task of the type "Full", and select the "Create separated backups" option, and set the "Keep x backups" to 1, you will always get an exact copy of your files. Only, don't tell nobody else. :-)   <a name="41"></a>Q: Can I run the program without the tray icon? If you are running the program as an application, just use the argument -nogui. As a service, just remove the "Cobian Backup 8 Interface 7" value from the registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run <a name="42"></a>Q: I have a zip file , created with Cobian Backup 8. The file cannot be open with WinRar or any other program and is 5 GB in size. Why? For large files (> 2Gb) the format Zip64 is used. Only a few programs support this format: WinZip 9.0 or newer, ZipGenius or the integrated Decompressor  of Cobian Backup 8 are a few of them. <a name="43"></a>Q: How do I exclude the Firefox Cache directory? Add these masks to the Exclude masks: XUL.mfl Cache\_CACHE* Cache\*d01 parent.lock   <a name="44"></a>Q: Why do you use the archive attribute for incremental backups and not the timestamp as in previous versions? For many reasons, but the must important of them are: using the timestamp makes it impossible to have incremental or differential backups without overwriting the files. If you choose to NOT overwrite old backups, then the destination file will, of course never exist, and there is no file to compare the time stamp with. That's why a full backup will always occur. FTP non-full backups will also be difficult to accomplish, because the date/time format can be different depending on the OS where the FTP server is located. In this version, you CAN use timestamps. Uncheck "Use file attributes logic", but bear in mind that many features will not work with this method. <a name="45"></a>Q: My service stopped working today. Why? If your service is running under an account different from LocalService, then if you change the password of the account, the service will fail to logon, because it tries to logon using the old password. Change the logon settings in Tool-Options. <a name="46"></a>Q: When uploading/downloading from a FTP server, the services hangs. This happens if your computer is located on a NAT network. Try experimenting with the options located in the FTP dialog (IP forwarding, passive transfers, etc). When a stable solution to this problem will be found, an update will be released. <a name="47"></a>Q: The program works fine when running as an administrator or power user in XP/2000 but it refuses to start as a normal user. Check the NTFS security attributes of the directory where the program is located. Grant read access to everyone. Especially important are all the INI files in the subdirectory "Db". Grant read/write access to them for every user. <a name="48"></a>Q: AddAware reports libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll to be spyware. A: Yeah, right , and my grandma is a bicycle. This 2 libraries are part of the OpenSSL standard used to transfer FTP files securely. If you don't use SSL and it makes you feel better, just delete the libraries. <a href="index_en.htm">Index</a>  </td> </tr> <tr> <td> ⌐2000-2006 by Luis Cobian All rights reserved</td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>