Selective backup, multiple drives
This is an example of how a selective backup operation to a compressed archive can be performed using Probe.
Suppose we want to make a backup from three local disks
of readable documents of some common types:
Also, we only want to backup files which have been modified during the last year. Finally, these documents should be placed in a compressed archive of ZIP type.
To follow the example, you'll need to have two Folder Browser in the Probe main window. The Folder Browsers should be associated with each other as companions.
Step 1, Positioning the Folder Browser
Make a Folder Browser display the contents of My Computer, under the Desktop folder.
Hi-light the disks from which to backup the documents.
Fig 1: C:, D:, E: are hi-lightedd
Step 2, Bringing up the Advanced Selection dialog
To sort out the filetypes mentioned above (*.txt, *.doc, ...) the Advanced Selection dialog is used. To invoke it, press Num + (Numeric keypad plus) or select it from the Edit menu item 'Select...'.
Now either the simple wildcard selection dialog or the advanced selection dialog appears. If the first is the case, press the 'Advanced' button within this dialog to go to the advanced dialog.
Step 3, Editing a filename criterion
Now we want to decide which files to recursively select. Make sure the 'Filename' tab of the dialog is displayed. Click the 'Explicit wildcard' check box. Then edit the wildcard to be used in the edit-box (Fig 2):
Fig 2: After editing the filename wildcard
Step 4, Editing a date criterion
We also want to restrict the criterion to only include files which have been modified within the last 12 months. To do this, click the 'Date' tab of the dialog.
Now click the 'Files newer than XX months' check box and write '12' for XX.
Under the 'Date type' section of the dialog, make sure the 'Last modify date is checked. The 'Date' tab dialog should now look as in Fig 3.
Fig 3: After editing a date criterion
Step 5, Handling selection iteration
Now we're ready to apply the selection criterion (name+date) to our local disks. Two last steps must be done before applying the selection:
The last two settings are displayed in Fig 4.
Fig 4: Deciding how the selection criterion is applied
Step 6, Applying the selection criterion
Now we've finished editing the selection criterion. To make Probe apply the selection, press OK.
Applying the selection may take quite some seconds, since three disks have to be scanned. A dialog indicating this is displayed.
Fig 5: The selection process in progress
Step 7, Setting recursive selections
To choose that all files in subfolders are to be included/excluded in a file operation depending on it's selection status, we must set subfolder handling to 'recursive selections', as in Fig 6.
NOTE: Usually file operations assume ALL the contents of subfolders to be included. Now we're working with parts of the contents, that is recursive selections.
Fig 6: Setting subfolder handling to recursive selections
Step 8, Inspecting the selection
To verify that all went well, the Selection Information dialog can be used. Pressing F9 invokes this dialog. Probe may need a few seconds to collect information on the selected items.
We can now view the selected items in this dialog, and see how many files were selected and see how much disk space they occupy.
Note that each individual selected file is visible in the tree view of the dialog.
Fig 7: Using the Selection information dialog
In a second Folder Browser, we navigate to a target directory where the backup is to be performed. We use the F7, or 'New Folder' under the 'Disk' pull-down menu, to create a ZIP archive, called 'LocalDocBackup.zip'. The situation after this is displayed in Fig 8.
Fig 8: Creating a compressed archive for backup
Step 10, Preparing to compress files
In the Folder Browser located in the 'My Computer' folder, double-click the 'C:' drive. In the Folder Browser where the ZIP archive was created, double-click the ZIP archive to enter it.
In the ZIP file, a subfolder 'Doc_From_Drive_C' is created. This subfolder is to contain the selected items from the 'C:' drive.
Fig 9: Ready to compress files
Step 11, Compressing selected files
In the target Folder Browser, go into the folder created above, 'Doc_From_Drive_C'. This is where we want the selected files from C: to be stored. Now, the copy process is started with the F5 command. (It can also be started by Drag&Drop, but in this case, use the right mouse button and select the item 'Dialog, Copy here' when dropping the files').
The 'Copy' dialog appears. Make sure that 'Subfolders' is set to 'recursive selections'.
When pressing OK, files will be compressed into the ZIP archive. This is likely to take some time, and a progress dialog is displayed.
Fig 10, The Copy dialog
Step 12, Repeating for drive D:,E:
To compress the selected files on drives D:,E: we must repeat the actions of step 10, 11, but for the two drives C: and D: instead of C: as used in 10 and 11.
After this, the backup selection backup operation is finished.
Step 13, Deselecting all files recursively
The files in the file operation still remains selected. To globally deselect all files in all folders, use the keyboard accelerator Ctrl G.It's also available in the 'Edit' pull-down menu as the 'Global Deselect' alternative.
It can also be achieved with wildcard de-selection:
There's also a keyboard accelerator for deselecting all files in a certain subfolder structure:
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