How do you keep a backup of all your programs' settings?

The-Hive said:

Snap ! I think I have been doing it without even thinking about it, especially the backups before testing etc.

Click to expand...

Most people fall into their own rhythm concerning backups.
A few late night, nail biting, clean installs, and just about everyone becomes a backup software user. :)

Ghot said:

Is there a button to clcik that will export all your personalizations? NO.
"Some" few programs, do have a way to export their settings. Not many though.


As many have mentioned... backup software is the way to go. The method you end up using, the method that works the best for you... will be discovered by you, by trial and error.

Mostly, this is my method...

How to be a Windows mad scientist, AND avoid software problems. - Windows 10 Help Forums

Not everyone will be able to implement these suggestions. This is mainly for a stand alone computer, with one user in the Administrators group, on a local account. The secret here, is to try to figure out everything that "could" happen, and to t

www.tenforums.com

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I read your post at tenforums.com and the comments

I like to add a comment here: maintain a test computer in your stable, keep unfunny things away from your main work computer. At least that's what I do.

Haydon said:

I read your post at tenforums.com and the comments

I like to add a comment here: maintain a test computer in your stable, keep unfunny things away from your main work computer. At least that's what I do.

Click to expand...

Excellent idea if you have an extra computer.

Bree said:

Firefox is my browser of choice, but I don't use any addons. For a clean install on a new machine I copy my Firefox profile from %Appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles to the new install. This contains all my bookmarks, login cookies and settings for Firefox.

There's also an %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions folder. I presume I could just copy that over too, though I've not needed to test that.

Click to expand...

Can do similar for thunderbird emails accounts etc it is all there , brave browser and others. Have a look in appdata and you might find quite a lot of your programs keep their settings in there.

Then on the new windows, install FF, start it up, close it and then replace the appdata\roaming\mozilla folder with the one you saved. Same process for tbird and so on. Only takes a minute or two to sort it all .

In situations where simply copying the config files doesn't work, I monitor the Windows registry for changes so I can export the keys. Or if that doesn't work either, I record a macro that uses screenshot comparison techniques for auto validation.

I use Firefox Portable in concert with Sandboxie-Plus, so sandboxed Firefox Portable is set as my default browser. Running it sandboxed adds an extra layer of protection, but I also keep multiple individually customized copies of my FirefoxPortable folder. So I can run multiple individually customized instances of Firefox Portable concurrently and in parallel, i.e. by running multiple sandboxes at once─and so each different sandbox can also have its own unique settings in Sandboxie-Plus.

This may sound more complicated than really is necessary. But switching profiles in Firefox has its limitations. II mean, I know that I could decide to just install regular Firefox into multiple sandboxes and simply use the profiles. But doing this consumes a lot more RAM space in comparison to starting Firefox Portable sandboxed in a sandbox that either is empty or is still populated from a previous run, when some of my sandbox locations are stored on a ramdisk. In addition to this, rolling back a sandbox to a previous state by using the snapshot feature of Sandboxie-Plus is slower if regular Firefox is installed in the sandbox, as installing it in the sandbox heavily bloats the total filesize of the sandbox (and of any snapshots thereof). That is, compared to starting Firefox Portable sandboxed in an empty sandbox and making a snapshot after that.

Finally, instead of using the built-in snapshot feature of Sandboxie-Plus, I have been playing some tricks in order to achieve differential snapshots of my sandboxes. Long story made short, I like to add a little bit of automated SCM (Software Configuration Management) only if it matters.

Ghot said:

Excellent idea if you have an extra computer. :)

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Can't imagine anyone on this forum not having a spare machine lying around, or two, or three, or more. I myself lost count of how many machines I have recycled. The better ones of those that I tossed out still had a couple of years left as test machines

Haydon said:

Can't imagine anyone on this forum not having a spare machine lying around, or two, or three, or more. I myself lost count of how many machines I have recycled. The better ones of those that I tossed out still had a couple of years left as test machines

Click to expand...

I got about 4-5, but they're all un-assembled.
Well, System 2 in my specs is assembled, but it's pretty old. It still works though.


/edit

I have these two also, but they use the same case, PSU and monitor that I'm currently using...


Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1

AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 AM3+ SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Motherboard ( 2901 BIOS)
EVGA 03G-P4-2883-KR GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclocked 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1866Mhz RAM CMD16GX3M2A1866C9
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 CPU Cooler (push/pull)

WD 500GB Velociraptor - SATA III
WD 2TB Caviar Black FZEX - SATA III
WD 2TB Caviar Black FZEX - SATA III
WD 2TB Caviar Black FZEX - SATA III
LG GH22LS30 CD/DVD Burner

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W Quad EPS12V

DELL Ultrasharp U3011, 30" monitor
Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 THX Speakers (Black)
Ducky DK9008 Shine II Blue LED Backlit Mechanical Keyboard (Cherry MX Black)
Logitech Optical M-100

COOLER MASTER ATCS 840 Full Tower Case
3x230mm, 1x120mm, Optional: 3x Scythe S-Flex SFF21G 120mm (installed)





Windows XP Pro 32bit w/SP3

ASUS M4N82 Deluxe nVidia 980a SLI Motherboard, (2501 BIOS)
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 125W stock:3.2Ghz OC'd to 3.7Ghz
EVGA 015-P3-1580-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit
Corsair CM2X2048-8500C5D Dual Channel [5-5-5-15-22-2T-2.1v]
WD 300GB Velociraptor SATA II
WD 1TB Caviar Black SATA II
WD 1TB Caviar Black SATA II
LG HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22LS30 CD/DVD Burner SATA

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad (Black) EPS12V 750W
Zalman CNPS 10X Extreme CPU Cooler (full speed)
Coolermaster ATCS 840 Full Tower Case 3x230mm, 1x120mm, Optional: 3x Scythe S-Flex SFF21G 120mm

ViewSonic G90FB Black 19" CRT Monitor
Generic Harman Kardon Speakers(3)
Logitech Optical M-BT96a
SteelSeries 6GV2 Keyboard (Cherry MX Black)

Macrium or others - backups of system is not what the OP is about.

@Fortitude

This is exactly what I too have been looking for. There is no straightforward way to backup programs and their settings in Windows. I have read AOMEI and EaseUS have some tools, but I have personally not tried them.

Even if some programs backup their settings to .ini file, it still is a tedious task to back them up for each program manually. Also Microsoft and others don't want you to have a simple way of doing it. They want to force you to use an account so that it syncs (read: tracking). Again, not everything syncs.

What I found closest to this requirement is Sysprep. This allows you to create a custom ISO of Windows that can be used in different PCs (with different hardware). You can install all your favourite programs, customise them and then use this image for clean installing Windows. This will save a lot of time than using the stock image.

I will briefly mention the steps involved:

CREATING ISO FROM EXISTING SYSTEM: USE SYSPREP

It is best to start with a clean installation of Windows to avoid errors.

1. To Start Sysprep, right click Start menu/ Run

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /audit /reboot

2. Delete all other user accounts and user folders.

3. To Start Disk Cleanup, right click Start menu/ Run

cleanmgr

You can also run:

cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & Cleanmgr /sagerun:65535

4. In case of OneDrive error:

From Windows Powershell (Admin):

Remove-AppxPackage -Package Microsoft.OneDriveSync_21196.921.7.0_neutral_8wekyb3d8bbwe

(Replace the OneDrive version number above with the one that is installed on your system).

5. Sysprep will SHUTDOWN the system.

6. Boot again and go through the installation process (OOBE).

7. Run Windows updates, Microsoft Store Updates.

8. Install 3rd party and Store apps and set them up properly. Make all customisations you want to the system like Start Menu, Settings, etc. now.

9. Create a partition on the local disk.

10. Create 2 folders on the new empty partition: Scratch and Win_Install.

11. Connect the Windows Installation Disk and copy all files to Win_Install folder created above.

12. Shutdown and boot from Windows Installation/ recovery disk.

13. Launch command prompt

14. To check drive letter while booting through installation/ recovery disk

diskpart
list vol

15. To Create install.wim (image of the current system) file

dism /capture-image /imagefile:E:\install.wim /capturedir:F:\ /ScratchDir:E:\Scratch /name:"Name of Windows" /decription:"Use the version name and build number here" /compress:maximum /checkintegrity /verify /bootable

(Here, E:\ is the location of the destination for the image file; and F:\ is the drive letter of the current operating system whose image is being captured. Replace these with the correct paths in your system as shown in the previous command).

16. Once operation completes successfully, exit and reboot normally.

17. Copy the new install.wim image created above to Win_Install/ Sources folder to replace the one already present in that folder.

18. Launch Deployment Tools (Windows Kit) as Administrator.

19. To Create Bootable ISO

oscdimg.exe -m -o -u2 -udfver102 -bootdata:2#p0,e,bE:\Win_Install\boot\etfsboot.com#pEF,e,bE:\Win_Install\efi\microsoft\boot\efisys.bin E:\Win_Install E:\Name of Windows.iso

Replace E: with the correct drive letter in your case, where you created the folder 'Win_Install'. You have to replace it in 3 places in the above command.

Replace E:\Name of Windows.iso (last part) with drive and path where you want to store the ISO image plus your preferred ISO file name.

REFERENCES

1. Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation

Old news...

Ghot said:

Old news...

Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation

How to create a Windows 10 ISO image for clean, in-place upgrade and repair install

www.tenforums.com

Click to expand...

Did you read the full post?

I already referenced that link because that is where I learnt the process from.

TheMystic said:

Macrium or others - backups of system is not what the OP is about.

@Fortitude

This is exactly what I too have been looking for. There is no straightforward way to backup programs and their settings in Windows. I have read AOMEI and EaseUS have some tools, but I have personally not tried them.

Even if some programs backup their settings to .ini file, it still is a tedious task to back them up for each program manually. Also Microsoft and others don't want you to have a simple way of doing it. They want to force you to use an account so that it syncs (read: tracking). Again, not everything syncs.

What I found closest to this requirement is Sysprep. This allows you to create a custom ISO of Windows that can be used in different PCs (with different hardware). You can install all your favourite programs, customise them and then use this image for clean installing Windows. This will save a lot of time than using the stock image.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your posting. It's true that what I'm looking for is a way to backup my program settings not the programs themselves or Windows. For these as well as my data I take adequate measures with multiple backups. The problem with program settings is that they are not easily accessible to be backed up and monitored and therefore to be easily restored. The only exceptions that I know, and they have been mentioned already, are Firefox and Thunderbird.

Fortitude said:

program settings not the programs themselves or Windows.

Click to expand...

That's why I mentioned the subject of recording macros and automation.

Ghot said:

Excellent idea if you have an extra computer. :)

Click to expand...

Or if your extra computer is "unsupported" (crossing fingers)...

I click a bat file than it runs several scripts that i prepared.

If you use portable applications it will be easier, you replace another harddrive for example
system drive is C:
program drive is D:

Some programs have file type association; MPC-BE, AIMP has its own CMD line so it is easy. For ChromePortable I have found a vbs script, and I have some scripts for some of programs like 7zip for association and register.

I made my games portable versions click start exe they open and work, If necessary it writes registry than it backup its own folder, same with files from AppData and LocalAppData or other system folders.

I also backup prosedures i backup my whole folder and settings files into zip files (with date and time in their name)...

My point is using portable applications are easy to backup.

A lot of my apps are portable apps versions, such as Audacity, LibreOffice, Irfanview, TreeSizeFree, or CCleaner. The advantage of using a portable app is that none of its settings are contained in the registry, they are all local to the app's own folder. After a clean install 'reinstalling' is simply a matter of copying the app folders back.

Edit: and while I was typing this, Feuer was making the same point.

I don't really. I only have image backups. If I start from scratch on a system, I just install what I want and let things sync with my other systems. If I need to do anything else, I just do. Some games, like World of Warcraft, you can just copy the entire folder to another system and be ready to go with maybe a few changes to graphics settings pretty much immediately. Everything copies over and there are no registry settings or folders in other locations to worry about.

The-Hive said:

Yes Edge does and so Does Chrome

Click to expand...

So does FF.

Backups are all I need, but to prepare for a worse case scenario or for when I'm setting up a system from scratch, I export Thunderbird settings, save a copy of MWB and Defender exceptions and export my firewall rules. I have a list of all my program keys and a screenshot of a list of my programs. All these are stored in the cloud. It's probably overkill but a habit from the old days, I also backup my third party drivers.

Like everyone else around here, I have written pretty extensive notes on how to configure my apps when re-building my work machine on bare metal.

This thread made me think of adding to those notes screenshots of the home screen and the configuration screens, complete with arrows, highlights, and what not > essentially producing illustrated tutorials for each one of the apps.

Still time left in the holidays to produce the tutorials