05-15-2003, 06:30 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Sprite Software Pocket Backup Plus 2.0
At one point or another, I've owned nearly every Pocket PC that has been on the market, starting with the HP 545 way back in April 2000. Since that time, many Pocket PCs have come with integrated backup software, and I've yet to be satisfied with any of them. Every OEM should throw out what they have now and bundle Pocket Backup Plus 2.0 - it's that solid.
Good backup software needs to have two components to make it successful in my eyes: scheduled backups (humans are unreliable creatures at best), and painless restores. Pocket Backup Plus 2.0 from Sprite Software delivers on both of these promises in full. It works exactly the way you'd expect it to: you set up a schedule (once, daily, or weekly), it backs up at that time, then soft resets the Pocket PC when it's done. I have mine set to back up at 4:30 PM every day, and it's reassuring to hear the "bing" of a soft reset, precisely on schedule, every single day without fail. Pocket Backup Plus 2.0 is very stable, even when I have doubts about how stable my Pocket PC is. You can specify the backup location (backing up to a memory card or Flash ROM for instance), and one of the new features is backing up across the network (I haven't tried this yet myself). Backups can be compressed, encrypted with a password, and are self-extracting. This last point is extremely important: if you lose everything in RAM, you don't want to end up with a backup file you can't open.
The real test of a backup application is using it, then purposefully trashing your Pocket PC to test the restore scenario. I did exactly that, and it worked out almost perfectly: the only glitch was that after the restore, I docked my Pocket PC, and ActiveSync gave me the dreaded combine/replace prompt. Oh how I loathe that prompt! I chose to replace everything on the Pocket PC, and after that process was done my Pocket PC was back to perfection. I talked to Sprite Software about this, and they said it was a limitation of ActiveSync. What a surprise! :roll: The only other thing I don't like about this software is that when you set it to create a new archive every day, there's no functionality to automatically delete old entries, or something like "keep last three backups". The end result is that my storage card gets full after a few weeks and I have to go in and delete the old backups. Not a show-stopper, but a small hassle I hope they fix later.
If you haven't tried it yet, download the trial version and take it for a spin. The price for the full version is $29.95 (affiliate), which is on the high-end for most Pocket PC applications, but the security I feel from data loss is worth at least that much. I give this software my highest recommendation - it's something I install immediately on any Pocket PC I use, and I'd encourage you to check it out for yourself.
UPDATE: Sprite Software just gave me a coupon code for Pocket PC Thoughts readers to save 20% off the price at Handango. Awesome! This makes the software even better. :mrgreen: Use 6AXBXDF2 as the coupon code.
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05-15-2003, 06:46 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 864
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I give it 2 thumbs up as well, hands down the best back-up program, network backup works great BTW!!
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05-15-2003, 06:50 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 634
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I have been using a trial version of this program on my iPAQ 5455 and have been backing up to both an SD card and my PC. I am impressed with the speed of the backup to the SD card--less than 5 minutes. Backing up to a PC takes a lot longer--about a half hour.
Jason, in his initial post, mentioned that the backup files created by the program are self-executing. I found that not to be the case. I had to do a hard reset yesterday and tried to restore my system from the SD card. Instead of restoring my system, I got a message saying that the file was corrupted. As a result, I had to create a new ActiveStink profile, download the program and install it onto my iPAQ and then restore my system from the SD card. This really messed up ActiveStink, as the profiles were different, but I eventually got it corrected after about two hours of work. I would be interested to know what I did wrong that the restore file did not self-execute. :?
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05-15-2003, 07:02 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by piperpilot
Jason, in his initial post, mentioned that the backup files created by the program are self-executing. I found that not to be the case.
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I can give you a 100% promise that they are - I just took my SD card with a backup and put it in my other Axim that has never had Pocket Backup installed, and the file opened and started to restore. Something else is going on with your setup (possibly bad hardware or software install?), but that aspect of Pocket Backup Plus works exactly as it should.
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05-15-2003, 07:42 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 864
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by piperpilot
Jason, in his initial post, mentioned that the backup files created by the program are self-executing. I found that not to be the case. I
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Stupid question but.... did have the box checked for make self extracting in the options?
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05-15-2003, 07:49 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 634
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by entropy1980
Stupid question but.... did have the box checked for make self extracting in the options?
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I just checked it, because I thought I was going to have a "boy, am I ever stupid" moment, but, fortunately for me, it is checked--that would have been too embarassing, even for me!  ops:
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05-15-2003, 08:20 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 169
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How does it work?
Will this help out after say a hard reset? I was wanting to put the lastest update on my Axim, but I don't want to have to go thru all the reinstalling of the different software packages that are currently on my Axim.
Would this keep me from having to reinstall each program and then putting in all the registration codes again? Would I just do a "complete" backup and then restore and have everything back to the old way?
Thanks,
-Eric
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05-15-2003, 08:27 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 116
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I just finished a trial of this sofwtare. Couple of questions for those of you with experience:
1. The standard version of the software just lacks the ability to backup to a PC or network, correct? I guess being able to do an "offline" backup is probably worth $10 extra...
2. What do you do to backup your memory cards? I've just been using File Explorer to copy my SD card to my PC hard drive -- is there a better way?
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05-15-2003, 08:33 PM
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Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 6,878
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Re: How does it work?
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Originally Posted by VanHlebar
Will this help out after say a hard reset? I was wanting to put the lastest update on my Axim, but I don't want to have to go thru all the reinstalling of the different software packages that are currently on my Axim.
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If you do a ROM update, you will have to reinstall everything from scratch...
Steve
__________________
"My eyes are rolling back in my head so far I can see my grey matter bubbling and frothing from reading this thread....bleh." JD
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05-15-2003, 08:34 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,162
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by SofaTater
I just finished a trial of this sofwtare. Couple of questions for those of you with experience:
1. The standard version of the software just lacks the ability to backup to a PC or network, correct? I guess being able to do an "offline" backup is probably worth $10 extra...
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Correct. You also get the today plugin and the space detective app for your $10.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by SofaTater
2. What do you do to backup your memory cards? I've just been using File Explorer to copy my SD card to my PC hard drive -- is there a better way?
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By default it ignores persistant storage (i.e. SD card). You can deselect this and create a backup of everything including your SD card to your desktop.
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Linear Mode
