Keepin' to the Bright Side of Life with Sunnysoft Backup Manager 4.0 [Archive]

Don Tolson

01-31-2007, 05:00 PM

<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-bmlogo.jpg" /> Product Category: Software – Backup/Recovery Manufacturer: <A HREF = "http://www.sunnysoft.com" target = "blank"> Sunnysoft</A> Where to Buy: <A HREF = "http://www.mobihand.com/pocketpcthoughts/product.asp?id=5955" target = "blank"> MobiHand (affiliate link)</A> Price: $20.00USD. A fully functioning 7-day trial is available. System Requirements: Version reviewed was for WM5, but versions are also available for Pocket PC 2003, 2003SE and WinCE .NET. Specifications: Application requires approximately 1.2 Mb of memory. Recommended that Backup Manager be installed to Program (internal) memory. Pros: <li>Simple and Advanced modes available;<li>Fairly quick, with good compression;<li>Simple, intuitive interface;<li>Password Protection available, but no encryption;<li>Can be run in background mode;<li>Automatic backup when batteries running low. Cons: <li>Log files are only visible through the application;<li>Activation Routine is a bit tedious;<li>User Manual not available within application & needs some translation review;<li>Canceling a restore can leave the device in unstable state;<li>Too many soft resets. Summary: Sunnysoft was among the first vendors to jump into the fray (as it were) to fill the void of backup applications available for the PPC market. From the version history, it's clear that they see this as one of their primary products. With Backup Manager 4, Sunnysoft brings a considerable number of enhancements to their package and includes features not available from other vendors. Read on for the full review!<!> <PAGEBREAK> Introduction To my mind, Activesync has never been a workable backup/restore solution for the Pocket PC. It took far too restrictive a view in providing only catastrophic-recovery capability. And my experience with hardware-vendor supplied backup solutions hasn't been great, either (e.g. The Dell Axim Data Backup utility). Thank goodness vendors like Sprite, Spb and Sunnysoft have stepped in to fill the void by providing simple to use and effective backup/restore applications. Sunnysoft was one of the first to provide a backup application for Pocket PCs and it's clear from the version history on Backup Manager that they haven't been sitting on their laurels. The latest version, Backup Manager 4, provides a considerable list of fixes and enhancements from the previous 3.7 version. It also includes some features not available in competitor's products, such as background operation and battery-level monitoring/initiation. Installation Installation of Backup Manager can be accomplished either by the typical Activesync-connected executable from your desktop, or by a directly downloadable .CAB file which can be executed on the PPC. In both cases, installation proceeded quickly (since this is a fairly small application) and without any difficulties. Although it is possible to install and run the application from a storage card, my preference is to run it from the device memory. If you install the demo version from the Sunnysoft site, you will get 7 days from the date of installation to test a fully functioning version of the application. Unfortunately, activation/registration of Backup Manager was not as straightforward. After you install the product, you need to find the registration name (available from the Menu/Register menu or displayed during the install process) which is a 16 hex-digit number in 8 pairs. In order to activate the product (if you ordered online), this number needs to be typed into the Sunnysoft website in order to have it email you the Registration Key (another 16 hex-digits in 4 groups of 4 digits). Once the Registration Key is received, it needs to be typed into the appropriate fields in Backup Manager to activate the product. I realize that some sort of registration confirmation is required, but typing in multiple 16-digit numbers seems a bit tedious. According to the Sunnysoft documentation, if you purchase the software, you get both the Registration name and key at the same time and all you have to input is the Registration/Activation key at install time, if you are using the PC-based routine. Backup Manager provides two modes of operation: Simple, which provides only full backups and restores; and Advanced which provides much more control over not only what to backup, but when and how often. <PAGEBREAK> Simple Mode Simple mode is exactly that – a quick way to backup your entire PPC in one go (not including storage cards inserted in the unit). This the default mode Backup Manager 4 will start in after initial installation, but it can be reset simply by selecting Advanced mode from the Menu menu. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-main.gif" border="1"> Figure 1: The main startup screen of Backup Manager 4. Can't get much simpler than this... There are global parameters which can be set to affect what kind of backup file is created, but the intent is to really provide almost one-button operation. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-settings.gif" border="1"> Figure 2: Overall Backup Settings. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-bkuppw.gif" border="1"> Figure 3: If you selected Password protection, a second screen is displayed to set the password. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-bkupmgmt.gif" border="1"> Figure 4: A Backup Management screen is also available from the Menu, to establish how many backup files and the default mode. Setting the global parameters requires accessing the screens before you start the backup since there is no option to do so once the backup has begun. <PAGEBREAK> There is also no ability to define sets or types of files to be included in the backup or to be restored in Simple mode. It's basically an all or nothing proposition, but it does include Databases, Files and the Registry. You can, however, tell Backup Manager to ignore certain types of files in the backup (for instance, other backup files) via the Backup Exclusions options from the Menu. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-bkupexclude.gif" border="1"> Figure 5: The Backup Exclusions screen. Once you start the Backup process, the first step Backup Manager takes is to reset your system. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-reset.gif" border="1"> Figure 6: Resetting the system to establish a common start point. During the backup process, BM identifies what it is currently working on via progress bars for both the current item and the entire backup, plus naming the current file being worked on. Changing colours on the various icons identify when each type is completed. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-progress.gif" border="1"> Figure 7: Backup is progressing nicely. It took me a little while to get used to the Registry as building blocks, Databases as a paper stack, File Folders and SD Card for each of the types. And the colour change is somewhat subtle – changing from blue to dark grey when they are done. Unfortunately, the same dark grey shade is also used to identify types that are excluded from the backup. The backup process itself is fairly quick – taking about 4 to 5 minutes on my lightly-loaded HTC Galaxy. By default, the output is a compressed, self-extracting executable for restoring the system. Backup Manager 4 actually produces three files – the backup file containing the compressed content (.bkp); and executable to restore the content (.bkp.exe) and a text-based log file (also with a .bkp extension) describing the content and displaying any messages from the backup process. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any way to display this log file except inside the Backup Manager application, probably due to the .bkp extension. It would have been nice to have this as a straight text file which could have been displayed within Notes or Pocket Word. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-logfile.gif" border="1"> Figure 8: A display of the logfile after backup is completed. The compression routines do a reasonable job, taking the 21 mb of data from my HTC and compressing it into a 8.5 mb file. The executables are small at 40 kb and the log files take only 50 kb each. I'm not sure I really like the 3-file approach, since it introduces a possible point of failure if either of the matching backup or executables is missing. Of course, restoring from the backup can be as simple as double-tapping the .exe file. From my perspective, this is preferable since, in an emergency situation, it means you don't have to install and re-register the backup program first. You can however, restore within Backup Manager itself. By tapping on the Restore button, BM4 searches the device to locate the most recent Simple backup modules and asks to proceed. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-restoremain.gif" border="1"> Figure 9: Simple mode Restore – only the most recent Simple backup is displayed. If you say No here, BM4 returns to the main screen. Once you say Yes, restore proceeds from there. After completion of a restore, BM4 resets the system again. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-restorerestart.gif" border="1"> Figure 10: Restore completed. Time for another soft reset. It should be noted that there is a difference in naming convention between backups produced via Simple mode and those produced in Advanced mode. The Simple mode versions are prefaced by 'ibackup' by default (i.e. ibackup.bkp) and subsequent Simple backups are appended with a three-digit counter (e.g. ibackup_001, ibackup_002, etc.). Hence, when in Simple mode, the scan for available restores only looks for the most recent module named ibackup. <PAGEBREAK> Advanced mode Advanced mode is available from the Menu menu and can be established as the default start up mode for Backup Manager, if so desired. Here is where you get to do the fun stuff such as selecting exactly what to backup, scheduling regular backups and telling the system to do an automatic backup when battery power is running low. Selection of material to backup can be done by general type (Databases, Registry and Files) and in the case of Files, by identifying specific files to be included. (As with the Simple mode, the excluded file types are ignored.) Selection of files to be included in the backup uses a hierarchical tree structure. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-selection.gif" border="1"> Figure 11: Selection of types of files to backup in Advanced mode The three basic types are displayed and then further selections can be made under the Databases and Files types. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-bkupselect2.gif" border="1"> Figure 12: Providing finer detail for Database selections. On the selection screen, there are 3 buttons displayed which are seen frequently throughout the application. The button with the ellipsis (3 dots) is used to browse for other locations. The 'gear' goes to the Settings screen, and the document ('abc') which is available only in Advanced mode, goes to a Notes field to allow the user to provide additional information about the backup. This version of Backup Manager includes the capability to backup up the contents of any storage cards within the unit. I've not really used this option since I'm not sure I understand the need. Aren't storage cards supposed to be the non-volatile backup medium? Wouldn't that be like trying to backup a backup? And if the card failed, you'd lose the backup anyway. I guess I've been lucky never to have a card fail on me. :wink: Backup files produced under Advanced mode are named Backup_YYYY_MM_DD.bkp and again, have 3 files associated with each, depending upon selection of an executable or not. As you would expect, Restores under Advanced mode provide much more capability than Simple mode. When Restore is selected in Advanced mode, BM4 scans the device to locate all backups (either Simple or Advanced) and presents them in a list. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-restorelist.gif" border="1"> Figure 13: List of available backups for Restoring from. Once one is selected, the application asks if you'd like to proceed with a full restore from the backup. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-restoreall.gif" border="1"> Figure 14: Full restore from the selected backup. If you say 'No' here, BM4 will assume you want to do a partial restore and present the hierarchical structure to define what to restore. In BM4, it is possible to attempt to cancel during the middle of the Restore process. However, BM4 does provide a fairly dire warning about the consequences. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-restorecancel.gif" border="1"> Figure 15: Attempting to cancel in the middle of restore – not a good idea. <PAGEBREAK> Scheduled Backups Known as 'Planning' in BM4, this option is available from Advanced mode only. As seen from the screens below, backups can be scheduled daily or weekly or any combination of days within the week for any time of the day. I didn't see an option for multiple times during the day or for different times on different days, but that might be creating too much flexibility :smile:. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-plan.gif" border="1"> Figure 16: Selecting the type of scheduled backup you'd like to establish. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-plan2.gif" border="1"> Figure 17: Scheduling a backup at a regular day/time. What was new (to me) was the ability to have a backup initiated when battery levels dropped below a certain level, and to specify the interval at which the backup program checks the current battery level. I'm not sure this is a problem with WM5 systems, since the memory management is different and most everything is saved in non-volatile RAM anyway, but for PPC 2003 and SE, it would be most useful. <img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-jan07-sunnysoft-planbatt.gif" border="1"> Figure 18: Automatically scheduling backups when battery power is running low. Resets I'm not exactly sure why, but almost all Backup programs I've dealt with seem to require soft resets either before they begin, after they finish a backup or after they finish a restore – or any combination of the above. When I questioned the people at Sprite Software about this, they said it was necessary in order to establish a common, known state of the environment. I guess I can understand that after a restore, but I'm not exactly sure why you need it before a backup and again after the backup has completed. Anyway, Backup Manager 4 does both. You can however, via the Settings, tell it not to reset after completion of the backup. Manual Sunnysoft provides a complete user manual with the installation package and on <A HREF = "http://www.sunnysoft.cz/download/documents/Sunnysoft_Backup_Manager_4.0_-_Manual_EN.pdf" target = "blank"> their website.</A> The English used suffers a little from its translation, but it gets the idea across. There are lots of screen prints which are, thankfully, from the current version of the software. I'm not sure why Sunnysoft selected the landscape format for presentation, as it does waste a good deal of paper. No help text is provided within the application itself. Conclusions I have to admit that after testing and using Sprite and Spb's backup applications, I was surprised by Sunnysoft's ease of use and capability. The simple, straightforward interface belies the features and flexibility of the product, especially in Advanced mode. I looked at the user manual only fleetingly and never missed the lack of Help screens. This is certainly a testament to good overall program structure. I would certainly recommend it as a solid, PPC-based solution. Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and a member of its Enterprise Mobility Community. Unfortunately, due to a few too many 'burns', one of his soapboxes with clients is “TAKE A BACKUP” :smile: