I\'ve written a project backup script in VBS that started out small but has evolved into something more substantial. It is 700 lines which is far too long to post here in a msg. It\'s that long because it does fairly thorough error checking and reporting and the lines are generously spaced so others can read it too.

It watches a running CPDN wu and waits for it to send a trickle-up. Then it kills the CC and manager and zip compresses all the files and folders essential to the CPDN project into a file named with the current project year. Then it sleeps until the next trickle-up at which time it does it\'s job again.

Zipping gives me over 50% reduction of the backup file size. Zipping only files required for CPDN rather than the entire BOINC folder including other projects means several backups can be saved on a single CD. It can also move the backup to a network drive or ftp it to some other site.

I also have the makings of a restore script which unzips the backup into the BOINC folder and blends the old client_state.xml file into the current client_state.xml. Since the backup contains only CPDN files it does not restore WUs from other projects and thus avoids the issue of uploading other project results that have already been uploaded. The restore is tricky but I think it works. I need to test and evaluate that half of the package on other systems before sharing either script.

What I seek from CPDN admins and/or CPDN crunchers is a few testers who know CPDN\'s system and BOINC at more than an elementary level. Familiarity with VBS would also be nice. I do not seek enthusiastic newbies because I am the CPDN newbie (and quite clueless on occasion) and more than 1 of me would not be wise at this time. When it\'s all tested and CPDN admins and assorted gurus are confident then I will share it with the entire community.

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You may like to have a look at this auto backup, to see how it works, and compare it to yours.

You may like to have a look at this auto backup, to see how it works, and compare it to yours.

Thanks, Les. I stumbled upon that one (BBC-Autobackup) a while back and completely forgot about it for some reason. Maybe it was only for the BBC experiment back when I first saw it. Thank you for the reminder. Now I\'ve reinvented the wheel and I wish I had not spent the time reinventing it. My time would have been far better spent and the community would be better off if I had donated a little code to the BBC-Autobackup project. One good autobackup is enough, we don\'t need 2.

But here we are with 2 auto backup programs. So I\'ll give you my observations and a comparison. I call mine BuC for Backup CPDN.

• Autobackup does not autozip the backup file. BuC does.
  
• Autobackup does not prune old backup files. BuC does.
  
• BuC does not do BBC but probably could with a few simple mods. Autobackup does.
  
• Autobackup thinks BoincView is BoincMgr which causes it to abort. BuC knows BoincView from BoincMgr.
  
• Autobackup backsup the entire BOINC folder which is not necessary and wastes disk space. BuC backsup only what is necessary to conserve disk space.
  

If anybody wants to give it a whirl let me know at ddk_007 at hotmail dot com and I\'ll email a copy.

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