Backing up the desktop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Gillis
  • Start date Start date
J

Jack Gillis

Is there a convenient way back up XP's desktop? I often would like to
restore it to what it was a day or two in the past.

Thank you.
 
About the best way to restore a desktop is to create a mirror image of the
Partition.
This can be done using a third party partition manager such BootIt NG or
Partition Magic,
BootIt NG has a 30 day free trial period.
XXcopy can also do this.
Use Google to find them.
 
Jack,
Be sure to resize the operating partition to its minimum size before you
COPY the partition to an Unallocated space elsewhere on hard drive.
As it will copy the whole partition.
If you have another hard drive it would be the best location, in case you
have a failure.
 
Thsnk you.

I understand what you are saying now. Have used Norton's Ghost for years to
periodically back up my C: drive to another hard disk. I takes about 20 mins
to restore from the image. What I was looking for was a quick way to backup
just the content and LAYOUT of the desktop.. I have tried copying my
profile's Desktop folder out to the other drive and copying it back after
purposefully deleting some of the documents (not shortcuts to them) there.
They all came back but not in the same position so that method does seem to
meet the layout requirement. (Maybe if I can solve that I will be able to
get the desktop dusted too. :) )
 
Jack said:
Is there a convenient way back up XP's desktop? I often would like to
restore it to what it was a day or two in the past.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

I fail to see the complexity of the responses here since the Desktop is
simply a folder. What's wrong with simply copying it to another location?
There are even freebie apps to back up the desktop; much simpler to use.

Pop
 
Pop` said:
I fail to see the complexity of the responses here since the Desktop is
simply a folder. What's wrong with simply copying it to another location?
There are even freebie apps to back up the desktop; much simpler to use.

Pop
Click to expand...

Thanks Pop.

I agree. I thought to do that in the beginning by copy the my carefully
arranged desktop to another drive. To test the process, I then deleted some
of the icons from the initial desktop. Then copied the 'copied' folder back
and found the deleted icon were restored. The big problem with that
approach was the arrangement of the desktop was not what it was when I
started. All of the icons were on the left of the screen.

My usual arrangement has been, for years, to keep things associated with the
internet on the right, icons for programs on the left, and currently active
documents on the top. The bottom gets whatever can't fit into those
categories. The middle is usually blank so that my windows (excel, quicken,
etc. live there without covering up any icons. And that is why I want a
desktop backup scheme that will keep the pre-backup arrangement.

I'm not going to loose much sleep over this but it sure would be nice to
have a quick backup scheme.
 
Jack said:
Thanks Pop.

I agree. I thought to do that in the beginning by copy the my
carefully arranged desktop to another drive. To test the process, I
then deleted some of the icons from the initial desktop. Then copied
the 'copied' folder back and found the deleted icon were restored. The
big problem with that approach was the arrangement of the desktop
was not what it was when I started. All of the icons were on the
left of the screen.
My usual arrangement has been, for years, to keep things associated
with the internet on the right, icons for programs on the left, and
currently active documents on the top. The bottom gets whatever
can't fit into those categories. The middle is usually blank so that
my windows (excel, quicken, etc. live there without covering up any
icons. And that is why I want a desktop backup scheme that will keep
the pre-backup arrangement.
I'm not going to loose much sleep over this but it sure would be nice
to have a quick backup scheme.
Click to expand...

Here are a few options that, although they are from respectable sites IMO, I
have not used or tried:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article02-052

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,22891-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

Hmm, don't see others I trust right off the bat; I found those on Google
with desktop save positions
 
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