| Just this month I received an e-mail from
Leading Interactive Utilities. They suggested that their
product WinBackup would quite possibly be of interest
to the GSecur audience. The slant they took on this was,
their product made it easy for anyone to make backups
on their systems, and either apply a password to it or
apply an AES encryption scheme. I have to say I was intrigued,
and decided to write the review.
I followed the
link I was provided in an e-mail, and downloaded the
install file. The download was short and sweet; the
total install package is only about 1.8MB. (I do love
clean, and small install packages) after the fast download,
I double-clicked the file and off to the races we went.
Installation
was basic, no surprises and definitely nothing difficult.
I just selected by install directory and click OK. Total
footprint of the program was only about 3.8 MB.
Upon first start
up of the program, you're greeted by an unobtrusive
"backup wizard ". Now if you want to drop out of this
wizard, all you have to do is click close. I'm always
pleased to see when programmers give thought to having
a more experienced user. Nothing drives me to higher
levels of exasperation than when I'm stuck to sit through
over 20 minutes of mind numbing wizards. So seeing that
quaint little close button, let me breathe a sigh of
relief. |
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WinBackup, uses a "coach"
style wizard, to guide you
through the basics of the
program.
Click
Here To Enlarge |
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Yet, I held
back the temptation of clicking the close button, I
figured, "Hey, lets assume the role of the beginner.".
As the "wizard" began I quickly realized this was not
going to be a typical wizard setup. Instead of the typical
method of hiding all of the programs actual function
screens, it took more of a tutorial role. Allowing me
perform the specific actions it was telling me how to
perform. I would classify this as more of a program
"coach". This "stepped" through the entire process,
and I found it extremely helpful rather than extremely
hindering.
WinBackup uses
"Jobs" to organize the different backup processes you
may have. First, you create a new job and choose a descriptive
title for what it will be specifically backing up. |
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| After you have given a name to your backup
job you can then either select the Add/Remove files Tab
or double click the job name to go to the exact screen.
This small option to either choose the TAB or double-click
the file (as simple as it was) let me quickly adapt the
style of WinBackup.
At the Add/Remove
files screen you have the normal windows file explore
display of your systems drives, including your mapped
network drives. Having mapped network drives available
for inclusion in the backup is a great idea. Especially
for users who may be running this program in corporate
environment. |
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WinBackup,has
an easy
to use file selection page.
With some of the most important
files easily visible to backup.
Click
Here To Enlarge |
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An additional feature that I took immediate
note of was the inclusion of specific user and system
settings available in the same window. The following specific
backups were available:
- Outlook Express Datafile
- Favorites
- Desktop
- My Documents
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| They are additional settings that are viewable
based up the programs you have specifically installed
on your system. I noticed that the available options were
different on the two machines I had loaded.
Another handy
feature is the ability to do a search for specific files,
and then add them to the backup Job. I can't remember
how many time I forget where I save a certain file,
and this is especially a prevalent problem on today's
100GB drives.
After you have completed adding which files you want to
include in the backup, you then choose the specific backup
settings. These setting include where you want the backup
to be stored, (on CD, or to a file). You can also choose
where to have a backup of the backup file to be copied
to when a backup operation is being performed. I found
this to be a smart setting to enable. You don't want to
have a crash on your system while the backup is performing
and then corrupt your entire backup. |
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| In addition , you can set if you wish to
have compression enabled or not, or actually divide the
backup into small files. Ex: If you are deciding to place
this backup on a floppy you can split the backup file
into 1.2 MB files and then place each one on a single
floppy disk.
There is a specific
dialog box for excluding specific filenames from the
actual backup, which extremely helpful when removing
large system files from a backup dll's etc. Though I
highly doubt anyone will be using this software to run
a full hardisk backup. It would take too many CD's for
today's large harddrives.
The next setting
tab you can configure is the Security the security settings,
on this specific part of the settings you can configure
a multitude of options. The simplest form of security
available is just a common password placed on the actual
file. The password itself will prevent any user who
doesn't know the password to use the backup file and
restore it on another system. When the persons selects
the file to be restored, they'll be prompted for a password.
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| If a tighter form of security is more your
cup of tea, then choose one of the AES encryption formats.
You can choose from 128 bit, or 256 bit. Each of these
encryption types, will provide with more than enough security.
Unless you're the extremely paranoid type, then I don't
know what to tell you. But, for all of us minimally paranoid
people, this level encryption should do just fine.
All in all, I
would give WinBackup four out of five stars. It's definitely
outstanding product, especially for the price, and ease-of-use.
Now I definitely wouldn't use it as a server backup
utility. But, for the serious home or corporate user
it's going to be hard to beat. To the guys over at Leading
Interactive Utilities, keep up the good work.
You can purchase
a copy of WinBackup at, http://www.liutilities.com/
for approximately $29.95. Definitely a good deal
for the money. |
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