At one time or another, we all face the necessity of backing up our important files and other data. Backing up files makes that data secure against accidental loss caused by different things like sudden power outage or hard disk failure. Though Windows 7 comes with a built-in backup option, but a much easier to use backup software is FBackup. FBackup is a free and simple backup software that works in Windows XP, Vista and 7.
Following are some of the main features of FBackup :
- It is free for personal and commercial purposes.
- Scheduled automatic backups.
- Exact copies of files (also backups empty folders).
- Run actions before/after backup.
- Automatic updates.
- Multiple backup destinations.
- Backup plugins.
- Backup open and in-use files.
- Multiple language support.
- Backup compression using ZIP64 algorithm.
You can download FBackup from its website. The download is in form of a setup installer and is around 17.6 megabytes in size. After the installation you can run it from its desktop shortcut. In the main window of FBackup, you can click on the New button in the toolbar to start creating a new backup job. This starts a backup creation wizard where you can specify name of the backup, destination and source of backup files, the compression of backup and whether you want to run it manually or if you want to schedule it to run automatically.
Once you have created a backup job, select that backup in the left side list in the main FBackup window and click on the big Backup button to run it manually. Similarly, if you want to restore your backed-up files, then select that backup in the left side list and click on the Restore button. Then choose the destination and other options for restoring files and in a short time, you would have the files restored from your backup.
FBackup takes advantage of the Windows Shadow Copy feature in Windows Vista and 7 which allows you to backup files even if they are in use, locked or open by a program. This way you can create a 100% backup of all the contents of your entire hard disk even when inside Windows. FBackup also has many other features like ability of including plug-ins for pre-defined backups, file filters, ZIP64 support for huge ZIP files, backup verification, password protection and more.
So if you want to keep a safe backup of all your sensitive and important files, then try Fbackup. It is free, simple to use and loaded with features. You can download FBackup from its website at http://www.fbackup.com/.