Sorry to hit the list with this but once in awhile I wander back to see if theres been any new developments on this topic and to share what little I find on this topic as I go.
I just found an excellent (and free) imaging and backup application for XP called Driveimage XML that will create a vendor-neutral image of a machine WHILE ITS IN USE. The problem where Windows won't let you touch files that are in use, this application skates past by taking advantage of a feature built into XP called VSS - Volume Shadow Copy Service. Evidently you can configure VSS on a XP machine to behave in all kinds of ways, but even if you do not, XP is still using a stripped down version of VSS in its normal day to day operations. When Driveimage XML runs into a file thats in use, it automatically takes advantage of this, grabs the shadow copy instead, and keeps on going without hiccup. As you know, both Rsync/Cygwin and Samba won't let you touch files on a windows machine that are in use by other applications, thus preventing a full system backup by Backuppc. If Samba, Rsync, or some other client were configured to behave in the same way and take advantage of VSS, could this not provide the means to do a complete backup of windows machines by Backuppc? I could be mistaken but I believe Backula is using this same technique to handle windows machines with alot of success. I'm not a coder - I don't actually know how to go about this - I wish I did because I would totally dive into this if it were within my means to do so. So I guess I'm approaching the community with this to find out if A.) Its been done yet B.) If this idea has any merit C.) Is there any chance anyone wants to work on it? Ideally it'd be excellent if there was a Backuppc "client" for windows that ran in the system tray that contained rsync configured to use VSS or something. I'm just dreaming here is all. Okay, heres the link to the Driveimage XML app. I'm not promoting this app so much as I am using it as reference for possible methods in which to address the issue of getting Backuppc to effectively backup Windows machines. And if theres something already out there that addresses this and I've managed to miss it, be kind to me eh? http://www.download.com/DriveImage-XML/3000-2242_4-10457321.html?tag=lst-0-1 http://www.runtime.org/products.htm Thanks all Scott Gamble ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
