ShadowProtect: Continuous Incrementals Not Available

I'm trying to create a backup job in ShadowProtect that uses the Continous Incrementals schedule. However, I can't because on the 'Specify the backup schedule' page of the wizard, the 'Continuous Incrementals' option is grayed out.

I've tried everything I could think of to try to get it to appear: I've installed the ImageManager software and created a policy (though it doesn't get saved between sessions; could this be related?). I've also disabled the Full backup (weekly) with daily incrementals that I've been running successfully (because the Help says you can only have one scheduled job using incrementals).

Any suggestions on why the 'Continuous Incrementals' option is not available, or how I could get it to be?

Thanks!

 

Pete,

Thanks; deleting the other job got the option displayed!

Update regarding ImageManager: The job is still there; for some reason I was expecting it would appear in the list when I opened ImageManager. After I connected to the server, it appears.

Robert

 

Pete,

I bought SP with the intent to use Continuous Incrementals if EF/RB didn't work out (which it hasn't), after your strong recommendation in an exchange of messages about a year ago.

At this point I'm a bit confused about a couple things. Last night I set up the Continuous Incrementals Backup Job with one "VSS Incremental Backups" on Sunday at 8:00am, and "Additional Incremental Backups (with 'Use VSS' checked) every day starting at 8:15am and stopping at 11:45pm, with 15 minutes between backups.

- After it ran the initial full backup (9.47GB) at 8:15pm last night, I looked at my backup image files folder at 8:30 and found the first CI spi file -- 12.5MB, which seemed reasonable. When 8:45pm approached, I displayed the Windows Task Manager, so that I could see the CPU usage during the run. When it was done, the resulting spi file was 605MB -- but all I had done was display the Task Manager! Is it not unusual for the CI's to be relatively huge even though very little has been done in the computer since the last CI?

- Today I booted around 12:10pm, and (since I normally either go to Stand By or Shut Down at the end of the day, rather than leaving my computer on all night) my first backup today was a 12:11PM CI that created a cd.spi file of 617MB -- the size not completely surprising like yesterday's, since it was on the other side of reboot and on a new day -- or would the size be because (as the SP manual says) the 'cd.spi' indicates that the file was an automatically-collapsed-daily by ImageManager, and so this cd.spi file (created at 12:11PM, right after I booted) is the daily-collapsed file for yesterday (since in ImageManager, 'Time of day to begin collapse/verify of image files' is set to 12:00:00 AM, and so IM missed its opportunity to do its daily collapse then)?

- Immediately after creating the cd.spi file (i.e., still with a timestamp of 12:11PM) it created an spi file of 18.4MB, and then 4 minutes later at 12:15pm (the scheduled interval) it created another spi file of 12.9MB. I was initially surprised to see two spi files created less than 15 minutes apart. Am I correct in presuming that this is simply because the the 12:11PM spi file was a holdover of the scheduled 8:00AM Sunday backup?

By the way, if you have a different schedule/regimen for Continuous Incrementals, what would you recommend?

My reason for using them with SP is to be able to do I used to do with GoBack (reliably, until it was acquired by Symantec and/or used in WinXP [I used in in Win2K]): 1) to be able to get earlier copies of files, and 2) to be able to revert the system to an earlier state.

(I had thought I could use EF/RB to do both of these, and bought EF. But after doing a revert to the previous day's snapshot after not having used this computer for several months, it had lost all of the snapshots I had kept since installing it. I did upgrade from WinXP SP2 to SP3 before doing the revert; perhaps I should have uninstalled EF before I did the upgrade, but I didn't want to wait to get an answer to whether I needed to do that -- and because before doing the EF revert I had taken a SP backup from the Recovery CD including free space, I figured if I did have a problem with the EF revert, I could revert using SP. But when I reverted using the SP recovery CD (specifying restoring the backed-up MBR and hidden track), the result was that not only had I lost all EF snapshots; EF did not even appear when booting or show its tray icon after booting. So I uninstalled it.)

Thanks,

Robert

 

Maybe this is happening because of scheduled/automatic disk defragmentation?

From ShadowProtect Guide:

Underline is mine.

 

Pete,

(Thanks for enduring my longish email.)

If by "Rollback" you means specifically just reverting the system and not getting earlier copies of files: I did this most often when I'm trying new software and decide I don't want to keep it, or I make a mistake when installing software (e.g., choosing the wrong options, or responding incorrectly to ZoneAlarms prompts), and I decide I want to revert to before I installed it -- rather than uninstalling it, which it's clear does not give the same result since most software vendors are not conscientious about removing all their residue.

I also did this when I thought perhaps I might have exposed myself to unprotected access to the Internet by an incorrect ZoneAlarm setting, or a VPN that I don't trust; something like that.

I did this maybe 2-5 times per month (all during the daytime, not at night).

Getting earlier copies of files: A bit less -- like 1-4 times per month (again, daytime).

BTW, although I'm now evaluating whether I can rely on SP to do the above rather than using EF/RB, there's another task that I did when I used GoBack and that I could do if I used EF/RB (if it were reliable): to check some software settings that I couldn't determine just by getting an earlier copy of a configuration file. For example, just last night when you advised me to delete my earlier non-CI backup job, when I got to creating a new CI backup job I would have liked to be able to see the schedule I had been using. As a new SP user, I didn't know whether SP keeps these settings in a file and didn't see any when I looked.

With GoBack, I could have done a revert, printed a screenshot of my settings, revert back, and then refer to the former settings while entering my new settings. (Doing this with SP may not be the best example in the world, but I actually thought about doing it and realized I couldn't; but I have done this many times with other software (most often, probably, ZoneAlarm). (This is maybe 1-2 times per month; daytime.)

Robert

 

Thanks for your reply.

But no, I don't have any defragger installed other than what comes with Windows; and I've not set it to defrag automatically, nor did I use it manually yesterday or today.

Robert

 

There are other things besides auto defrag that could account for this sort of thing,,,,such as auto updates. This could be MS updates or perhaps anti-virus program updates, etc.

 

Yes, and yes.

 

Am I correct in presuming you're referring to my response to your preceding post? If not, and there's a question in your current post, please clarify.

Thanks,

Robert

 

Excellent, thanks for this.