Batch File

In the example below, we first set 3 variables: drive, folder, and backupcmd. The “drive” variable defines the root directory of our backups. The “folder” takes the 2 digit day value from the current date (US date format, taking 2 digits from the date command output, starting at the 7th character), which we will use as a subdirectory. The third variable, “backupcmd” defines our backup command with the appropriate command line switches we want to use.

@echo off
:: variables
set drive=D:\Backup
set folder=%date:~7,2%
set backupcmd=xcopy /s /c /d /e /h /i /r /k /y

echo ### Backing up directory…
%backupcmd% “C:\Program Files\somedirectory” “%drive%\%folder%”

echo Backup Complete!
@pause

This example will backup the “C:\Program Files\somedirectory” folder to “D:\Backup\[dd]” where [dd] is the current day of the month. After a month, we will have 30ish daily copies of the backup… And, because of the xcopy command line switches chosen, following backups will only overwrite files that are newer, speeding up subsequent backups. Alternatively you can add a line to delete the %folder% directory prior to executing the %backupcmd% if you prefer to start clean (and take longer).

Notes:

* Any batch file can be interrupted with CTRL+C or CTRL+Break if needed.
* Instead of backing up My Documents, Favorites, Outlook and Outlook Express files separately, you can combine it all into one line for the current user: %backupcmd% “%USERPROFILE%” “%drive%\%UserName% - profile” . The only disadvantage being that it would save temporary IE files as well (however the default location of those can be changed).
* The Registry backup in the above example works well only for partial registry restores, it does not save the complete system state. Read this FAQ for more info.