Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mcnc!rti!bcw From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro Subject: Re: Rainbow MSDOS 2.11 BACKUP-utility piping? Summary: Rainbow BACKUP utility Message-ID: <2473@rti.UUCP> Date: 28 Sep 88 02:51:26 GMT References: <138*mjolsnes@vax.elab.unit.uninett> Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC Lines: 42 In article <138*mjolsnes@vax.elab.unit.uninett>, mjolsnes%vax.elab.unit.uninett@norunix.BITNET (Stig Frode Mjolsnes) writes: > The BACKUP.EXE in MSDOS 2.11 from DEC has lots of nice screens etc. > The online documentation claims that it is possible to indirect a file > which contains a list of files to be backed up, instead of using > filespecification (with metacharacters) directly. This is obviously > useful for more "selective" backups. Problem: I cannot get it to > work! Any experienced users out there? > > Can any public domain software handle this delicate task of backing up > and restoring reliably on the Rainbow? > BACKUP.EXE in MS-DOS 2.11 from DEC is, in my opinion, practically useless. Almost all the hard disks I've ever seen have too many files to be backed up with this program - it's not obvious to me what was on the author's mind (if anything) when he wrote it. Another reader posted a suggestion that it was possible to use a version of BACKUP from a PC-DOS machine. This might be a reasonable solution, if you don't mind running something which won't be supported by anybody and if you don't mind the bending of the license rules. A better alternative would be to get the version of MS-DOS 3.1 from Suitable Solutions (about $100 US, plus $50/year for support which is not included in the purchase price - I don't know what foreign shipping costs would be). Besides a reasonable BACKUP utility, it also contains support for hard disk drives greater than 8 MB (and the superior MS-DOS 3.x disk allocation scheme which speeds up file allocations), and lots of other things which 2.11 doesn't have. We are running this version of DOS 3.1 and have not yet found any serious problems. So far, only one PD program (and no commercial programs) that we have tried on it has broken (it did some low-level hacking & apparently broke when some addresses changed in 3.1 - fortunately it is not so interesting on 3.1 as it was on 2.11 so we haven't been too unhappy). Suitable Solutions can be reached at Suitable Solutions 1700 Wyatt Drive, Suite 12 Santa Clara, California 95054 408-727-9090 Bruce C. Wright