PERFORM BACKUPS FROM THE COMMAND CONSOLE

You're probably very familiar with the Backup application included with Windows. Backup provides a graphical interface for creating, cataloging, and restoring backup sets.

In many situations, Backup's GUI is all you need to manage backups on a workstation. Occasionally, however, you might need to initiate a backup operation from a command console. For example, perhaps you want to create a backup script and run the script using the AT command every day at 3:00 A.M.

The Backup application's executable, ntbackup.exe, supports several switches and options for command-line execution, making it possible to perform backups dynamically from a console or integrate backup operations in a script.

You can't specify the files and folders to include in the backup by setting options from the command console. Instead, you must create a selection set with the GUI and save the set as a file with a BKS file extension. To do so, open Backup, select the folders and files, and choose File | Save Selections As. Enter a name, click Save, and close Backup.

The following command syntax backs up the folders and files defined in the file MySet.bks, names the backup set "My Backup", and stores the backup in G:\backups\MyBackup.bkf:

ntbackup backup "G:\BackupDefs\MySet.bks" /j "My Backup" /f "G:\backups\MyBackup.bkf"

For more information on the syntax for ntbackup.exe, open a command console and enter ntbackup /?, or search the Help file from the GUI interface.