Question: I am 78 and tech challenged. When I worked, we had an IT person backing up our work, so I never learned how to back up files. Now that I am on a home computer, I don’t know how to do a back-up. I have a thumb drive but don’t know if it needs anything preliminary done to it. After I insert it, what do I do? I have an old desktop computer with Windows XP that has Lotus files that I need to back up. I also need to copy the program of Lotus because I have been told the floppies I have are corrupt. Yes, I know this is ancient but I composed many spreadsheets back in the 90’s with Macros that will not transfer to Excel. I took classes at the college in Lotus to learn everything there was to learn. Now all that is obsolete.
I am writing to you on Windows 10 laptop but my question is concerned about Windows XP desktop if you can remember that far back. Maybe backing up files is the same on both?
– Pat S.
Panama City, Florida
Answer: Oh, I can remember back as far as Windows XP, Pat. In fact, I can remember much farther back than that, having been heavily involved since the early 80’s in both MS-DOS and the burgeoning Windows versions as far back as version 2.11 and prior. Fortunately, calls for support on that ancient stuff don’t come along very often.
Speaking of remembering things, I covered the topic of backups in some detail back in February (Geek Note: I.G.T.M. #864, Feb 11, 2024). In that issue, reader Ronald C. was doing what he called performing backups, but which was actually just him manually copying files from where he saved them to another location, so he had an extra copy in case something might happen to his original. I introduced him to Windows Backup, and how it performs backups incrementally, which means that only files that have changed since the last backup get copied. I would encourage you to hit the column archive on my website and check it out. Access is free, and you can read every issue of the column ever published – all 891 of them and counting.
Windows Backup (or virtually any quality backup solution of your choosing) would work just fine to perform your backups for you. There are several pleasant surprises in store for you in using such a tool. First, as I previously said, backups can be incremental, which makes them very fast and efficient. Second, backups can be scheduled to run automatically during times when you’re not using your computer. This ensures that the backups actually get done, rather than relying on some manual process that you might forget to launch, or (yes it happens) just plain get tired of running all the time. Finally, Windows XP included a version of Windows Backup, so even on that old system you can still perform backup operations.
I want to address a couple of things that you mentioned, but which aren’t technically part of the question you asked. You mentioned that your Lotus disks are corrupt, so you want to copy the program off the old XP computer. That may not be possible because of the way Windows software installs work. Typical software installations do far more than simply copy files from the install media to a folder on the hard drive. They make entries in the system registry and take many steps to integrate the software being installed into Windows. Often times you must have installation media to put the software onto a machine for the first time. Now, I’m not saying you’re totally out of luck. Even though the software is obsolete, you might be able to find downloadable installation media online, or even from Lotus. Remember though – the name of the software is not “Lotus” – that’s the company. You should make your inquiries using the software title, such as “Lotus 1,2,3” or “Lotus Notes.”
Second, and finally, a thumb drive probably isn’t the best option for archiving your files. While it may work, you’re going to find that, unless you have one with a massive storage capacity, you’re going to soon run out of space to store your files. Second, such flash drives can fail unexpectedly, leaving your precious backups locked on a device you can’t access. The same is true for any storage media, but it is far more likely on a thumb drive. I’m going to refer you again to the article I mentioned earlier. I provided the same warning to Ronald C. that I’m giving you. All devices eventually fail. One good solution these days is backing up to the cloud. There are many free or paid options out there.
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