Backing Up and Restoring Data

Years ago, with smaller hard drives, expensive network equipment and slow backup devices for many people backing up was an inconvenience. In many cases people didn't back up because they were too tired or on any given day they just didn't have enough time.

Office Express has been designed to take advantage of today's technologies. Office Express backs up twice automatically each time you exit the software. You can also define two more locations that Office Express will backup to when then program exits.

Where Office Express Backs Up

Each time you exit Office Express your database is backed up in two places. First, Office Express backs up to a Backup path where you installed the program. For example, if Office Express is installed on your C: drive in the Program Files directory, the backup path is: C:\Program Files\ Office Express\Database\Backup.

The second backup is located in the Office Express Database directory. Office Express copies your database to a file that has a named for the day of week you were using the program. For example, if you were using the program on Monday, when you exit Office Express, a file named Monday.mdb is created.

The advantage of this type of backup is, you might not notice a problem with the database for a few days. You can easily restore to a copy of the database before the problem began. If you used the program every day there will be recent seven backups to choose from. When you encounter a problem simply use the Restore feature and select the day of the week you want to reset the database to.

Defining Your Own Backups

Being we understand that at the end of a day backing up can be an inconvenience, Office Express will do it for you, automatically.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is highly recommended that you backup to a device external to the computer that Office Express is installed on.

You can define two locations where you want Office Express to backup your database. Being Office Express has already backed up your data to the hard drive Office Express is installed on, these locations should be on devices or computers external to the program.

If you have a home network installed, backing up to another computer could be a good choice depending upon the access other people have to that computer.

Other good choices are memory sticks (Jump Drives), CD's formatted to act as a disk drive, an external Hard drive or any other device that you have attached to your computer.

To define the location of the devices:

1. select the View option from the main menu at the top of the screen.
2. select Edit System Settings
3. the two paths for your data backups will be displayed in the Settings Dialog box. Click the Browse button  for the path you want to define.
4. Office Express will search all paths and drives attached to your system and display a dialog. Select the path you want the backup to be stored.
5. when done click the OK button.

Once you have defined the locations of the backups, each time you exit Office Express, your data will automatically be backed up to those locations.

Mapping Network Drives

Office Express looks for devices that have been assigned a "drive letter", For example, your local hard drive is labeled C:, your CD might be D: and so on. When dealing with networks, you will need to map a drive to the path you want to backup to. It is out of the scope of this document to define how to do this, but simply, each computer on the networks "shares" files and directories. When a computer on the network is sharing a directory you can map a drive letter to it. When a drive letter is mapped, you can access it just like any other drive on your computer.

Restoring Data

Restoring data is easy in Office Express. To restore your database:

NOTE: Before selecting the restore option, make sure the device that has the backup is inserted or connected to your computer. For example, if the backup is on a CD make sure the CD is inserted in the CD drive. If the backup is stored on a network, make sure the computer is attached to the network.

1. from the File option in the main menu select Restore Database...
2. Office Express scans your computer and all the devices and mapped network drives attached to your system. When done a dialog will be displayed listing all the found backups.
3. either select a backup from the list or type in the path where the backup is stored.
4. Office Express will then copy the backup to the main Office Express database file.
5. When done, Office Express will exit. Restart Office Express.

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