ga3 on 2x pc's

[dogsella]

i have ga3 on my wrk pc & my home pc to do work at night, can i swap every thing including txt templates, email templates,staff ,etc,etc without manually inputting it in??

[SWS Developer]

Yes, performing a backup on the 1st PC and then a restore on the 2nd PC will restore all of these settings.

[dogsella]

can i have the process of this please cheers scott

[SWS Developer]

You can also copy the file c:\Garage Assistant V3\datafile_main.sws between computers which avoids the need for backup / restore however care must be taken to ensure you are always copying the most recent file.

If you edit custom field names, you will also need to copy datafile_language.sws

If in doubt, rename the original files before copying the new ones into place, at least this way you can un-do the changes quickly.

- The backup / restore process is straight forward.

1. On the first PC, go to Admin > Perform Backup
2. A file will be created in c:\GABACKUP named lastbackup.bak
* Copy this file to the second PC

3. On the second PC, go to Admin > Backup & Restore Menu
4. Choose restore from Custom, selecting the file you just copied to the PC.

[dogsella]

also can i save everything back up etc to my usb pen drive instead of c drive just makes it easier transporting information also if the pc ever got the dreaded blue screen this would stop all my info being lost. oh and another thing does this way of backing up keep my stock levels etc right.

[SWS Developer]

Via the backup and restore menu you can specify another location, such as a USB memory stick.
We also recommend taking a look at the free iDrive Basic service which gives you 2GB online backup storage.

[dogsella]

i have tried the back up process & noticed that you cant directly back up from the usb memory stick? i tried twice but it didnt work. so i copied the last back up file from the usb to c:drive and tried it that way & it worked fine? is this the normal procedure or should it work from the usb stick?

[dunsdale]

i have tried the back up process & noticed that you cant directly back up from the usb memory stick? i tried twice but it didnt work. so i copied the last back up file from the usb to c:drive and tried it that way & it worked fine? is this the normal procedure or should it work from the usb stick?

I have just tried this and it does work, did you definitely use the restore from custom button and not the restore from last backup button.

When you click restore from custom button

1/ box pop's up asking you to type the word "import"

2/ a second box pop's pop's up the default location of the backup file.

3/use the drop down box at the top "look in " to browse to your memory stick

4/ select last backup file from there


using Idrive as mentioned above is a great way to share between two pc's you can set up the whole thing to be fully automated backup i use this to share between work and home pc.

[SWS Developer]

i have tried the back up process & noticed that you cant directly back up from the usb memory stick? i tried twice but it didnt work. so i copied the last back up file from the usb to c:drive and tried it that way & it worked fine? is this the normal procedure or should it work from the usb stick?

There is one more thing to take note of when using a USB stick.

The backup files created with GA3 are compressed. When choosing to backup or restore, there must be enough space on the device for it to fit an un-compressed copy of the backup, depending on the data contained, this could be anywhere from 35mb upwards

If your USB stick has no additional free space, the backup or restore will fail.

We do have plans to change this soon, so the file is created / compressed on your local hard drive, then copied to the USB stick or vice versa in the case of restoring.

[dogsella]

when i tried it again ad=nd a few times since this is the file it saved August_1_2010-2005 not the expected lastbackup.bak . are these basically the same?

[dunsdale]

when i tried it again ad=nd a few times since this is the file it saved August_1_2010-2005 not the expected lastbackup.bak . are these basically the same?

August_1_2010-2005 will have been copied to your custom location i.e. memory stick,

lastbackup file will still be in c drive in folder \GABACKUP

I have just tried this and that is what happens when you choose to back up to custom location.

If in doubt just set G.A. to backup to the default location, you can then go to that folder "GABACKUP" and copy the lastbackup file over to your usb device.

Are lastbackup and August_1_2010-2005 the same i will let Steve answer that one

[SWS Developer]

when i tried it again ad=nd a few times since this is the file it saved August_1_2010-2005 not the expected lastbackup.bak . are these basically the same?

Ill quickly explain this.


When backing up to a location other than default (which we highly recommend)
lastbackup.bak will always be created / over-written in c:\GABACKUP
Dated backups will be created where you specify.

During each backup, you will notice the process runs twice. This is creating both a dated version and the generic lastbackup.bak file.

lastbackup.bak is over-written each and every backup you do.
This files purpose is mainly for performing updates, it allows our update process to find your last backup, but it also allows you to easily identifying the last backup file when transferring between computers

The dated files are never over-written (not since we added the time to the filename)
The purpose of these are so you can roll back and / or keep archived copies in case of issues.
For instance, if for any reason the lastbackup file was corrupt, you could revert to the day before etc.

Finally, if you are performing an update the installer will also make a fail safe backup, just in-case. This is stored under c:\Garage Assistant V3\upgradebackup and will simply be a copy of the main datafile. It will not follow the same rules as a normal backup, i.e it will not be compressed or renamed.

Hope that helps.