The configuration dialog is accessible by its speed button and from the edit menu. It has six tab sheets on Windows NTx and five on Windows 9x. The registry tab sheet is not available on Windows 9x.
The general tab sheet provides a simple scheduler, some log options and some miscellaneous options.
The general tab of the configuration dialog.
With the minutes to wait between scans, you set the number of minutes to wait before
the scan will be repeated. If you specify -1 the scan will only be performed when you click
the start button. This provides a simple schedular to get you started. For more advanced
scheduling use the Windows schedular. When you run Lazy Mirror with an external scheduler,
you can use the /START and /EXIT
command line options.
When Lazy Mirror is minimized it will suspend the scanner for the specified number of minutes after user input. This option only works on Windows 2000 and later. If you specify 0 then the scanner will not suspend itself. If the scanner is updating a file it will finish the update of the file before suspending itself.
Specifies the priority of the thread updating the destinations. The priority ranges from system idle, causing the scanner to run only when the system is idle, to Time critical, causing it to consume all the time slices it can get.
If checked Lazy Mirror will automatically start when you login, or in case you do not have to login, when your computer starts. If you specify a number of minutes to wait between scans, then it will take the time of the last scan, add the number of minutes to wait and start a new scan at the resulting time or right away if this time passed by. If you specified -1 for the number of minutes to wait then the scan will start right away.
As an alternative to using this checkbox you can create a shortcut in your
startup folder using the /START command line option.
Wait at least the specified number of minutes before starting a scan when Lazy Mirror is automatically started when you login. Nice if you have an overcrowded startup sequence.
If you check close when done, then Lazy Mirror will close itself after updating the destinations. This toggle is also available from the command line to facilitate the use of external schedulers and batch processing.
The log options are available on the general tab of the configuration dialog, the log menu of the main window and through the context menu of the log window. You can turn log messages on or off on the fly.
Default checked. Toggles whether to log the creation of files on the destination. When you create a destination for the first time, then you can uncheck the log creation of files to keep the size of the log file down. After you created the destination you can put it back on, to have a good record of the changes on your system.
Default checked. The same as Log creation of files, only for directories instead of files.
Default checked. If checked all files matching a filter will be logged if the filter has its log filter flag set.
Default checked. If checked files that need updating with a minimal age not yet expired will be logged.
Default checked. If checked updates of the creation time will be logged. When you upgrade a pre version 8.5 destination for the first time then you might want to turn it off during the first scan.
With this toggle checked Lazy Mirror will ask you for confirmation before updating a destination.
In the confirmation dialog you can add filters with the Add filter button. New filters will be used starting the next mirror. For more about filters see the filters section.
Enabled determines the enabled state of the new filter.
Select excluded source if you do not want a file to be copied to the destination. The file will be moved to the archive if it is present on the destination.
Select excluded destination if you want to keep an existing destination. It will not be moved to the archive and it will not be updated.
To create an included source filter add the filter as a disabled filter and change the filter type afterwards in the configuration dialog.
To inspect the files being updated you can use the open source or open destination folder buttons.
Default your answer will only be applied to this update. You can apply it to the directory currently being processed, to the current mirror and to the remainder of this scan. Note that in case confirmation is requested for a destination directory to be moved to the archive, that remainder of directory refers to the parent of the directory being moved, being the directory currently processed. When in doubt, look at the hint that will appear if you move your mouse across the radio button.
If you choose terminate then the answer will be seen as no and the scanner will terminate as if you pressed the stop button.
With disable automatic filters checked, Lazy Mirror will not automatically add filters to protect system files and mirrors that overlap. If you disable the automatic filters be sure you provide your own filters to take care of the issues fixed by these automatic filters. If you disable the automatic filters it might be wise to turn on the confirm updates checkbox the first time you test-drive your replacement filters. Here is the list of excluded sources automatically added and here the list of excluded destinations normally added.
Scan the excluded directories to retrieve the number of files and sizes. Normally this check box is off and Lazy Mirror will not scan excluded directories. If for statistical reasons you want to know how many files are excluded then you can turn it on and Lazy Mirror will scan the excluded directories to retrieve the number of files and sizes.
The best quality update of the destinations is achieved if you enable Lazy Mirror to make use of the archive file attribute of files, but as usual quality comes at a price.
The archive file attribute is a flag set by Windows every time a file or its meta information is modified. When you change meta information for a file, like security settings, then Windows will set the archive attribute of the file to flag this change. The same when you edit a file and save your changes then Windows will flag this change by setting the archive attribute of the file.
With this toggle checked Lazy Mirror will copy files with their archive attributes set unconditionally to the destination. This way meta information will be updated, even when the content of the file did not change. When the copy succeeds the archive attribute of the source will be cleared.
If you uncheck this toggle then the archive bit of files is ignored, so meta information will only be copied to the destination when the content of the file changed. You gain a lot of disk space on the destination, but when you choose to change the owner of a file or the access rights to a file, this change will only make it to the destination when the content of the file changes.
Except for disk space usage, compatibility with other software can be a reason to disable the use of the archive attribute by Lazy Mirror. On any given file system there can only be one program using the archive attribute to keep track of the archived state of files.
If you run software already using the archive attribute, like backup software might want to use the archive bit for its incremental backups, or indexing services might use it to track the indexed state of files, then you need to disable its use by Lazy Mirror. When you are in doubt whether the archive bit is already in use by other software then disable its use by Lazy Mirror.
The archive bit is a Windows specific attribute for files not supported by "non-Windows" file systems. If you use such a file system as a destination for a mirror then you probably need to disable the use of the archive bit by Lazy Mirror. Read the notes about the use of Non-native file systems for more information on using them as destinations.
This tab sheet enumerates all the mirrors maintained by Lazy Mirror. You can create a mirror by specifying a source and a destination directory. The source will be copied to and archived on the destination. If you are not into reading a lot of detail and just want a quick test drive then just specify a test source and a test destination and you can continue with the operation part.
The mappings tab of the configuration dialog.
To protect against disk failure, source and destination should be located on different physical drives. If you have spare bandwidth you might consider off site storage by storing the destination on a machine located elsewhere.
The more disk space you allow Lazy Mirror to use the longer you can travel back in time. If you start using Lazy Mirror, just run it without limitations and see how much disk space it consumes. Later on you can always return to this dialog and limit its greed.
To guard against information loss in conversions it is best when the source and the destination use the same file system. Read the Windows Help if you want to learn about file systems. If you want to use a non-Windows file system then read the notes about non-native file systems.
Lazy Mirror won't let you create mirrors with overlapping sources or overlapping destinations. This is because Lazy Mirror depends on the use of the archive bit and other state info of files. If you want to mirror one source to multiple destinations, mirror the source to the first destination and the first destination to the second etc.
The scanner only updates the mirrors which have their enabled checkbox checked.
The source that will be copied to the destination. Double click
to browse for a directory. Sources on remote computers can be specified using
their UNC name \\server\share. Environment variables
like %windir% will be expanded.
When you create multiple sources and one source is a subdirectory of the other source, then the subdirectory is automatically added to the list with exluded sources at the start of each scan. If you have the following mapping:
| Source | Destination |
|---|---|
| C:\ | D:\ |
| C:\tetst | F:\Mirrors\test |
This mapping will result in C:\test being automatically added to the list of
excluded sources. Drive C:\ will be mirrored to drive D:\
without C:\test and C:\test will be mirrored
to F:\Mirrors\test.
If you did want to mirror C:\test to both D:\ and also to
F:\Mirrors\test, then you can specify a mapping from C:\ to D:\
and a mapping from D:\test, being a copy of C:\test,
to F:\Mirrors\test. Although Lazy Mirror does not allow sources to
overlap, sources are allowed to overlap with destinations.
Another option is to disable automatic filtering all together on the general tabsheet of the configuration dialog. If you do so, be sure to take care of overlapping sources if you have any. If you disable automatic filtering and two sources overlap and you forgot to provide a source filter to exclude the sub-directory, then Lazy Mirror will not copy changing security and meta information to the second mirror. The files on the second mirror will be kept up to date, but security and meta information changes will not always make it to the second mirror. This is because detection of changes in this information depends on Windows setting the archive attribute of these files when this information changes. The first mirror will clear the archive attribute, so the second mirror will not see these changes.
If you want to mirror a system, make sure the source and destination use the same file system and that the destination is bootable. You can use fdisk or your favorite disk tool to make sure that the destination is the active primary partition on its drive. See Windows help for information about fdisk, disk managment and how to make a system disk bootable.
Test your backup system disk by unplugging the cable of your system disk after powering down your machine. See if you can properly start from the backup system disk with the original system disk gone. It is easier to troubleshoot a backup system disk when you still have access to all your resources.
On Windows 9x, after using fdisk to check the drive lives in a primary partition and if necesary formatting the drive you want to use as the backup system drive, you can use the sys command to transfer the boot files to the backup disk. This way you create a backup system disk from which you can start your computer when the real system disk lets you down.
On Windows NTx you can use the fixmbr and fixboot commands to write the master boot record and the start up files to any backup system disk or you can use the repair options of the Windows Setup CD to make the backup system disk bootable. Be sure to read the documentation for these tools if you are not familiar with them. If you use the repair option of Windows Setup be sure to "repair" only the boot files of the backup disk and nothing else.
The NTFS file system allows directories to act as reparse points. Such a directory can be in remote storage, point to another directory, be located on another disk or whatever. Lazy Mirror updates and archives reparse points by creating and updating the reparse point, not the content it refers to.
If you want to mirror the files the reparse point refers to, then you have to add it as a seperate mirror to the mappings on this tab.
If you do not want Lazy Mirror to handle the reparse points, then you can add them to the excluded sources.
The directory where to copy the source to and where to store the Lazy Mirror archive.
Double click on a destination to browse for a directory. Destinations on remote computers
can be specified using their UNC names \\server\share.
For the best copy the destination should run the same file system as the source. If the source file system has facilities not supported by the destination these obviously cannot be copied.
Destinations may overlap with sources, but not with other destinations.
As oposed to the source, environment variables are no longer supported in the destination of a mirror.
For each destination you can specify how many bytes you want to keep free on the destination. Lazy Mirror will fill up the destination except for the specified number of bytes. You can specify it in bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB or PB. The default value is 0 bytes, allowing Lazy Mirror to use all available space on the destination disk.
When space is needed the oldest day considering all enabled archives on a drive will be thrown away. If multiple destinations reside on the same disk then the largest number of free bytes is used for that disk.
When checking the free bytes of a destination Lazy Mirror checks the free bytes available to the account running Lazy Mirror honoring disk quotas set for the account.
For each destination you can specify a maximum size. The size of the copy of the source added to the size of the Lazy Mirror archive will not grow beyond this maximum. If you want to enjoy the Lazy Mirror archive than this maximum size should be significantly larger than the size of the source. If you leave it empty you enable the destination to grow up to the size of the destination drive it is located on.
The maximum compressed size acts like the maximum size only using the real number of bytes occupied by the destination. On the fly compressing and decompressing of files is supported if you use the NT or NTFS file system. Lazy Mirror ignores the compression attribute of files and directories, so you can compress a destination without compressing the source. To find out how to compress a destination read the Windows Help topic about compression.
For each destination you can specify the maximum size of the archive. If you leave it empty the archive is allowed to grow until the maximum size of the destination is reached or until the destination filled up if no maximum size is specified.
The maximum compressed size acts like the maximum size only using the real number of bytes occupied by the archive on the destination. Leave it empty to allow the archive to grow until the destination reached its maximum size or filled up.
If checked Lazy Mirror will copy the security descriptor associated with each file and directory to the mirror. The owner, group, system access and discretionary access control lists of files and directories will be kept up to date.
If you run Windows 9x then leave this checkbox unchecked, because Windows 9x does not provide the needed security routines. If the source or destination is located in a file system that does not support the storage of access control lists, like the old FAT and FAT32 file systems, then you can leave it unchecked too. See Windows Help if you want to convert a FAT file systems to NTFS, supporting security.
If you do not know whether the used file systems support security then just check the copy security info checkbox and Lazy Mirror will verify whether the source and destination report this ability.
To be able to copy this information, the account running Lazy Mirror must have the proper access rights and if this account is not the owner of the files, it needs the backup, restore, security and take ownership privileges. On most systems this will imply that if you plan to mirror more than just your own files, that Lazy Mirror needs to run on an administrator account or an account with these special backup privileges.
Lazy Mirror will not update the security descriptor of the root of each destination to let you control access to the mirrors by setting the access rights of these roots.
If checked Lazy Mirror will copy the creation time of files to the destination. If unchecked the creation time of files on the destination will be the time the file is copied to the destination. You can turn logging of these updates on or off with the log menu, the log section on the general tab of the configuration dialog or with the context menu of the log window.
Updating the creation can be troublesome in some situations. When source and destination both run the NTFS file system and Windows NTx as operating system things seem to work out fine.
Across networks and if the destination uses the FAT file system or the Windows 9x operating systems Windows seems to be plagued with silent faillures. That is, it reports the succesful update of the creation time, but when you check them it failed to do so. You can prevent Lazy Mirror from trying to update them with this and the next checkbox.
This checkbox controls whether to update the creation times of directories. It will only take effect when the copy creation time checkbox is also checked.
On Windows 9x Lazy Mirror has no way of setting the creation times of directories, so you should leave this checkbox unchecked.
Often Unix like file systems do not maintain creation time information for directories. Normally Lazy Mirror will detect this and will not try to set the creation time of directories on such filesystems, but there are drivers around configured to fake the creation time of directories instead of reporting the absence of creation times for directories. If you run into this situation you can use this checkbox to prevent Lazy Mirror trying to update non-existing creation times on the desination.
There are differnces in how file systems store the creation time of files. Lazy Mirror compares file times in UTC independent from time zone and daylight saving. The precision used for this comparison is determined only by the destination file system. The creation time resolution is the precision with which a file system stores its creation time stamp.
Lazy mirror uses the following default values depending on the filesystem used by the destination:
| Destination | Creation time resolution |
| NTFS | 100 nano seconds |
| FAT, FAT32 | 2 seconds |
| Otherwise | 1 second |
According to the Microsoft documentation FAT and FAT32 have a creation time resolution of 10 milli seconds. To be on the safe side and to accomodate for quirky systems Lazy Mirror uses a creation time resolution of 2 seconds for FAT file systems. Most Unix like file systems use a creation time resolution of 1 second.
Like with the creation time file stamp there are differences in how file systems handle the last write time of a file. Lazy Mirror compares write times in UTC independent from time zone and daylight saving. The precision used for this comparison is determined by the destination file system and whether you run Windows NTx or Windows 9x. The write time resolution is the precision with which a file system stores it last modified time stamp.
If source or destination lacks support for write times then write times are simply considered equal. If running on Windows 9x then a write time resolution of 2 seconds is used, because the 9x kernel does not support write times with a higher resolution. If Running on Windows NTx then the following write time resolutions are used:
| Destination | Write time resolution |
| NTFS, NT | 100 nanoseconds |
| FAT, FAT32 | 2 seconds |
| UDF | 1 microsecond |
| CDFS | 1 second |
| other | 2 seconds |
In this writing NTFS, NT, FAT32, FAT, UDF and CDFS are called native file system. The default of 2 seconds for non-native file systems is because there are drivers around presenting FAT write times with a 2 seconds resolution for these file systems.
In case you want to use a non-native file system this paragraph makes some notes that might help. In this writing Unix and Linux file systems will be called Nix file systems.
Most Nix file systems are case-sensitive. Windows native file handling is not. You cannot reliable use a case-sensitive file system as source, due to the fact that such a file system might present two different files with the same name, only differing in case. Case-sensitive file systems can be used as destination. In general, whether or not the destination is case-sensitive, Lazy Mirror will update the case of filenames, so the case of the destination will follow the case of the source.
You can override the creation and write time resolution and specify your own. The smaller the resolution the better. The smallest resolution that can be handled is 100 nanoseconds on NTx and 2 seconds on Windows 9x. When you set the write time resolution to a value smaller than supported by your OS, the server or the servers file system, then no harm will be done, but you'll notice files being copied to the destination, logged with a last write time mismatch, that are actually not modified at all, due to rounding errors in the last write time of the files.
Many Nix file systems have a native creation and write time resolution of 1 second and if the driver (f.i. Samba) is not configured to present old FAT times with a resolution of 2 seconds then you can set the write time resolution to 1 second or whatever native write time resolution the file system uses.
HFS and HFS+, as seen on the Mac, have a native write time resolution of
1/((2^16)-1) seconds, which is, rounded up, 16 microseconds.
Some drivers downgrade this resolution to 2 seconds, some to 1 second
and some support the native resolution. You can test your driver
with 2 seconds, 1 second and 15300 nanoseconds, being the native resolution of HFS.
The smaller the resolution, the better.
On Nix systems setting the last write time is traditionally limited
to the owner and root. Most drivers support an option to emulate Windows behavior,
for Samba dos filetimes = yes, using the root privileges of the driver to set
the last write time for non-owner accounts having write access to a file.
If you do not use such an option and use the drive as the destination for a mirror then you must be owner of all files, run on the root account or have otherwise acquired the right to set the last write time of files.
Nix systems, if not configured otherwise, natively set the last write time to the time of copying, instead of, like Windows does, set it to the last time the content of the file changed. Lazy Mirror sets the last write time of the destination to the last write time of the source to preserve the last modified time stamp. It must do so to be able to safely detect rollbacks in the source file system.
On many Nix file systems the creation time of directories is not supported. You can disable it with the copy creation time directories checkbox.
Except for NT, NTFS and FAT, most file systems do not support the archive bit. Some drivers support mapping it to for instance the owner execute bit, but that will be undesirable in lots of situations. If a source does not map the archive bit then detection of modification relies on the last write time stamp and file size and you need to disable the use of the archive attribute by Lazy Mirror.
If a file system stores its write times in local time (FAT and HFS on Mac store local time, NTFS on NTx and HFS+ on Mac use UTC), then the time zones of these machines must be set correctly. File systems storing time stamps in local time have proven to be unreliable in the night daylight-saving changes.
On the filters tab of the configuration dialog you can specify the files and directories you want (not) to copy to the mirror or the ones that may not be removed from the destination. You can list files that mutate a lot and are of no interest at all or files you know cannot be copied and which you want logged as skipped instead of being logged as errors.
Double click to browse for files or drop files on the Lazy Mirror window to add files to this list. You can enable and disable logging of matching filters on the general tab on a global level and on a per filter basis in this tab.
Only the filters with their enabled checkbox checked will be applied.
An included source filter is the first rule a source must confirm to
to become candidate for updating. After a fresh install of Lazy Mirror the first rule
will be to include source *.*, that is, to include all files.
See filter syntax for notational details.
If for some reason you are only interested in log files
then you can specify *.log to include only file names
ending on .log.
Lazy Mirror honors the order of filters. If you exclude source
C:\Some dir\Excluded dir\ and after that, include source
C:\Some dir\Excluded dir\*.log, then only the file names
from Excluded dir ending on .log
will be kept up to date. If you would have specified them in the opposite order,
first the *.log rule and after that the excluded directory rule,
no file from the excluded directory will be kept up to date.
When an included source ends on a backslash like in C:\Some dir\
Lazy Mirror will read this as include the directory "some dir"
and the files and directories in its subdirectories too.
If you specify C:\Some dir\*.* then all files and directories inside
C:\Some dir\ will be included, but the files and directories located inside
its subdirectories will not be included based upon this filter.
An included source directory is basically the same as an included source filter, it only adds the extra condition that files must be directory to match this filter.
If you specify C:\Some dir\ then all directories and subdirectories
inside C:\Some dir\ will be included by this filter, but does not
include the files inside the directory and inside the subdirectories.
If you specify C:\Some dir\*.* then all directories
inside C:\Some dir\ will be included, but not the files
inside C:\Some dir\ and not the files and directories inside
subdirectories of C:\Some dir\.
The order of filters is important. If you specify *.*
as an included source dir filter and *.doc as included source filter
then .doc files. and the .doc files in subdirectories will
be copied to the destination.
If you change the order and first specify *.doc as included source filter and than *.* as included source dir then only *.doc files in the root of the mirror will match and the .doc files inside subdirectories will not match.
If a source file matches an excluded source filter then the source will not be copied to the destination. Files matching a source filter are not present on the destination. If you want the matching files on the destination to be left alone then use a destination filter.
If automatic filtering is not disabled then the following files and directories are automatically added as source filter:
source\IO.SYS: the boot sector, would destroy target if copiedsource\pagefile.sys: virtual memory swap file for Windows NTx, will be recreated when lostsource\hiberfil.sys: the hibernated state of the machinesource\Recycled: every disk has its own recycle binsource\RECYCLER: one bin per user per disksource\System Volume Information: already maintained file system infosource\System index: MS Indexing service%windir%\WIN386.SWP: Virtual memory swap file for Windows 9x, will be recreated when lost%windir%\SYSTEM.DAT: System registry for 9x. Cannot be copied, can be handled by File mappings%windir%\USER.DAT: User registry for 9x. Cannot be copied, can be handled by File mappingssource\Lazy Mirror archive: An archive found in the root of the sourceIf for whatever reason you wish to disable the automatic filters take special care for IO.SYS and, if any, for overlapping mirror sources. Be sure your own filters cover them.
Destinations matching a destination filter will not be moved to the archive and they will not be updated. Lazy Mirror prevents updating of these excluded destinations by automatically adding a source filter for each destination filter. Use destination filters with care and if there is no other option, because if you rename a file or directory and forget to update the filter the destination will be moved to the archive.
Lazy Mirror adds the following files and directories as excluded destination filter if automatic filtering is not disabled on the general tab:
destination\IO.SYS: boot sectordestination\Recycled: one trash can per diskdestination\RECYCLER: one can per user per diskdestination\System Volume Information: file system infodestination\System index: MS Indexing serviceIf you decide to disable automatic filtering, make sure your replacement filters cover IO.SYS.
Empty destination directories matching this filter will be removed from the destination.
Filters are basically file names with some optional extras build in. The file name
syntax follows the UNC file name syntax used by the Windows shell. Inside the file name
you can use wild cards * for any number of characters and ? for one unknown character.
Environment variables are supported, so %windir% will expand
to C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT or whatever and
%USERPROFILE% to C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\
or wherever your user profile may reside.
Given a filter [drive][\[.\]][path\][mask]
the following rules apply:
drive is not specified as disk:
or as \\Server\share\ the filter will be applied
to all disks and all sharespath part of the filter does not start
with a backslash \ or if it does start
with \.\ then the filter will be applied to every directory\.\ the dot is only supported
in the server and mask part of the filter, not in the path part
of the filter.. are not supported in the path
part of the filtermask, not the
ones inside subdirectoriesmask partOn Windows NTx an excluded source filter
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\,
if you logged in as Administrator, or for that matter
%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
will exclude the default location for the Internet explorer cache.
An excluded source Temporary Internet Files excludes all Internet Explorer caches
of all users no matter where they reside. It matches:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
C:\Documents and Settings\Marijke\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
C:\Documents and Settings\Johny\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
An excluded source C:Temporary Internet Files excludes all Internet Explorer caches
located on the C: drive. If you run multiple mirrors only the mirrors located on drive
C: will filter on it.
An excluded source filter *.gid will exclude all files with the extension .gid.
Normally .gid files are Windows Help support files, automatically recreated
by Windows Help if they are not present or when they are outdated.
An excluded source filter virus.dat excludes the file virus.dat
in all source directories.
An excluded source filter Folder Settings\hello.txt will exclude any file named
hello.txt if it is located in a directory named Folder Settings
For more examples drop a few files on the Lazy Mirror window.
The Windows registry cannot be copied because it is opened exclusively by the operating system. On Win 9x the registry files will be added as excluded sources automatically. On Windows NTx, only the registry hives specified on the File mappings tab will be added automatically.
If you run NTx and the Windows registry is part of one of your mirrors and you don't use
the file mappings tab to copy the registry then you can list the registry files here.
If you list them here, they will be logged as skipped, while if you don't list them here,
they will be logged as errors. You'll mostly find the registry files in the
Windows dir\system32\config directory. In this case, your list of
excluded sources might look like this:
Default user registry
Security Account Manager HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM
The security hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY
The software hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
The system hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
The user registry
And the user classes
Besides the registry, you can add files that just waste space, like the Internet Explorer cache. Every user has it own.
If you have directories that you want to have copied with a lower frequency
then you can enumerate them here with a minimal age in minutes. Files in these
folders and their subdirectories won't be copied to the mirror if their
last write time on the mirror is not less than the specified numbers of
minutes ago. If you scan once every hour, and specify
C:\LogFiles 240 and C:\LogFiles\big 1440 then the mirror
will be updated every hour, only C:\LogFiles and all
maps behind it, except for C:\LogFiles\big, will be updated
once every 4 hours. C:\LogFiles\big will be updated only
once a day.
This tab sheet controls how to backup the registry. It is not available when you run Windows 9x. If you run 9x, see the File mappings tab sheet for a way to backup the registry. This section only needs your attention if you want to control how Lazy Mirror creates its backup of the Registry. You can skip it and continue with the Operation section, if you only want to backup data.
The created backup files can be read by regedit and regedt32.
With this combo box you can select
If you use an external scheduler you can override this setting with a command line switch.
You can specify the directory where to store the backup of the registry. It must be stored on the system disk, mostly C:, and to be able to copy it to the mirror, it must be part of a source.
That is, if you mirror C:\ to D:\, you can place this backup anywhere on C:, but not on drive F: or D:. If security is an issue, this directory should have limited access. The default stores the backup in the directory backup_registry behind the Windows directory.
Normally Lazy Mirror uses the hive list stored in the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\hivelist
to figure out which hives to save. If you select default,
this list of hives will be used. If you select none,
no hive list will be used and only the keys specified in
the additional key list will be saved. If you specify
specified, then the key specified by you will be used.
Lazy Mirror enumerates the value names in this key taking
the right most root\hive name pair, translating
MACHINE into HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
and USER into HKEY_USERS.
The resulting root\hive name will be saved.
In this list you can specify additional keys to backup. Normally the hive
list provided by Windows in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\hivelist
will do the job, but you can specify an alternative or additional
scheme here. Lazy Mirror recognizes the following root key names:
It will generate filenames for the keys using the key name, replacing all backward slashes (\) with underscores (_) and removing all dots (.) from the key name.
If you specify:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAMHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITYthen a backup of the SAM hive will be created in the specified backup directory with the name
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SAM and the security hive will be stored in the
file HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SECURITY. You can also use this list to make more
selective backups of parts of the registry that you want to be restorable without impacting
the remainder of the registry. For instance if you specify:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WH\Lazy Mirrora file named HKEY_CURRENT_USER_Software_WH_Lazy Mirror will be
created in the backup directory that you can use to set or restore all the settings
of Lazy Mirror on any registry compatible machine.
If you get access denied errors when backing up the registry, note that the account running Lazy Mirror needs to have the backup name privilege enabled to save keys you normally do not have read rights for, like the SECURITY and SAM\SAM keys. You can inspect the rights to the registry with regedt32. For information about regedt32 (note the missing i) see Windows help.
This list contains files you want copied twice, once to their normal location and once to the destination you specify here. It is introduced to provide a way to copy the Windows registry to the mirror.
In a typical installation
you'll find the registry files in the map C:\WINNT\system32\config.
When you create a recovery disk with NTBackup, the backup of the registry hives
is placed in %SystemRoot%\repair\RegBack, normally
C:\WINNT\repair\RegBack. If you use Lazy Mirror to backup the
registry, then the registry hives will end up in the directory you specified
in the Registry tab sheet.
Whatever way you choose to back up your registry, you can choose to give
a mirror the latest copy of this backup with the file mappings tab.
If you selected to backup the registry to C:\WINNT\backup_registry
on the Registry tab, and you mirror C:\
to D:\, then the following mapping will copy the latest backup of the registry
outputted by Lazy Mirror to D:\WINNT\system32\config:
| Source | Destination |
|---|---|
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SAM | D:\WINNT\system32\config\SAM |
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SECURITY | D:\WINNT\system32\config\SECURITY |
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SOFTWARE | D:\WINNT\system32\config\SOFTWARE |
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SYSTEM | D:\WINNT\system32\config\SYSTEM |
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_USERS_DEFAULT | D:\WINNT\system32\config\DEFAULT |
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_USERS_S-XXX | D:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\NTUSER.DAT |
| C:\WINNT\backup_registry\HKEY_USERS_S-XXX_Classes | D:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat |
The S-XXX thing, is the SID of the current active user(s). If you have
system and hidden files listed in Explorer then you can find all sources in
the directory C:\WINNT\backup_registry after you ran Lazy Mirror once with the backup
registry option on.
After a boot regchecker is started verifying the Windows registry
and backing it up to a cabinet file in the hidden directory C:\Windows\Sysbckup.
Five versions of the registry are stored in this directory in separate CAB files.
These cabinet files can be normally copied to the mirror so on Windows 98 and ME
there is no need to create a file mapping because regchecker will
use these cabinet files to restore the registry in case of a corrupted or missing
registry.
After a successful boot Windows 95 backs up the Windows registry.
The registry located in the Windows directory in the files
SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT, is copied to
SYSTEM.DA0 and USER.DA0.
If you are mirroring C:\ to D:\ then you can
specify the following mappings to provide your mirror with the latest
working copy of the Windows registry.
| Source | Destination |
|---|---|
| C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DA0 | D:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DAT |
| C:\WINDOWS\USER.DA0 | D:\WINDOWS\USER.DAT |
This will update D:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DAT with and when
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DA0 changes and update D:\WINDOWS\USER.DAT
with and when C:\WINDOWS\USER.DA0 changes. If SYSTEM.DA0 changes,
it will be copied to its normal location D:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DA0 and to
D:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DAT. To save space only SYSTEM.DA0 will be archived.
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