Do you know ActiveSync Backup?

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=382410

ActiveSync comes with a backup/restore tool which can be of great help but can also cause problems too. In this blog entry, I elaborate on using this feature. It also contains a lot of never-before-published tricks (for example, extracting/restoring WindowsCE databases), so, this post may be worth reading for seasoned Pocket PC users too. First and foremost, ActiveSync backup is a decent tool in that if you enable it to work in the background (that is, every time you cradle your Pocket PC), you can be absolutely sure the latest contents of your PDA will always be restorable. To enable this feature, cradle your PDA so that ActiveSync can start and go to Tools -> Backup/Restore in ActiveSync and enable Automatically back up each time the device connects: click for screenshot After this, the backups will be done in the background. You will only see a progress bar of this: click for screenshot Note that you can remove the PDA any time the backup is in progress; it won't result in any problems: the modifications in the last backup sections will just be discarded: click for screenshot Should you want to restore a backup file after, say, a hard reset, go to Tools -> Backup/Restore in ActiveSync, choose the Restore tab and click Restore Now: click for screenshot Upon restoring, some points must be kept in mind. The most important is that the Pocket PC must have exactly the same regional settings as was at the time of the backup. That is, if ActiveSync complains of the same Pocket PC being different, then, on the PDA, just go to Settings/System/Regional Settings : click for screenshot and make sure the country setting is the same. Also note that, unlike with most other, mostly PDA-based backup solutions like iPAQ or Sprite Backup, you can not individually restore files, WinCE databases or the Registry. If you want to do selective restoration or restore your backup to a different type of PDA - or just the same device after a ROM upgrade, you can still extract individual files from your backup files stored on your hard disk. Unfortunately, ActiveSync will refuse to restore anything officially; therefore, you'll need to do some manual "hacking" to restore files or WindowsCE databases. The latter can be very important if you want to access for example your PIM data only existing in your backup file. These "hacks" require third-party applications. There're two applications that you'll find immensely useful: STGViewer (v0.2 Beta) and HPC Vault (alternative download link here). The former is free but can only extract individual files from backup files; the latter is commercial but has a fully-working 30-day trial version and, in addition to files, it can also restore WindowsCE databases. That is, if you have important PIM data (for example, your contact information) in your backup file, you will need to stick to HPC Vault. These two applications work similarly. First and foremost, you must load (Ctrl-O) the (auto)backup (Backup.stg by default) file. It will be in the following directory: C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows username>\Application Data\Microsoft\ActiveSync\Profiles\<Pocket PC name>\ As far as extracting files is concerned, you just choose the file to be restored, right-click it and choose 'Restore Files' (in STG Viewer; see screenshot here) or 'Restore to Desktop' (or, if you want to restore the file straight to your PDA, ' Restore to HPC') in HPC Vault, as can be seen in this screenshot. Restoring WindowsCE databases (PIM data etc.) can, as has already been pointed out, only be done using HPC Vault. After loading the backup file, click the WinCE Databases folder in the left pane and, in the right pane, highlight the database(s) you want to restore. For example, if you want to restore your contacts, click Contacts Database. Then, choose Restore to HPC: click for screenshot Before doing so, make sure your PDA doesn't currently run the application that could lock the given database (for example, if you want to restore the contacts database, make sure Contacts isn't running – it's the best to soft reset your PDA before the database restoration) and it's connected via ActiveSync. This is because HPC Vault is pretty weak at error reporting: it won't report any error message when there's no currently connected PDA and/or it can't restore the given database onto it because an application is locking the database on the PDA. Please note that you should not right-click the three in the left pane to, for example, restore all databases as easily as possible (without highlighting them in the right pane): it will result in a crash. Also note that if you want to restore the WinCE databases of some third-party applications, HPC Vault will in cases restore them without any records. An example of this is VidaOne's MySportTraining for Pocket PC, which stores its data in several WindowsCE databases named MST* and must be uninstalled before restoration (and reinstalled after the restoration). Both third-party applications are common in that they can't restore/export the Registry to a registry export file readable by Pocket PC-based, input-capable registry editors.