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I've also never seen the point in backing up windows. If you need to
reinstall it, do it the windows way. Yes its slower, but youre asking
for trouble otherwise, IME its just not worth cloning.

For a new machine I take an image after the windows install and again
after the major apps go on.

If it all turns to **** later then that saves quite a bit of time on the
reinstall.

I only do backups of data (inc the mail databases).

One thing I did to save time was to copy the apps in /program files en
masse, and just copy them straight back into windows. Its surprising
how many work fine this way - some will still need reinstalling the
windows way.

Hmmn, not sure on that one.

The way to backup your data is simply to add the 2nd drive, control a
c in one pane, control v in the other. Job done, software pointless.

It is nice to automate the backup even if you do run it manually. I
wouldn't back up unless it was to an external drive, there are too many
things to go wrong with a drive in the same box. A usb-network adapter
is a nice way of keeping a usb drive nicely separated from the main box.

Switching to linux makes this process easier, this distro is a dream
to install compared to win.

Windows has the apps.
--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .