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Q: Preferences backup for installed applications?

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justice:
Hi! As you use your software you make settings modifications, interface changes and add data to your apps. Most of these are saved as preferences or application data. Now there will come a time when a program will stop working or some other reason why I will need to start from a fresh install.

Is there an application that will list compatable installed applications and allows me to backup these preferences / settings and optionally data? Most applications have a knowledgebase article or help page available that tells one how to backup the preferences etc. To do this for 40 or more applicatinos will take me a few days. However I can't find anything faster.

Good idea? Bad Idea? Does it exist? Is there a market?  ;)

Found the following apps:
AppHomepageCostNotesOBXhttp://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/OBX/1129770850/1FreeOpera onlyNikSaverhttp://www.niksaver.com/Shareware; $35 - or freeSupports about 500 programs. Restoring settings not supported in trial.

Grorgy:
sounds like an excellent idea, someone made a firefox extension ( http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions/febe/febe.html) which backs up all firefox setting, userchrome and passwords and of course your extensions and themes, much like that one for opera, i dont know how popular it is but i know i like it and use it, and would certainly use something similar for all or other applications.

justice:
I've since had the NikSaver application throw an exception when you run the Add program wizard a second time. Now I am running Vista, with the app given admin rights and in XPSP2 mode. So it could be a compatibility mode. The app generated a bugreport to send but the email address doesn't exist. Hmm. also it could be easier to create your own scripts. But in general this seems to be an app to live with, it depends if I can make 20 scripts to qualify for the free registration. But there must be something more reliable.

Hirudin:
What I do may be something you might want to try, maybe as a last resort.

I format my drive into 2 partitions, a C: (30 gigs for Vista, 15 gigs for any other windows) and a D: with all the rest of the hard drive space. The C: partition gives me enough room for Windows, the few apps I install into C:\Program Files, and enough additional space to save pretty much any file on my desktop. The D: drive is where I put everything; 'specially programs. Programs that I have to install get put into D:\ProgNew, programs that can just be unzipped get put into D:\ProgNoInst. After a format pretty much all the programs in ProgNoInst will continue to work as if nothing happened. I'll also change the name of the ProgNew folder to ProgOld. Then I'll go through ProgOld and delete any program that I'm no longer interested in using.

After I install a program that I had installed before I'll use Beyond Compare to compare the New with the Old. If there's file differences, specially in .ini files, I'll selectively transfer the Old stuff to the New stuff.

Sometimes after a format I'll rename the ProgNew folder to ProgKeep. Then I'll try every program I'm still interested in and see if any still work. Any that do I'll leave in the ProgKeep folder for easy future formatting.

The first couple times going through this process takes a little extra time, but after a while I build up a collection of software that I don't need to worry about getting messed up if Windows decides to take a crap on me. I suppose it would be easy enough to backup all the -non-install- programs periodically to help protect against a HDD failure or something.

NixSaver looks like a very good solution for other software that must be installed though. justice, what do you mean by "Opera only" in that table?

Hirudin:
Here's a few programs I've noticed are not on the supported programs list that may be easy to create:

Directory Opus
KeePass
KMPlayer
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
Beyond Compare
InfraRecorder
Sumatra PDF
Screenshot Captor
*torrent*
AutoHotKey
Rhinoceros
CounterStrike (this has always worked even after a format, so the settings must be saved in the main program dir somewhere)
Raven Shield
(Bold signifies that it appears the settings are simply saved as a set of files)

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