Database Backups and Windows Vista

Posted on April 27, 2008

An issue has been found when doing a database backup using windows Vista in safe mode.

If you try to do a database backup to a location which Windows Vista considers to be an unsafe location, and there is already a previous backup file there, the backup would fail without giving any errors.  Because there was no error reported, it would appear as if the backup had worked successfully.  The problem appears to be Windows Vista not allowing the program to overwrite that previous backed up file.  An example of an unsafe location could be the c:\ location.  Windows Vista does not like people writing files to that location.

In the next version of RentMaster, we will see if another backup file exists in the location before backing up there.  We will then try to delete that file.  If the location is an unsafe location, the attempted delete will fail, and we will report an error to you asking you to backup somewhere else.

If you backup to an external flash drive etc, windows Vista will probably deem that to be a safe location, and your backups will be fine.  A good way to check this is to do a backup, and then take a look at the date and time of the backup file and check it is the current date and time.  If it is, then that is a fresh backup and should be fine.

Another option is to always run RentMaster as an administrator.  To do this right-click the RentMaster icon you use to start the program and choose Properties, and under the Compatibility tab choose the 'Run this program as an administrator' option.

Windows XP and previous versions of Windows does not have this problem.