[SOLVED] Automatically back up a single file every time it is changed

[horstp]

Hey everybody!

So, I guess this request is a little out there, but hear me out. I am playing this game on Ironman difficulty, I know where the savegame is located. The game is fairly unstable, so the chance of savegame corruption is reasonably high. Now, I was wondering: Is there a programm that I could use to monitor the savegame file and set it to make a copy of this file every time this file is changed by the game, i.e. every time the games does an autosave?

This would be awesome!

 

[rgd1101]

sound more like a cheat
what game it is

 

[horstp]

A bunch of them, actually. NEO Scavenger is definitely the worst offender for me right now. But obviously if there was such a solution it would work for other games, too.

And sure, you could use this to save scum. But you can already do this manually. I just want to remove the tedium of having to alt-tab out of the game and backing up the save file manually.

Plus, what do you care if it's a cheat?

 

[USAFRet]

If it saves every time there is a change, when it gets corrupted, that will be what it saves/copies/mirrors.

 

[horstp]

If it saves every time there is a change, when it gets corrupted, that will be what it saves/copies/mirrors.

Yes. I want every backup to be retained until manually deleted, so I can browse each and every past savegame until I manually delete the older ones.

 

[horstp]

So, to be clear: I want the programme to save a copy of the file in question every time the file changes and retain each of those copies. Ideally it would put those copy into a folder named after the date and time of the backup. I know ,this would produce a tonne of files, but i'm not worried about that.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes. I want every backup to be retained until manually deleted, so I can browse each and every past savegame until I manually delete the older ones.

OK, a never ending history.
That was not stated.

You could use FreeFileSync, and schedule a batch file to do this every 5 minutes.
https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=schedule-batch-jobs

Copy, and then rename the file to HH:MM so it doesn't get written over with the next one.

This will involve a teeny bit of coding.

 

[horstp]

Coding as in changing settins in a plain text config file or as in knowing a programming language?

 

[USAFRet]

Coding as in changing settins in a plain text config file or as in knowing a programming language?

As in batch file.

 

[horstp]

I'll see if I can figure it out. Thank you!

 

[horstp]

Hmm, looks like this is a little above my pay grade.

 

[USAFRet]

Plus, what do you care if it's a cheat?

And yes, we DO care about cheats.

 

[horstp]

And yes, we DO care about cheats.

Why? I mean, sure, in MMO I get that it's an issue. But in single player games? I don't think Iron Man is a thing in multi player, is it?


Anyways, I think I found a way easier solution: Windows 10 has a process called "File history" which lets you run automatic backups of specific folders. The minimum is every 10 minutes, but that's good enough. With every change would have been nicer, I guess.

 

[USAFRet]

Why? I mean, sure, in MMO I get that it's an issue. But in single player games? I don't think Iron Man is a thing in multi player, is it?

Forum policy does not allow assistance with "cheats".
As Moderators, we are bound to uphold/enforce that policy.

You situation probably does not rise to that level, but that's what it is.

 

[horstp]

Forum policy does not allow assistance with "cheats".
As Moderators, we are bound to uphold/enforce that policy.

You situation probably does not rise to that level, but that's what it is.

Oh, I see. That's fair enough. And no, I don't think it does, as it doesn't offer any possibilities that wouldn't exist anyways, it only makes it more convenient.

Are you familiar with File History? Does this do what I want it to?

 

[USAFRet]

No, not really familiar with File History.

Try it and see what happens.

 

[horstp]

So, a first assessment... File History seems to do exactly what I wanted. It creates a new backup every 10 min, but only if the file has actually been changed. Perfect!

 

[GrandSACHI]

File History is great and can be a life savior sometime, especially if you work with a lot of documents that are often change. IIRC, by default, File History will back up files in your Documents, Desktop, Downloads and a few other folders every hours and keep all versions from the past as long as you have enough space in your back up disk. Any saved versions of a files can then be recovered with pretty much just a right-click. In the case of saved game, I am not completely sure, but you might have to point the proper folder to File History so it can start to back up it too.

However, Keep in mind that for File History to work, the back-up must be saved on a different drive than any drive that hold the files your are backing up (which makes a lot of sense when you think about it).

 

[horstp]

File History is great and can be a life savior sometime, especially if you work with a lot of documents that are often change. IIRC, by default, File History will back up files in your Documents, Desktop, Downloads and a few other folders every hours and keep all versions from the past as long as you have enough space in your back up disk. Any saved versions of a files can then be recovered with pretty much just a right-click. In the case of saved game, I am not completely sure, but you might have to point the proper folder to File History so it can start to back up it too.

However, Keep in mind that for File History to work, the back-up must be saved on a different drive than any drive that hold the files your are backing up (which makes a lot of sense when you think about it).

Everything you say is correct, but you can customise most of it, i.e. you can remove all those other folders from, I have done so, now only the specific save game folder is being backed up. You can also customise the interval how often the backups get saves, minimum is 10 minutes, maximum is 3 hours, I think. And you can customise retention. You can choose from permanently, until disk is full and time spans between 6 months and 3 years, I think.

 

[GrandSACHI]

Yup!

I would add that although setting FH may seem a bit complicated for something you won't use 99.99999% of the time, the 1 or 2 times a year you need it, you're so glad you set it up. I know I am!