Offsite Data Backup » Installing ODB Basic on Windows

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December 9th, 2009

Installing ODB Basic on your Windows PC or Server is a snap whether you run Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista or the new Windows 7.

First, download the latest version of ODB Basic. You can always grab the latest from HERE.

Next, all the instructions for installing ODB Basic on your Windows-based machine are fairly straightforward, you can read more about it, after the jump, below.

Save the downloaded file to somewhere you’ll remember on your computer (like the My Documents or Downloads folder.)

In order to proceed with the installation, you’ll have to review and accept our software license agreement.

You can then choose the location to install the software. We recommend that you have at least 150mb of space free for the installation of the software.

Backing up files does require disk space and you will need some free space on your system in order to create backup sets, etc.

You can choose who will have access to the program shortcut, yourself or anyone who uses this computer.

Note, this does prevent other users on the computer system from launching the program via the computer’s filesystem. Consult our support group if you have any special security needs relating to our product.

Once you have completed the above step, you can review your settings and proceed to the actual install where files are written to your hard drive.

After the setup has completed (this process may take a few minutes), you will be given the option to launch the backup software. We strongly recommend that you configure your backups right away.

The software splash screen will appear and it will connect to our primary backup server.

At this point, you can run through our trial registration. If you have been an ODB Basic customer for some time, you may have received an alternate backup server to connect to and a username / password to use. You can enter the alternate backup server to use at this point then click next.

If you’re a new user, enter in the login name, password and email address (you’ll receive your backup reports to this address) into the provided fields.

If you’re already registered on the server, click the ‘Already a user?’ link.

At this point (for registered users) you can enter in your username and password.

Next, you’ll be presented with backup selections – what files you may want to back up. If you have Outlook and/or Outlook Express installed on your computer, these selections will be available to you.

If you don’t see a folder you want to back up, click the Advanced button to select it manually.

After selecting what files you want to back up, you can choose your scheduling options – what day you’d like to run the backup, what time you’d like to start the backup, and how long you’d like to run the backup for.

By default, your backups are encrypted before being placed on our servers. Initially, your password is your default encrypting key. You can choose to leave this the same, specify a different encrypting key or not use encryption at all.

If you are using the default encryption key, it is very important to remember/save your initial password. If you change your password, the encrypting key DOES NOT change. Also, if you lose this key, it will be impossible to restore files.

PLEASE SAVE YOUR INITIAL PASSWORD AND ENCRYPTING KEY. You will need this if you ever need to restore data.

Once the initial setup options are complete, you will see the main ODB Basic program screen. This is the interface you will work with from now on.

To launch your very first backup, click on the Backup button on the top left of the program user interface.

If your backup is exceptionally large, you may want to skip this step and run the backup in the background – this way you can log off the machine and conduct other business while the backup completes.

The server will calculate how much space is needed on the server before it starts uploading. If you’re out of space on our servers, contact our support department and we’ll increase your quota immediately.

ODB Basic clients are initially allocated 15GB of disk space on our servers but can be changed as needed.

Your initial backup may take some time, dependant on your network speed. Our ODB Advanced and ODB Deluxe customers have the option of sending us seed data to place on the server, if your backup is extremely large.

Once your initial backup completes, you will can either close the dialog or view the log. This dialog only comes up if you have launched the backup from the user interface. Backups that are scheduled and/or run in the background will not show you this option.

In all cases, you will receive a backup report when the report scheduler runs (on the hour.)

Reports are available both through the backup software user interface and are emailed to you in ZIP format after the backup completes.

Congratulations, you’re done. Once you choose to quit ODB Basic’s user interface, you’ll be asked if you want to save your backup settings to the backup server.

As the backup server dictates what files are backed up at the start of each backup, we highly recommend this.

For those seeking to run the backup software in the background, hover your mouse over the ODB symbol in the tray on the bottom right of your screen.

You can right click on this icon and choose what type of backup you want to run in the background.

Good luck! If you have any questions, feel free to post them here or ask our Technical Support group.