Simple File Backup

Beating hard disk or system failure nowadays translates into a simple operation called backing up your files. The procedure used to be pretty time consuming but competition on the market reduced the time to complete it, regardless of the types of files you "insure", and transformed the process into a completely hassle free activity.

The solutions on the market are pretty numerous in both shareware and freeware form, but most of the time you should expect results matching the price. With Backup Utility from AutoSysBot things are quite simple as the application is tailored to help you perform backups for any type of file you want with little effort and even less hassle.

Backup Utility has no price tag as it can be freely distributed among the users and to get it working should pose absolutely no problems regardless of users' skill level. There isn't much of an interface to talk about as you benefit from a single window divided into three main sections, covering the file/folder input, output location and the options that enable the transfer.

Given the aridity of options (as there is no setting to be made), working with it is nothing special as all you have to do is select the type of data to be backed up (either file or folder) and provide a destination folder. After all is set (you can add multiple files and folders to be processed during the same session), all there is left to do is start the operation with a click of BackUP button.

Backup procedure is nothing extraordinary as the software features no special conversion of the files, nor does it compress them to a particular format. Its actions consist in simply copying the files from one location to another.

Although a help file would not exactly bring forward new features and accessing the button in the top right hand corner of the application window can prove this, as it is non-functional for the time being. The same is available with About button which also causes no effect when pressed. But these are details that may be fixed in future versions of the software.

The options available in the application allow the user the backup of multiple files and folders at once and removing them. Backup Utility has absolutely no trouble copying files to different locations as each operation is taken care of sequentially. Unfortunately, any change of the source folder and running backup operation again would not cause any change in destination location. Having the software minimize to system tray and allowing you to update destination folders whenever source is modified would be a great improvement of the software.

Backup Utility makes for a good utility when it comes to copying multiple files to different locations on the disk, but nothing more. Despite the fact that the software is quite small, there are several issues to be addressed in later versions, such as making Bout and Help Menu work (or eliminate them altogether), adding Minimize, Maximize/Restore and Close buttons would also be a great thing, as it would eliminate the hassle of terminating the process every time you want to close the application.

But taking a look at the brightside, the application needs no installation on your computer and it is portable. Thus it will not clutter the Registry and you can take it anywhere on a portable device such as an USB key.

The Good

The software needs no installation as it launches directly from the downloaded executable. This feature enables it to be portable and carried around on a device with no strings attached.

Regardless of users' computer skills, using it should be absolutely no problem. It supports backing up to multiple locations on disk, for both single files as well as entire folders.

The Bad

There is no backup format available and the software will simply copy selected files from one location to another, not protecting the data in any way.

There are no options for differential and incremental jobs. Updating a destination folder from a modified source file is done without any alert of the user of eventual file overwrite.

Help and About buttons in the top right hand part of the application window are non-functional and the only way to close the program is terminating its process.

The Truth

BackUp Utility is nothing else but a means to copying different files and folders to different locations on your disk. It does not encrypt them in any way, nor does it apply some sort of security to protect them in case you're hit by some form of malware.

Despite its simplicity and small size, the application could use some brushing up here and there as some elements included in the interface are non-functional.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: