Backup, backup, backup! And not just your user created data, but your program installation files and disks.

I have found there are very few programs that have to be installed from hard media (CD or DVD); so I have copied all my applications, updates, upgrades, add-ons, etc, to an external USB hard drive, categorized by type of application, with each application in its own folder. I include any license codes in the folder name, so it's easy to copy/paste when asked for them. I create text files with notes about the application, and I have an index spreadsheet that lists everything, including web links to the application. For applications that want to be installed from media, I just create an ISO image and then use a virtual CD utility to mount the image as if I had the original disk.

I synchronize this USB disk drive to another every so often to keep things up to date and to have a complete backup. So far it's worked very well for me, and it makes re-installs go much quicker.

But it takes time and diligence to do that; once done, however, maintenance is pretty simple.

And of course, I backup my own data to a different external hard drive. In general, if I crash, I might lose at most a little bit of recent email.

John

Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD
Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA

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