You should always make a backup first. Just saying!

For the cost of extra external USB drives, you could save a lot of aggravation, time, and potential additional expense when something goes horribly wrong with your computer and/or its peripherals.

I've got an external USB with every piece of software I own on it. For those that let me, I just copy the files from the original to a folder on the USB. For others, I create an ISO image of the CD or DVD, which I can then mount as a virtual CD/DVD and install the software. It also makes re-installation a lot faster, in that you don't have to change CD's during installation; you just have to change to a new folder.

Obviously, I have to keep a physical copy of my operating system and a few key applications, but even then, I have those ISO'd so that I can easily re-create them if something happens to the original media.

Oh, and then I've got another external USB that I keep synchronized with the first. Call me anal, but in the final anal-ysis, I'd rather be safe than sorry. And once copied to the USB drive, it's there and I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Also, anytime there is an update to a program, I download the update to the external USB under the same folder structure as the application. I also keep all my usernames and license codes as part of the folder names, so entering license codes is just a matter of copying and pasting - no more trying to type 50 character cryptic codes.

That makes rebuilding my computer systems a breeze, especially since I also have backup hard drive images (using Acronis True Image Home) from various stages of installation.

John

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

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