Author Topic: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?  (Read 10180 times)

David Graser

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Is it possible to back up and restore a desktop to a new version of ArcaOS?  When I buy the next greatest, latest, and best version of ArcaOS, wiill it be possible to back up and restore my previous version desktop to the new version?

David

Dave Yeo

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2018, 08:19:50 am »
It is unsupported, to quote from the latest beta,
Quote
1. There is no current way to apply some of these changes to an installed system. 5.0.1.6 is a standalone full install.

Never the less there are scripts and programs out there that will attempt to back up your OS/2 desktop and restore it to a new install. Config.sys and %HOME% would also need to be backed up and restored/merged and there may be other stuff. You are free to experiment.
Currently the latest is just an incremental update, but eventually there may be a large update with enough changes that this will not work.

There is also the option of just using Warpin and ANPM to update the parts that have changed, either from the ISO or your subscription. As many of the changes are to the installer and don't matter once installed, this should work.

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2018, 01:42:44 pm »
Is it possible to back up and restore a desktop to a new version of ArcaOS?
No. eCS offers some kind of migration, but restores not much. It has never worked that well, that you want to prefer that method over the normal re-install.

As Dave wrote, if you have scripts or installers for your additions, you should be able to restore them easily.

Details: Settings are stored in the OS2.INI and some in file object EAs. OS2.INI entries rely on object handles. Object handles are saved in OS2SYS.INI. These handles change with each installation. The EAs are saved in the file system, but a new installation won't respect these old EAs. It simply overwrites file objects on the installation partition. (EAs from objects of other partitions won't be changed.)

To restore ini settings, you have to extract object settings without the dependency on object handles, but e.g. on object ids or file names. For file objects, you have to extract the relevant EAs before they get overwritten. In your case, I guess, these are .ICON and (for folder objects) .ICON1.

Object settings: You could try WPSBKP.EXE and WPSREST.EXE by Henk Kelder. These belong to the WPTools package (WPTOOL32 on Hobbes). Note that only some object settings were restored and that the .CLASSPATH EA is undocumented.

WPS settings: They were saved to OS2.INI and will be overwritten by a new installation. E.g. you can extract XWP's settings from the old installation and restore it to the new one. But the script for it has to be created by yourself.

Object Desktop's object save and restore facility works well with objects, but can't know about all WPS additions how they save their settings in OS2.INI.

Additionally, there are applications that save their settings in OS2.INI or save their own .INI file in the \OS2 directory. (Unfortunately that happens even for non-system applications and can't be fixed in some case, because apps were abandoned.) These settings also have to be extracted in advance.

Applications, which make it right, store their .INI file in their application tree. These reside usually on another than the installation partition and won't get lost. Only the WPS objects get lost, but e.g. in the case of AOO, there exists a script to restore these objects.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 01:47:01 pm by Andreas Schnellbacher »

Pete

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2018, 05:40:29 pm »
Hi

There are some tools such as WPS2Rexx - http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/wps/wps2rexx.zip - which attempt to create rexx scripts of your current Desktop. These scripts can then be modified to only install the needed bits of previous Desktop to current Desktop.


Regards

Pete


ivan

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2018, 06:07:41 pm »
There is also ROBOSAVE an IBM employee written software to backup and restore the desktop. 

We used to use it for cloning an OS/2 computer before DFSee made it easy with images.  I assume it would still work to keep a desktop layout assuming everything is boot on the boot drive (a stupid idea foisted on the world by microsoft because of how windows does things).  All I can say is we never had problems since programs, utilities and tools were always on a non boot partition.

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2018, 04:42:23 pm »
There is also ROBOSAVE an IBM employee written software to backup and restore the desktop.

We used to use it for cloning an OS/2 computer before DFSee made it easy with images.
I doubt that it can be used to restore special settings. After the installation of a new ArcaOS version, one doesn't want to lose anything that was changed between the two OS version. Even cloning won't help.

ivan

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2018, 08:50:55 pm »
Andreas,

I think a lot depends on the definition of 'restoring the desktop'.

As an example:
I have a folder that contains over 50 java programs.  A new install of ArcaOS creates a new desktop but I want that folder with all the java programs restored to the desktop - the java programs are in the java-programs directory that is in a non bootable partition and is thus untouched be the new install.  Is that supposed to be done by dragging a programs template to the desktop, filling in the details and adding the icon for all 50+ programs?  Then what about the QT4 programs folder (25 programs) and the utilities and so on?

I am not concerned with the 'Computer', 'Help Center', 'Network' and 'Printers' folders except for the stupid layout and maintain sort order that they have.  It is the folders that I have created that I need restored to the way I had them.  Anything that does that, even to a limited extent, gets my vote.


Maybe one of our rexx wizards could write something that would do that folder by folder.
 

Pete

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2018, 09:39:36 pm »
Hi ivan

That is the joy of wps2rexx which creates rexx scripts which can be edited to remove all the unnecessary items.

The only problem is that wps2rexx can fail to complete.

It would be better if wps2rexx worked fully - and even better if instead of creating scripts of the full Desktop it was possible to select only the items that you want to copy to a new installation.

If any "rexx wizards" are reading this maybe they could take a look at how wps2rexx works to see how to improve it and fix problems.


Regards

Pete

Greggory Shaw

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2018, 10:02:31 pm »
...

As an example:
I have a folder that contains over 50 java programs.  A new install of ArcaOS creates a new desktop but I want that folder with all the java programs restored to the desktop - the java programs are in the java-programs directory that is in a non bootable partition and is thus untouched be the new install....


Object Desktop 2.0 will back & restore individual folders to a different desktop ! The option to backup and restore the entire desktop no longer works though on eCS.

Alex Taylor posted a program that does what you are looking for I believe (search on here).

Greggory

Pete2

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2018, 04:21:18 pm »
I've found WPSdump ( http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/wps/wpsdump-0.1.zip ) quite useful. It can save and restore  a single folder as well as the whole desktop, and has the option to skip replacement of objects which already exist on the new desktop.

Pete

ivan

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2018, 04:25:28 pm »
Hi Pete2

From what you say it might be interesting if I could only get it to do something.

From what I see it needs two parameters a source and a target directory and the documentation says nothing about them.

What is the source?
The target directory, I assume can be on another drive or maybe even another computer. Is this correct?



Pete

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2018, 07:22:19 pm »
Hi ivan

You are including the drive letter in source eg c:\desktop - I found it does sweet fa without a source drive letter involved. The target can definitely be another drive but do not know it it accepts network drives.

My most succesful attempt at using wpsdump generates a backup.log with lots of entries like this:-

QueryObject failed for: #240F2

Guess I'll have to try and identify what objects wpsdump is having problems with.


Regards

Pete



Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: Can desktop be backed up and restored to a new version of ArcaOS?
« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2018, 09:20:26 pm »
Pete, WPSDump by Yuri uses WPTOOLS.DLL by Henk Kelder. From my experiments with WPTOOLS.DLL I remember that it won't return the setup string for an XCenter object. (The lib has to be extended to handle XCenter objects.) Additionally, the WpLaunchPad object apparently has to be restored in multiple passes, first the main bar, then the DRAWEROBJECTS keys. But that all won't create error messages.

I read the readme file and had a short look at the REXX file 2 days ago. I remember that Yuri wrote it has problems with some shadow objects and with a few others. I had the idea that it depends on the order how objects were recreated.

Note: For saving XCenter objects, the setup string (as showed on XWP's icon page) has to be copied to a text file. It can be restored with an XWP setup object. Another option is to create a template from an existing object.

Pete2, thanks for the pointer to WPSDump. I didn't knew it before.

BTW: I have my own REXX script that uses WPTOOLS.DLL, lets one decide which objects of a folder should be saved, optionally recursive and also file objects. It creates one restore script per object. It is from 2000, so one can guess which quality the script has and that's the reason why I never released it. I had used it a lot in the 2000-ies.

This is all about the restore of object settings. It won't handle application and other WPS settings saved to OS2.INI.