jamesforsyth wrote:

Hi all,

Right now I'm using the Microsoft/VERITAS backup utility to periodically backup my substituted keywords.  I'm replacing Heisig's keywords with those from Halpern's Kanji Learner's Dictionary and don't want to lose them.

I'm pre-empting disaster on my computer... My question is: If Firefox somehow becomes corrupted and I need to restore prefs.js, will it just be a question of copying the file across to the %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles directory?  I just want to be 100% sure I never lose my substituted keywords. (thx to those who have already posted on http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=2944)

Am I right in hoping that all I need to know is here:

http://www.spyany.com/program/article_t … ofile.html
(whoops - see http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/spyany.com/downloads/)

Actually, I don't really trust the Microsoft/VERITAS backup utility that I'm using for this backup as it's slightly counter-intuitive.  I go into it and select the prefs.js.bkf file for updating/rebackingup... but I get the feeling now that I'm backing up the backup.

Thanks,

James Forsyth

Need more information.

Where are you backing up to?  If you are not backing up to something that is offline most of the time, or at the very, very least to a separate physical disk, you are an accident waiting to happen.  This is particularly true if you are backing up to some folder on the same physical drive.  That is only very slightly better than not backing up at all.  The drive is a mechanical device, and it will fail.  These days, they last a heck of a long time, but they eventually fail -- all of them.

Disk imaging programs are cheap, and so are physical drives.  I would recommend an external USB for backups, preferably a couple of them.  Keep them offline and unplugged when you are not using them.

You said you want to be "100% sure".  This is about the only way you can do that.  Even then, there are scenarios where you could still lose your data, but some of the scenarios involve situations where your data would rank pretty low on your worry scale.  (You would have more important things, like the lives of your loved ones, or your house, to worry about.)

If the file gets corrupted or irretrievably (always check your recycle bin) deleted, then simply replacing it with the backup should be sufficient. If you need to restore Firefox altogether or want to port it to a different machine, it's advisable to at least do a diff between the backup file and the file you're going to replace or better still merge the two files, because some settings might differ and if replaced may e.g. make Firefox refuse to start up. This happens for example if Firefox was installed in a different language. The minimal you would need to copy when doing a manual merge is the line with the substituted keywords, as explained in the other thread you mentioned.