Backup the important stuff before installing Windows

This is too important for us to backup our configurations and files from C Drive before re-installing Windows. It really looks so easy to just copy your documents and start installing Windows. Well if we think it is that easy we are wrong! Here is the list of items we should backup. This post should be too helpful for developers specially. If you are not a developer you can simply ignore what you don't understand.

Backup Root
Create a folder E(or D):\Windows backups\yyyy-mm-dd-Windows version

This is backup root

Example of my backup root:

E:\Windows backups\2013-06-15-windows 7-toshiba-pc\

Copy data from following locations from all users

-Desktop

-Pictures

-Documents

-Downloads

-Videos

-Music

Credentials

Go to this location

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Credential Manager
Click Backup Vault
Follow the instructions to create a file such as Backup root\Credentials.crd

Create db backups
I opened all instances of SQL Server and created .bak file one by one. For every single DB. I did know that some databases were useless still I created .bak for them. This was safer way.
examples:

1. SqlExpress
2. Sql 2008
3. Sql 2012
   
   

Export Visual studio settings like this

vs2012\Exported-2013-06-15.vssettings

IIS Websites
I ran this command you can modify according to your needs
C:\Windows\System32>%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe add backup "IIS-7-2013-06-15-Toshiba-Notebook"
I copied the folder to my backup root
C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\backup\IIS-7-2013-06-15-Toshiba-Notebook

After installing clean windows, I will have to paste the backup folder to same location in C directory and then run this command:
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe restore backup "IIS-7-2013-06-15-Toshiba-Notebook"

Flash Fxp backup by right clicking on FlashFxpSites from F4 popup window(Site manager)

save here

\FlashFxp\sites.ftp

Create Misc Folder

backup [hosts] file from here:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

And asp.net config files from two locations

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config
(If you use Version 2 then take backups from version 2 too)
Files to backup are web.config and machine.config

Create fonts folder and backup fonts

Environment variables to

\Environment variables\vars.txt

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System\Environment Variables

Examples:
PATH
ANDROID

Take screenshot of Favorite Folders and save on Fav\fav.png

such as

For remote desktop i use Multidesk free software. i save this here

E:\tools\multidesk_2_4_4\MultiDesk\MultiDesk64.exe

so no need to backup its connections.
If you use default Remote Desktop tool then open that and expand from Options button. Click [Save As...] And save .rdp file for every connection.

Better to take a look at your Recycle Bin and delete items you don’t want one by one, so that you don’t accidently delete data which you might need to recover.

Skype backup

Copy this folder to backup root

C:\Users\[your user]\AppData\Roaming\Skype

FireFox Profile
I copied this folder to backup root
C:\Users\[your user]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
See here for how to restore this folder on new windows
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles#w_backing-up-your-profile

Other things to consider if you keep them on C drive

• PHP folder
• Mongo DB folder
• Inetpub folder

Finally my folder looks like this:

Do You think this was too simple? :D