How to Back-up mach3

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TrinityFabworks
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How to Back-up mach3

Post by TrinityFabworks »

I would like to back up mach3 on an external hard drive incase something happens to my cnc computer. It took me a very long time to get everything configured correctly, and I never want to have to do it again. Any ideas of how to back this up to an external drive?
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djreiswig
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Re: How to Back-up mach3

Post by djreiswig »

If you backup the xml file for the profile you are using and maybe the macros folder for that profile that should take care of the settings. You may also want the .set file for the screen set. You could probably just copy the whole Mach3 folder and then you would have everything.
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robertspark
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Re: How to Back-up mach3

Post by robertspark »

Just zip up the mach3 folder for what its worth space wise.

There are no registry entries or anything else outside of the Mach3 folder.

So if I were to restore, I'd reinstall Mach3, and then unzip my backup folder over the top of the installed Mach3 folder, that way all the desktop links and program shortcuts would be installed too.
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SeanP
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Re: How to Back-up mach3

Post by SeanP »

robertspark wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:27 am Just zip up the mach3 folder for what its worth space wise.

There are no registry entries or anything else outside of the Mach3 folder.
Sounds good to me, I tried restoring from a xml backup once and had trouble, copying over all of mach 3 contents worked for me.
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Re: How to Back-up mach3

Post by tcaudle »

The only thing you have to watch is the parallel port driver version if you use that. Its a device driver and has to match the MACH version. You can get in trouble by having your system running on an earlier version of MACH3 (installed using that installer ) and then tryin gto install with a later version . Things can get out of sync. If you want a 100% restorable system make sure the MACH3 insaller version you use to reload is the same version you were running with. Since it stopped at 3.043.066 about 3 to 4 years ago you can just update your current version if its earlier after you have copied the MACH3 folder off then once its on that version and running just back up the whole folder again and put it on a CD or memory stick WITH the MACHinstaller. You can't just load the MACH3 folder on a raw system and it works. You use the MACH3 installer first and get a generic install then replace the mach3 folder with your backup. Just the XML are not enough. That is just all of your settings but not the screen files, the macro directory or the plugin folder. There is also an XMLBackup folder that has your old XMlS in date order that is nice to have. The bitmaps folder if yoou have custom screens is also essential.
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