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How to Easily Backup Personal Files on Microsoft Windows XP

Have you been searching for a simple program to use in Microsoft Windows XP to backup your files? Have you downloaded several demos of CD burning utilities, only to find that none of them suit your needs?

A simple backup solution for your personal files.

Microsoft Windows XP has some very nice and simple CD writing utilities built directly into the Explorer windows. If you have a CD writer installed in your computer system, then backing up your personal files, such as word processing documents, and images taken with your digital camera, is not only incredibly easy, but also takes both little time and effort.

The easiest backup procedure for your personal files begins with a blank CD, and takes five minutes of your time.

To begin while in Windows XP, you will of course need to place a blank CD-R disc in your CD writer's drive. A few seconds later, you will be presented with a small dialog box giving you several options of what you wish to do with the blank disc.

Select the first option, "Open a writeable CD folder" and presto. You now should have a window on your desktop that is waiting to be filled with backup copies of all of your important personal files.

To make a backup of any file, simply open another Explorer window in the location of the specific file(s). An example of one such location would be; C:/Backup/Pictures/.

Once you have both folders open (the blank CD folder, and the folder containing your files) simply drag the files you wish to make a backup copy from its original folder to the blank CD folder. Now your system will reserve space on the CD for the specific file, and make a copy of the file to a temporary folder, thus leaving the original file intact and completely unchanged.

The great thing about the drag and drop interface is the fact that you can drag one, two, or hundreds of files and drop them into the CD folder at anytime. This is perfect if you have a great amount of files that you wish to make backup copies of.

Once you have completed selecting the files you wish to backup, you may want to take a few minutes and organize the CD folder's files in folders, or even rename some files. These actions can easily be completed within the CD folder's window in the same manner as they would be completed in any other Explorer folder.

The last steps are to place the files you plan to backup on the actual CD, and giving you a archive copy of your files.

Because, as of right now, your files are still in a temporary folder waiting to be written to the disc. To make sure that the CD is written correctly, it is advised that you close any other running programs on your system.

Now, you are ready to finally make a hard backup of your files. In the left hand side of the CD folder, you will find the text 'Write these files to CD', followed by 'Delete temporary files'. If you wish to begin the CD writing adventure, click the first. If you have decided that you abandon your backup project, simply click on the 'Delete temporary files' and the space on your hard drive used for the temporary files will be freed. Follow the on screen instructions in the CD Writing Wizard window, and in minutes you will have a backup copy of your personal files.

Now that you have seen how easy it is to make backup copies of your personal files, you have no excuse not to make monthly backups of your personal files. One last thing to keep in mind, however is that this method is to make backup copies of your personal files. This method should not be used to backup your system files such as Windows.

James Fohl is a contributor at Free-backup.info -- the home of the best online backup tool -- Back2zip. This article can be found at http://free-backup.info/how-to-easily-backup-personal-files-on-microsoft-windows-xp.html