OOTPSAVE Utility - Backup Restore Save

[minnelli]

OOTPSAVE Utility



This batch job will save/update your league file. It only updates files that have changed since the last save. The best time to use it is after you save your game file. This will allow you to always go back and grab a good copy. I created this because of the save corruptions I kept encountered. Since this synchronizes the files, it will always capture new files and purge files that have been deleted by OOTP.

Required – WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/) – Install in default location.

Process:
Step 1 – Open up Windows Explorer to you saved games directory (i.e. c:\program files\ootp baseball 2006\data\saved_games\test123.lg)
Step 2 – Right click folder to create a new text document (right click – new – text document) File named New Text Document.txt will be created
Step 3 – Open the new document (New Text Document.txt) and Paste the following in the file

"c:\program files\winrar\rar" u -as -m1 -r -x*.rar OOTPSAVE.rar
pause

Step 4 – Save as OOTPSAVE.bat
Step 5 – Within Windows Explorer double click OOTPSAVE.bat

The first time this is run on a league it will take a few minutes, but have no fear, subsequent backups/updates will work a lot faster.

Code breakdown:
Rar – is the command line executable for winrar
u is the update switch
-as synchronizes the files
-r allows it to capture all the sub folders
-m1 makes it go faster than other compression formats
-x*.rar stops it from including other rar files in the folder
OOTPSAVE.rar can be anyname you want with a .rar
Pause shows you that it completed – if you remove it the window will disappear when the update is complete.

I’m sure a lot of folks can probably improve this, but I wanted to get something out that was working for me. Post any complaints here…I am not responsible for accidentally rar’ing up your whole drive and screwing something up…Give it a test and let us know what you think.

I look forward to your tweaks…

Kevin Minnelli

..................
Updated on June 26, 2006

[Raidergoo]

If you got an itch, scratch?

[Eric]

Uh, sounds good. How about a link to the program itself.

[Exodor]

Originally Posted by Eric

Uh, sounds good. How about a link to the program itself.

He did - you create a batch file in notepad that uses winrar to create a .RAR file containing your leagues.

The next time you run the batch file, it updates that .RAR with any files that have changed.

Simple and effective.

[fantom1979]

Just ran it myself. Works great. thanks

I think I am going to attach this to a windows scheduler to make it run daily or weekly.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Exodor

He did - you create a batch file in notepad that uses winrar to create a .RAR file containing your leagues.

The next time you run the batch file, it updates that .RAR with any files that have changed.

Simple and effective.

My bad. Didn't read the instructionst that closely. He's using one of the features of RAR.

[minnelli]

My next step is going to have it exclude .rar files, but I haven't had time to look up the switch. My intention is you can always make a copy of the latest ootpsave.rar at the end of a season, rename it and keep it in the same folder (i.e. mlb-01-01-2009.rar)

Glad it has been a help for a couple of you.

Kevin

[minnelli]

Okay - real quick. I need to get to bed.

path=c:\program files\winrar
rar u -as -m1 -r -x*.rar OOTPSAVE.rar
pause

The -m1 makes it faster!!! but the file is a little bigger.
-x*rar will exclude .rar files so you can make copies every once in a while and save them in the same folder.

Later,
Minnelli

[cibl commish]

Nice utility.

[Cooker]

Speaking as a computer ignoramus: Is this something easy enough that Markus can just put in the game itself? I have no idea what rar is (I told you I'm an ignoramus), but it sounds like something that SI could simply put into the next patch. I hope so (speaking on behalf of all the rest of us computer illiterates.)

[Giants44]

Originally Posted by Cooker

Speaking as a computer ignoramus: Is this something easy enough that Markus can just put in the game itself? I have no idea what rar is (I told you I'm an ignoramus), but it sounds like something that SI could simply put into the next patch. I hope so (speaking on behalf of all the rest of us computer illiterates.)

unlikely, I am fairly certain RAR terms of service don't allow it to be incorporated into other software.

BTW, if you know what winzip is then you know what RAR is - another product that compresses and uncompresses files.

I do hope that Markus does bring back backup and restore or even better the option to "save as"

[minnelli]

Small improvement - all on one line; no path needed

"c:\program files\winrar\rar" u -as -m1 -r -x*.rar OOTPSAVE.rar
pause

I am also looking to see how this can be done with WinZip, but the wzzip command line tool needs to have a purchased version to work without any prompts.

As for SI, I'm sure they could incorporate something simple like this. I will continue to look for faster ways to do the update. It's all those little 1k history files that take the longest time. I think there is a way to not compress the small files, but I'm still researching this.

Let me know if you run into any problems.

Minnelli

[minnelli]

Okay here are some updates, I have some metrics but they are not compiled yet. WinRAR seems to be very quick with no nags. Try it out for yourself. Again, if anyone has any ideas of something better to try let us know.

WinRAR

"c:\program files\winrar\rar" u -as -m1 -r -x*.rar –x*.zip OOTPSAVE.rar
pause

WinZip – you need the wzzip command line utility added

"c:\program files\winzip\wzzip" -es -u -p -r -x*.rar -x*.zip OOTPSAVE.zip *.*
pause

RoboCopy – free from Microsoft in a Windows Resource Kit

"C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\robocopy" /s /purge c:\ootp baseball 2006\data\saved_games\league1.lg c:\tempootp-league1

[fantom1979]

Free bump for you Minnelli, this is a very important utility and I thank you for sharing your wisdom with the group

[biggamejrs]

what he said

[minnelli]

Upon further analysis, I have noticed that WinZip takes forever while the game is still active so WinRAR is doing the job much much better. I usually play for a while, save the game, click on my shortcut to WinRAR the league and then keep playing. Currently it is taking about 30 seconds or so to rar it up. I haven’t done any more testing with RoboCopy but it did work. My main goal has been to create a process which is fast while the game is still active, so the winner to date is, as mentioned before, WinRAR.

Also other notes about performance – Select the OOTP Baseball 2006 folder from Windows Explorer and right click the properties, once you do that select the Advanced button, then uncheck “For fast searching, allow Indexing Service to index this folder”. This has helped my backups go from 2:00 minutes to about 30 seconds. The reasons as I understand it are Windows doesn’t really need to Index our 20000 players and 15000 messages. In fact my hard drive seems much quieter and not working as hard since I made this change.

Hope this new Indexing tip helps out as well.

Kevin Minnelli

[aewin]

Any chance of this utility working with a free command/program, eg XCOPY?

[mgsports79]

What this game needs is a option for Save As so if you are trying to do a league like lets say a MLB one with different teams form different years you want to have a copy where you do the changes and one that does the test run of the league because that one allways gets saved have a backup one you would loose all your changes and have start over again! Better yet in test run of your league don't have Auto Save on and ahve a option if you load a Saved Leagiue or exist the game not for it to save beacuse you might not want to save the league!

[minnelli]

I started out trying move and than xcopy but that was before I found you could synchronize with the other utilities. The sync feature is what makes it go fast because it only needs to copy the necessary files. I believe xcopy has this function, just do a few googles and I'm sure you can find the correct switches. With winrar and others the beta version will work and I believe you don't need to register. Winzip would stop the bat file once it opened prompting you to hit any key. I would just go download the latest beta of winrar and give it a shot. Trust me this has saved me like 5 times in my solo league and it only takes about 3 minutes to recover the whole league.

Kevin Minnelli

[aewin]

Originally Posted by minnelli

I started out trying move and than xcopy but that was before I found you could synchronize with the other utilities. The sync feature is what makes it go fast because it only needs to copy the necessary files. I believe xcopy has this function, just do a few googles and I'm sure you can find the correct switches. With winrar and others the beta version will work and I believe you don't need to register. Winzip would stop the bat file once it opened prompting you to hit any key. I would just go download the latest beta of winrar and give it a shot. Trust me this has saved me like 5 times in my solo league and it only takes about 3 minutes to recover the whole league.

Kevin Minnelli

WinRAR: "evaluation copy please register"

I wouldn't have a clue what to do, but if anyone wants to have a go at writing a script for XCOPY, I found this:

http://www.ss64.com/nt/xcopy.html

There is also a freeware version of XXCOPY:

http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm