Pocket PC Thoughts: Saving Your Bacon with Spb Backup 1.0

Product Category: Software - Backup/Recovery
Manufacturer: Spb Software House
Where to Buy: Handango
Price: $19.95 USD A trial version, which expires after 5 runs, is available.
System Requirements: Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC 2003, Pocket PC 2003 SE, Windows Mobile 5. Works fine under VGA, although no specific mention of support.
Specifications: Requires 1.9Mb of memory (your results may vary – see article text). Highly recommended to install into device memory (not on external card).

Pros:

• Small program size;
  
• Full featured – selective backups and restores (with scheduling)
  
• Automatically produces compressed, self-extracting executables;
  
• Encryption of backups is available;
  
• Log files stored with backup executable;
  
• Windows Mobile 5 support

Cons:

• No ability to backup to/restore from desktop. (according to the press release this is available, but it wasn't seen on the build available - 1606)

Summary: The operating system and hardware manufacturers seem to be struggling to provide a reasonable backup/restore application for the Pocket PC. As examples, I give you Activesync from Microsoft, and Data Backup from Dell. The former recently removed its Backup/Restore functionality and the latter is very slow and unreliable. Thank goodness, third party developers, like Sprite Software and Sunnysoft, have willingly stepped into the void. Now, Spb Software House, known for quality utilities for the Pocket PC, is releasing Spb Backup – a full function backup program which produces self-executing restore modules.

Read On for the full review!