Backup under Vista, Windows 7
(If you are using Windows XP, look for the section below on XP backup/restore).It is possible to backup (and restore) under Vista and Windows 7 but the 2.x version of Emily currently on-release cannot do this from inside the Emily program. For the time being, the easiest way is simply to copy the database file itself. This lives inside the Emily folder on your harddrive.
The easiest way of making a backup is simply thus;
1) Shut-down Emily if it is running
2) In Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder C:\EMILY\DATA\
3) Copy the file EMILY.INTERBASE to another location (your USB key, another computer on the network etc). Be careful not to delete or move the file - just COPY it!
4) That's it - the file you copied is the Emily database.
To restore the database, assuming you used the process above to make the backup;
1) Shut-down Emily if it is running
2) In Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder C:\EMILY\DATA\
3) Highlight the file EMILY.INTERBASE and rename it to EMILY.INTERBASE.PREVIOUS (right-click and choose 'rename', or press F2)
4) Copy your 'backed-up' EMILY.INTERBASE from your backup location (USB key or whatever) into the folder.
5) You can now restart Emily, the program will 'revert' to the information that was held in the backup.
Emily very slow to initially start-up (XP, Vista)
ImageCFG.exe (53KB)
This program is used to force Windows to run the Interbase server (the Emily database engine) on a particular processor. This applies to multi-processor machines as well as single-processor, multi-core machines and even HyperThreading systems.
To use, simply download this file to your machine and put it in the C:\PROGRAM FILES\INTERBASE\BIN folder. Make sure that Emily isn't running, and at a command prompt, type
net stop "interbase server" (return)
imagecfg -a 0x1 ibserver.exe (return)
net start "interbase server" (return)
This should help Emily to 'load' faster in future.
Backup, Restore and copying data with Emily (XP only)
Emily includes a very simple backup-and-restore facility which can be used to make copies of the database. If you have 2 installations of Emily (say one in the office and one at home), it's possible to use this process to copy the data from one place to another - see the section at the bottom of this page. Do note however that if you restore data into a copy of Emily then any data that was previously in that Emily will be lost.The backup/restore sequence causes Emily to reorganise all of the customer, loan and repayment records into the most efficient order for reporting and finding information. You might want to do this on the (same) computer every 3-6 months or so, just to help keep Emily working at it's best - just do a backup and then immediately afterwards do a restore to the same computer to 'pep-up' the performance.
Making a backup copy of the database
1) If you run Emily on any computers other than the 'server' (the computer where the program was actually installed), then make sure it is closed on all the other computers. You should only have Emily running on the computer where it was installed.2) Go to Emily's 'Utilities' screen [F11].
3) Underneath the backup option, make sure you check (tick) the option that says 'Validate and compress database'.
4) Press the 'Backup' button and follow the prompts. This process may take a little while to complete. During this time you should not try to use Emily on any of the other computers, and you should leave the actual Emily computer alone to do it's thing, too.
5) When the process has finished, close-down the Emily program.
6) There will now be a file on your hard drive, called C:\ARCHIVE.EMILY. You ought to make a copy of this somewhere safe if you can (to a USB memory key, or to a CD if you have the capability. If your database is small enough and your computer 'old enough', you may even be able to copy the file to a floppy disc). Don't move the file, just make a copy of it. From this file we could recreate your entire Emily system on another computer, if ever necessary.
Restoring a backup of the database
(If you are trying to transfer the data from one Emily machine to another, follow the steps in the section at the bottom of the page instead).1) Start the Emily program, and go to the Utilities option screen again [F11] and pick the 'Restore' button. Follow the prompts (it will warn you that any data you entered since the last backup will be lost).
2) This will take a little while to complete - longer than the backing-up process took. When it finishes you should close down Emily again.
3) Finally, restart the Emily program and try searching for some of your customers and loans. It's now safe to go ahead and run the program on the other computers, if your system is configured for network sharing.
Copying data into another Emily system
As hinted above, this is best done by doing a backup from one Emily (let's call this your 'office' Emily) and then restoring that backup file into the second Emily (let's call this your 'home' Emily).1) On the 'office' Emily, follow the instructions above for making a backup.
2) You will now have a file called 'C:\ARCHIVE.EMILY'. Using Windows Explorer, copy this file from your local harddrive to a convenient USB memory stick, or burn it to a CD. (If you don't already have a memory stick, it's worth getting one as they are very cheap these days and are incredibly handy!)
3) Now take this file (on the USB stick, CD or whatever) to the 'home' Emily computer, and plug it in.
4) Start-up Emily and go to the Utilities page [F11].
5) Click the little yellow folder next to the 'Restore Data' section at the bottom of the page. This will bring-up a standard Windows 'open file' dialog. Use this to find your 'ARCHIVE.EMILY' file from your USB stick/CD etc.
6) Once you've found the file and pressed ok, you'll return to the Emily utilities page. Now press 'Restore Data' and Emily will restore your file into the database (overwriting anything already in there).
7) Once this is finished (it may take a few minutes), restart Emily as per the prompts and you will have a duplicate of the system you made the backup from!
Under certain circumstances, Emily might not be able to restore from the ARCHIVE.EMILY file in it's present position. If you have difficulty making a restore work, copy the ARCHIVE.EMILY from your USB stick/CD to the C:\ folder on the 'home' computer, so that you make a file 'C:\ARCHIVE.EMILY'. Now try the restore again, making sure that Emily is looking at the new file and not the USB stick/CD version of the file. You may need to click the yellow folder again to redirect Emily to look in the correct place.