Maybe I should start off by telling y'all what I want to do. I have a 500 gig external Seagate hardrive which came with Mimeo loaded on it. I don't particularly like Mimeo, and Im not sure it will do what I want. What I want is to back up all the normal stuff (pictures, music, docs, etc) but also there's a couple of applications I'd lke to have copies for safe keeping. One app in particular is an old version of a freeware app called SportTracks, there is a newer version you have to pay for, and the older freeware version works fine for what I need. SportTracks creates logs from Garmin workout data (running, cycling, etc), I can't remember what format these files are in. Memeo seemed to have backed up the log files yesterday on the first original backup, but today it refused to update them. Also I'm pretty sure Memeo won't backup applications like SportTracks. So I'm wondering what y'all would recommend. Just copy and paste the SportTracks file to the external harddrive and use Windows 7 Backup or some other backup utility for daily backups of all the other files? Will simply copying the app file also take along with it the plugins associated with the app? All I want is for when the unthinkable happens, such as an internal harddrive crash, I have something on an external drive that will put my machine back like it was. I have the Toshiba recovery discs burned on DVD so if need be I can restore my machine to factory settings, but I know doing so will wipe everything else clean and I want to be able to put it right back how it was before it crashed. Thanks in advance!
If you want to backup up applications and their settings 100% intact you'd need a disk imaging software.
There's a few good freeware ones to choose from such as DriveImage XML Private Edition Free, Macrium Reflect Free Edition, etc., and they're definitely worth checking out soon before you actually ever need them to restore your system.
Windows 7 comes with easy to use, free, disk imaging built in.
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-create-a-disk-image-backup-in-windows-7
What Windows file backup facility (not to be confused with imaging) will and won't do