# Using rdiff-backup under Windows

## Installation

Thank you for trying *rdiff-backup* on Windows. Native support for the Windows
environment is quite new in *rdiff-backup*. Please read the manual page, FAQ and
the Wiki thorougly.

To install the provided binary, simply copy *rdiff-backup.exe* to someplace in
your **PATH**. Everything is included in the binary (including Python) for local
operation. For remote operation, you will need to install a Windows SSH
program. You will also need to install *rdiff-backup* on the remote system(s).

You will need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributables. If these are
not installed on your system, *rdiff-backup* will be unable to run and Windows
will display a message such as *"The system cannot execute the specified
program"*. To install the redistributables for all users, install the package
available from Microsoft.com (search for *"visual c 2008 redistributable"*).

Alternatively, you can install the redistributable in a "side-by-side"
configuration, which does not require administrator privileges. Simply
download the DLL package from:
[https://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/rdiff-backup/Microsoft.VC90.zip](https://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/rdiff-backup/Microsoft.VC90.zip)
and copy the four enclosed files to the same directory as *rdiff-backup.exe*.

You will need to follow either method only once.

## Additional Issues

Currently, *rdiff-backup*'s `--include` and `--exclude` options do not support
Windows paths with `\` as the directory separator. Instead, it is necessary to
use `/` which is the Unix directory separator.

Additionally, you may need to run *rdiff-backup* from the same directory as the
source of your backup, eg:

    > cd c:\
    > rdiff-backup.exe --include "c:/My Stuff" --exclude "c:/**" c:/ c:/Backup

will work to backup `"c:\My Stuff"` to `"c:\Backup"`, but:

    > cd "c:\My Stuff"
    > rdiff-backup.exe --include "c:/My Stuff" --exclude "c:/**" c:/ c:/Backup

will not work.

**UPDATE:** With appropriate escaping, it looks like it is
possible for this to work. Follow this example:

    > mkdir c:\foo
    > cd "c:\Documents and Settings"
    > rdiff-backup.exe --include c:\\/foo --exclude c:\\/** c:\/ c:\bar

The `\\` is necessary in the `--include` and `--exclude` options because those
options permit regular-expressions, and `\` is the escape character in
regular-expressions, and thus needs to be escaped itself.

## Troubleshooting

If you have everything installed properly, and it still doesn't work,
see the enclosed manual, FAQ, the web page at
[https://rdiff-backup.net](https://rdiff-backup.net),
and/or the mailing list. You can subscribe to the mailing list at:
[https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users](https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users)

You can also try searching the mailing list archives:
[https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/rdiff-backup-users/](https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/rdiff-backup-users/)