I'm sure this is sooooo simple, but I just can't find the answer.

How do I back up files that are related to each other, without needing to re-do the relationships if I need to use the back-up copy? I have a system of 3 related databases, which are multi-user. In fact there are only 2 users: a host and a guest sharing over a LAN. If I needed to use the back-up copy, I'd have to change 24 file relationships and 5 scripts. Not huge, but the fact that I needed the back-up at all would mean that things were in crisis mode and I'd have no time to fiddle. Can't it be done automatically?

Help please!

Hmm, I assume that in this case your "backup" files are actually renamed versions of the original files?

If you simply rename them back to the original name, replace the file and viola!

Alternatively you could use the Developer tool to rename an entire backup set of file, which will do all of this relinking for you.

Kurt's advice is good. Another thought - depending on how you generate the backups - is not to rename them at all, but instead to put them into date-numbered directories - preferably on removable media.

Then a restore is as simple as copying the files back into the solution folder.

The above is what I actually do at my office. We have daily backups at specified times, which are folderized accordingly. Then backed up to tape. MUCH easier than doing any renaming.

Hello Alison Opfermann,

Below is a link to a reply I wrote in regards to 'backing up' files...

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=41185

I hope it has some ideas that will help you!

Bob Kundinger

Hey friends, thanks for your suggestions - especially Bob. At almost the exact time you posted your comment I was setting up my laptop in a museum in DC. 400 people were coming for dinner; among them several highly placed cabinet members in your administration, assorted Senators, Representatives, Governors and Ambassadors. Anyone else was a Chairman or CEO of a major global enterprise. I had done the dinner seating plan in Filemaker, tracking everything from protocol, who can/can't sit with whom, who sat together at the same event over the past 4 years, making sure wives sat with their husbands, and who's allergic to shellfish. Now you know why I needed the back-up! Thank you.