Artist Help:Backup and Restore

Each time the Workspace in modified and saved, copies of the files are saved to a compressed archive file. The location of this file is relative to your workspace folder - <workspace folder>\Backup. By default this is,

My Documents\My Workspaces\Backup

Manually add to Archive

You can add a backup copy of your workspace to the archive file manually, if you wish, by selecting,

File/Backup Workspace files/to Archive

Archive to a removable drive

You can create a copy archive of your workspace to a removable storage medium or a network location by selecting,

File/Backup Workspace files/to location 

Restoring Workspace

Because Artist adds copies of your workspace files to the archive each time you save changes, you can return to any previous version of your workspace files.

To restore any of the dated backup files in the Backup archive you need to run the Restore Workspace utility. You do this in either of the following ways.

To Restore within Artist

• From the Main Menu select Restore Workspace Files. This will open the Restore Workspace dialog. The list box displays all the workspace versions contained in the archive file.
• Select from the list the workspace version you wish to restore. The most recent backup is at the bottom of the list.
• Click Restore. If the workspace file you are going to restore already exists in the original location you will be asked if you wish to overwrite it. You will lose all data in the workspace files you overwrite. If you respond with a No, the files will be restored in the same directory as the archive file and will be in the decorated form with a date stamp before each file name. Before using these files you must remove the date stamp on each file manually.
• If you have elected to overwrite the workspace. Then the newly restored workspace will be loaded into Artist upon completion.

To Restore from outside Artist

• From the Windows Start select, /Programs/ShowCAD Artist/Restore Workspace
• select the archive file to open. This file has a .zip extension and if it is the default Artist backup archive is My Documents/My Workspaces/Backup/Artist.zip
• select from the list the workspace to restore and click Restore

You can now run Artist and load this restored workspace.

Extra Precautions

A worst-case scenario would be the loss of all data on your computer's hard-drive. To protect against this you should store a copy, or a different archive file to some removable media or network device.

To restore from a location other than the Artist archive directory you must run the Restore utility and specify the path where the archive is to be found.