Backup and Recover Designs

Backing up and saving your designs is an important thing to consider when creating embroidery designs. There are Auto Backup and Auto Save features within your Wilcom Designer software that you can use while creating designs.

It is important to understand what these features do in order to utilize them properly. See page 729 in your V7 User Manual for more details on the Auto Save and Backup features.

The Auto Save Design feature allows you to set an interval of time at which the design you are working on will be automatically saved into the Recover folder as an .EMA file. This does not replace saving the design periodically, as the Auto Save feature is there as a design recovery feature in case you lose power or have a computer failure. Once you close the design you are working on, the .EMA file is automatically removed from the Recover folder. If Wilcom Designer aborts or your PC crashes, the .EMA file remains in the c:\eswin\recover folder.

The Always Create Backup Copy feature if selected, saves a backup copy of the embroidery file you are working on every time you Click Save from the File menu. If you have not saved the file at least once, there will not be a backup for you to access later.

Note: Using the Always Create Backup Copy feature is for emergency purposes. It is not a replacement for doing a full system backup or backing up all your designs and storing them off-site. I recommend you do a full backup of all your designs and embroidery related files on a regular basis and store them in a location other than your place of business, as a precaution.

Using the Backup Files: Following are the steps required to access the backup files (.BAK files) that are created when using the Create Backup Copy Feature:

Open Windows Explorer

Open the Backup folder which is located inside the ESWin folder. The default path is c:\eswin\backup.

• If you cannot see file extensions i.e. your files are displayed as design1, design2 rather than design1.ema, design2.ema, you will need to change the view settings in Windows Explorer to show file extensions:
  


• In Windows Explorer, click Tools Folder Options.
  
• Select the View tab
  
• Untick ”Hide File Extensions for known file types.

• Right click on the file that you need to access.

• Select Rename.

• Change the file extension from .BAK to .EMB (This is a very important step. If you do not change the file extension to .EMB, your Wilcom software will not be able to open the design).
  
  
  
• Move the file to the same folder your other design files are stored.
  
• The file is now ready to be used as a normal Wilcom EMB file. Open the file as you normally would in your Wilcom software.

Auto Recover Designs:

If you do have a system shutdown or power outage, the design you were working on may be recoverable. If you had the Auto Save feature selected and the specified amount of time had passed for at least one Auto Save to occur, then it is likely the design can be recovered. When you first open your Wilcom software after an emergency shutdown like a power failure, the software will try to open the design from the recover folder. You will see the design on the screen. To properly recover the design, click Save As… from the File menu and save the design into your Design folder. When the Design has been properly recovered (saved), purge the recover folder. This procedure is described below in the Clean Up section.

Cleaning Up:

You may have noticed upon opening the Backup folder that there are many designs in the folder taking up space. Occasionally you will want to clean out the backup folder to save space on your computer. Or you may want to delete designs in the Recover folder after an emergency recover from a power outage. To clean up both the Recover and Backup folders do the following:

• Click Programs from the Start menu in Windows
  
• Find the Wilcom ES program group and click Purge Recovery (See Figure 1-2)
  
• Select the option to Delete Backup files and click OK. This will remove designs from both the Backup and Recover folders.
  
• It is recommended that you purge the Recover and Backup folders on a regular basis in order to save space on the hard drive.