[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] dny238:
Great question. I'll have to write something up. It's fairly simple to use it for backup and restores. There is more to it if you want to create your own configs or use the preliminary stuff I did for provisioning XML.

0) Install the app, or copy the zip contents to \Storage Card\Program Files\SettingsSavior\ so that it will be around after the flash.

1) Run the app.

2) Check the items you use (or leave them checked). The beta items might not work entirely right, this varies from just not working to creating crash logs as it tries to copy files which are in use.

3) Pick backup.

4) Go to the 'Cabs' tab and put in the path to the location of the cab files you want to install. (Or just copy cabs to the path which is in there as the default) Hit test to make sure it can find the cab directory.

5) Decide if you want it to silently install the cabs, or if you want it to be more interactive. I'd suggest you let it work as normal the first time, then try Silently later once you are confident that everything worked once.

6) Export the provisioning XML for the heck of it. This system works especially well for the Email2.xml provisioning file, but isn't ready for the newbie yet.

Then FLASH your device.

7) Set the timezone, date and time of your device. Skip everything else

8) Navigate to \Storage Card\Program Files\SettingsSavior\ and run Settings Savior by hand

9) Pick restore and let it run. It may prompt for reboot, if it does after the reboot it should auto launch itself and continue.

10) Reset the device at the end to give all the changes a chance to 'start' working. (It should prompt you to restore it)

11) If you aren't happy with the email settings, (I also am missing the POP3 account I have) then open up the provisioning system tab and use the context menu to import the Email2.xml file.

If all goes well, you have a machine which is mostly back to the way it was before the wipe.

If you use the content menu you can get a 'view' option. sometimes these will make themselves obvious. I don't know what they all stand for, the system I wrote exports whatever it can, sometimes there isn't actually any real data in the stuff I export. I need to spend some more time filting out a few of the bogus items.

Advanced Stuff:

the other items in the 'Tools' tab are useful if you want to create your own config files for programs I haven't gotten around to yet, or don't use. I will produce more instructions later, but here's something to get you going. Start by opening one of the XML files in notepad to get familiar with the structure. The 'Windows Live' one is a small example which uses all the functionality so far. Generally speaking, I use the tools to snapshot the registry and file system, before and after a change, and then I use WinMerge on my PC to see what changed. I then capture the changed keys and changed files in the Config XML as stuff to backup and restore. Most of the time this works great, occasionally you can capture too many settings. Generally, passwords don't survive the export import process because the Crypto keys change on the device when it's flash. This seems to invalidate the saved (hashed) passwords.

Thanks,

Rob