yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
Version 1.3 (Released on 14th Aug 2009)

Added manila 2.5 support. This will backup and restore the ordering of your favorite contact, and the default contact method. Without this utility, your favorite contacts may be restored after you hard reset (if you have sync at least once before your hard reset), but the ordering and default contact method will not be restored!

Updated the ringtone support. Will backup/restore contact's ringtone setting even if the contact is not a favorite contact in Touchflo3D people tab.

Revamp the UI.

Version 1.2 (Released on 5th Aug 2009)

Minor update

Added command line mode. Two mode of command line execution are supported, namely backup and restore. The syntax of the command is BackFavPeopleUp.exe [mode] [folderpath], where [mode] is either /backup or /restore and [folderpath] specifies the path where your favorite contact information will be archived/read.

Two sample shortcut files can be found in %Program Files%\Zenyee\Back FavPeople Up, one for restore, and the other for backup. You can copy the program Back FavPeople Up.exe to \Storage Card\Program Files, and then copy the restore shortcut file to your Sashimi or UC folder.

Version 1.1 (Released on 4th Aug 2009)

Minor update

Added ringtone support. Only path of ringtones are backup and restored. You would still need to backup/restore the physical ringtone files. Would recommend that you use tool like UC or Sashimi or PPCPIMBackup to backup/restore these ringtone files. May consider backup/restore physical files in future release

Updated with some cosmetic changes to the folder browser function.

Version 1.0 (Released on 3rd Aug 2009)

First public beta release

Requires .NET 3.5CF to be installed

Only supports backing and restoring of favorite contacts (and default call method) in TouchFlo's "People" tab

Sashimi user can place the executable file in the EXE folder and run.

Ringtone and other contacts backup/restore are not supported

Restore requires you to have your contacts restored first (using Microsoft My Phone, PPC Pimbackup, Activesync, etc)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
To do List

[Added in Release 1.2) Command line support

User choice to restore all or partial information

Multi-language support

Prompt for phone reset after a restore is complete

Mass update of ringtone or favorite contact by category

Bug Tracker

UI shows a wrong version (fixed in release 1.3 and future releases)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Steeve24:
Potential to be very useful, will await release, will also be very handy when Activesync forces a complete resync and therefore loses the connections for the favorites.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Mandragore:
Well done. This is one of the few things missing in my backup, flash and restore routine.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jmckeejr:
Great! Thats the only thing I have to do manually now. I am working on some scripts to backup all of my other programs and settings. Cant wait.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] mlk:
Cant wait for this - this will make my life complete - well this a proper SBSH-like Calendar tab showing Tasks as well as Appointments and a Notes Tab... ooo, and a million dollars
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
+1

A backup+restore of pim.vol does the trick, but I welcome a way that works better with ActiveSync. Last time I restored pim.vol I ended up with duplicates.

Also, are you able to backup+restore contact pictures? Any hi-res mug shots are not propagated to Exchange.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
Thanks guys for the encouragement, I will tidy up the code over the next few days, and release for beta testing.

@ugumba, in principle I can do the contact pictures backup as well, as I plan to do the same for the ringtone (I know there's a program recently released for that purpose), but the favorite contact will be my main focus.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tombbb:
this is defnitely one of the most important app developed recently !!!!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] S.V.I:
That's pretty sweet!! I can't wait to try it. So far I have been using a reg for that... but most haven't. This should be much easier.

Let me know if you want me to make some efficient GFX for it. I'd be glad to.:)

DID I JUST SEE RINGTONE TOO!?!?!?!?!?! Wow! this makes me giddy!

Since you are gong in this direction, any chance you might want to try to get a bit more passive contact backup solution in general?? PIM backup tends to make duplicates in outlook, and I can't figure out why. I think it might have something to do with security with activesync.

It would be awesome to have a program that could simply update my contacts back and fourth... don't know if that's possible though.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
I don't know the answer - however, I wonder why you backup your contacts when you synchronize with Outlook?

I synchronize with Exchange myself, and use PPCPimBackup heavily - however, I make sure it only backs up (and restores) my SMSes and call logs, which are not synchronized anywhere else.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] vizier:
This is just what I was searching for:

Would you please consider the following features as well:

- backup contact-facebook links

- backup my card (Or my contact card, whatever)

- backup selected cities in the weather panel

- backup selected cities in the clock

- backup the program shortcuts in the programs panel (or Manilla start menu)

Thanks for your initiative and efforts...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
Good requests, but these are trivial to backup from the registry or file system. Get SASHIMI (see my sig), read its manual, then setup SASHIMI to back all these items up using its INI files.

The OP has a solution for backup up something which is *not* trivial, since the HTC favorites are buried inside pim.vol, a file with almost all other PIM data, in a relatively obscure binary database file format. Backing up and restoring the entire file is not a good idea, since its format may change between ROMs, and you might get problems with duplicates in Outlook etc.

I haven't looked into facebook connections, but the rest of your requests are located here:

Your contact card: HKCU\Software\HTC\People\OwnerInfo

WM owner info: HKCU\ControlPanel\Owner

Weather cities: HKCU\Software\HTC\Manila\Weather.CityList

World Clock cities: HKCU\Software\HTC\Manila\WorldClock.CityList

Start menu/Programs panel: HKLM\Software\HTC\Manila\ProgramLauncher
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] cyron_at:
Nice work!

BTW: Which taskbar are you using.can you pls. share it! Looks great!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
First public beta release! see first 2 posts of this thread for more information
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
m6silver taskbar. do a google search.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
like some one has said, one can use activesync (desktop or exchange server) to backup the contacts. So I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here. The only reason why I'm doing for ringtone (potentially) is because that's not being sync with the desktop/server.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] fards:
Nice job, but for some info the latest manila 2.5 does this automatically now, so I'm presuming anything new out of HTC will do the same thing.

It does so by automatically assigning the contacts to a new category, HTCFavourite. Then they are backed up and restored with outlook, it's not perfect as the favourites tab puts them back in alphabetical order.

just a heads up in case you hadn't seen it..

I guess if you set your system up to save as HTCfavourites, then future manila versions would restore them automatically?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
yes I'm aware that 2.5 will solve it (with the solution that you have just outlined). But 2.5 too buggy for now, plus this will be useful for those who are still using 2.0/2.1.

I can include the option to add HTC favorites category to the contact in future release, so that one can use this to upgrade from 2.0/2.1 to 2.5
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
Looking good! Thanks!

However, now that I've learned about HTC's use of a category in 2.5, I feel this could well be your primary vessel for "backing up" the favorites. Instead of writing the info to an XML file, you could simply "emulate" 2.5 behaviour:

* Backup would set the HTCFavorite category on all contacts which are favorites.

* Restore would turn all contacts in the HTCFavorite category into favorites.

Your current method writes a lot of info into the XML - what if the contact's info has changed between the backup and restore? Will the restored favorite have the new info (from Outlook/Exchange) or the old backed up info?

BTW, I'd love it if your tool could operate silently from the "command line" - then I wouldn't have to wrestle with Mortscript to automate the process in SASHIMI.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
Category alone doesn't do the job, because apart from determining if this contact is your favorite contact, I need to know the default contact method (sms, email, work/home/mobile phone, etc). I think 2.5 uses category plus something else to achieve this.

remember the whole idea is to backup and restore, it's not meant to do syncíng.

I can work on the silent mode for sashimi user, but you should be able to run this today as a sashimi executables, except that you must make sure you run it after your have restored your contacts.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jmckeejr:
Check my signature, I am working on a mortscript app to backup most of these items including custom cities in TF3D. Also backs up program registration keys and personal settings :)

As for this app here, I am glad you released a beta version for us to play around with. I never mind trying something out. Even if it was to mess up my device I flash so many ROMs it wouldnt matter. Thanks again
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] TurboX2:
this app would be greater if you could back up and restore your programs page too. If it doesnt find the shortcut after the flash, then it wont show it.

I like having my icons in the same location.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] c_shekhar:
great work my friend.......
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
Although your "query" is impolite and irrelevant, it has already been answered here... 3 pages is not too much to research before posting, is it?

To help you further along the way, this thread provides the tools and pointers to backup almost anything, and to restore it automatically after flashing. (The thread is not Blackstone specific, even though it's in the Blackstone forum. I hope it gets moved.)

Kudos to zenkinz for targeting, solving and sharing a specific problem which apparently was too difficult for most of the rest of us.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] S.V.I:
exchange server?

would be awesome, however I have not figured out how to set that up yet. my laptop is not connected to the internet all the time... in fact, I use my phone to connect the laptop to the internet.

it's just that ocasionally I managed to loose some contacts with unstable roms, so I back them up with PIM backup, then manualy input the changes to outlook.

This is why i keep wishing for a pim program that would simply update the new info without creating duplicates.. omething passive enough to just update the information instead of creating a new duplicate contact.

I downloaded. cant wait to try it. :D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
Quoting myself, just wanted to point out I was wrong... Just tried it, and the hires contact images are indeed propagated to Outlook and Exchange.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
if you ever get a lower rest contact images, it's probably becuase of your desktop's outlook. that's what I have observed.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
you can use Microsoft My Phone to sync/backup your contacts as well.

The whole idea of this program is to backup information of the contact that are not part of the sync, namely the HTC favorite contact information and the ringing tone (plan to do the next time)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
updated with version 1.1! see first two posts for more information.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kika.93:
I don't know if somebody mentioned it already, but you can do exactly the same with SASHIMI, and backup/restore automatically after a ROM flash, along with all your other Manila settings. See this thread.

However, nice work for those who don't have the time to use SASHIMI.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
Hi kika,

By using sashimi, I assume you are referring to backing up of the pim.vol database?

This method is different, as it updates your contacts after you have restored using activesync (or my case, I always use my exchange sync as the mean to restore my pim data)

I prefer to restore by this method, instead of backing up the database (and you know once your pim.vol is in sdcard it is a security risk)

I have updated the program so that it can be run using commandline, and therefore will be Sashimi friendly :) Will post once I have the time to build the cab.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
Updated with the command line support! Please refer to the first two posts in this thread for more information.

If this works for you, please let me know! if it doesn't, let me know too! :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ugumba:
Thanks! Fantastic! I haven't hard reset yet, but running my backup and restore scripts manually seems to execute your tool correctly. I backed up, deleted a few favorites, and restored.

That's one big checkmark on my "stuff-to-automatically-backup-and-restore-for-hard-resets" list. :)

I'm a bit curious: do you manipulate the pim.vol file directly, or would you care to share what the relevant parts of the SDK are? No pressure. :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jmckeejr:
Thanks, I have gotten much use out of this already. Already cooked into my ROM. Will update to the latest now. Thanks again
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
yes, using POOM (Pocket Outlook Object model).

The information are stored in the 'hidden' fields ;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] chernomorez:
Great tool. Will try it after the next flash.

Any chance your tool could include backups of stocks, time zones, and weather cities?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zelendel:
Outstanding work as always Zenkinz.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] wapvirus:
This is not working with Manila 2d version 2 (Mega)the Manage Contacts and the Manage Ring tones are both grayed out and i can't untick them or change,

when i do the back-up the app finds my contacts but backs up 0 ,

I then tried to restore and the app just freezes :eek:

Is this for touchflo 3d only ?

Graphics size up fine on qvga :)

Great app just whats needed ;) please fix this for Manila 2D as this forum has many Manila users :cool:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] TeknoJnky:
Yes, but it would be so much better (from a user standpoint of course) to have them all backed up and restored from one app/click.

Also, please add tf3d stockmarket settings to the list. :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
I have not thought of this because the primarily reason for me to pick up my programming hat was the frustration of having to manually select my favorite contacts after each ROM flash (and I do it every other day).

I have to think about it, but more importantly if I have time for it, as this is a scope-creep :D :D It's not that difficult since these settings are either in file or registry form, versus the favorite contacts that are embedded in the POOM-based database that requires abit of trial and error and research.

But I agree with you and some that it'll be a good tool to have to backup all the settings related to Manila. Maybe I will do a 'Manila Backup Utility' in my next major release.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
my apologises, this only tested and worked in Touchflo3d, because I do not have manila 2D to check.

At this point, the checkbox are grayed out because I have not enabled the user choice feature yet, so it's always backing up both attributes of the contact.

Why it's 0 contact, because at this point it would only backup the ringtone if its a HTC favorite contact. So if you have ringtone assigned to this contact but he/she is not in your favorite people tab, this contact is not archived. Next version would backup all contacts' ringtone.

And the reason for your freeze, probably I have not taken into consideration the scenario where the file is zero size :D Sorry about that.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
managed to flash a ROM that has manila 2.5. Apart from using the contact's category to determine if the contact is the favorite in the people tab, there's also other information used to determine the default contact method as well as the favorite ordering. The next version, I would incorporate these so as to facilitate the migration from manila 2.1 to 2.5, as well as for usual backup/restore purposes.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] wapvirus:
Thanks for your reply and i hope that this will also work for manila 2d one day soon as this will be a must have application in my opinion :)

keeping an eye here hoping to see manila 2D in it's listings :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jmckeejr:
Is there any way you can make this work for the newest Builds of 6.5.x? Seems that you make a call to pocket outlook, maybe you have version number in there and it is getting error due to version number? Apparently PocketOutlook has changed somehow in builds 23024-23025(hope it soesnt stay, but thought I would forwarn that there copuld be issues eventually)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
what's the error message you get?

I didn't make any call that's verision specific. IT's a standard WM API interface.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
can you pm me your email, I send you a beta version that suppose to work for manila 2.5, and maybe itll work for manila 2d as well.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
just release version 1.3!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zelendel:
Out standing work as always Zenkins. This has become a must have app for me.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] the guitarist:
Thanks For this Great APP .. i've been doing this manually for ages .. what a Relief ..

anyway Does This even backup and restore the Facebook associations ?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] jmckeejr:
Thanks, I think there is a build problem. Your app is great. M$ has changed some things which have caused problems. Easy enough to use parts from a previous build(GAC**.dll)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
good to hear that.

for folks who are using manila 2.5, please let me know if the favorite contact order is being backup and restored correctly. Obviously when you first moved from manila 2.1 to 2.5, your ordering will be based on the alphabet order since in 2.1, the backup will not have the order information. Let me know if you have any problem.

Also, the ringtone setting can be backup/restored, but the files need to be backup/restore separately using sashimi or pimbackup. I'm not adding the latter since there's other way to do the job.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
no this doesn't. I've not looked at facebook.vol database structure and I'm not sure if I've the mean to do that anyway.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] the guitarist:
i really hope that u do .. as it's a really long process to click on each contact name and associate it with one of the friends you have on the facebook list ..

i hope we'll see that on a future release and pretty soon ..

is there a manual way to backup the facebook associations?

thanks for your time and response :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
the only way is to backup the .vol file in the root directory. But it may not work if the vol contains the x-ref of the facebook ids and the pim id in the pim.vol. the pim id may change after a new sync session.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Yarda_Yardovic:
No contact saving

Hi,

I've instaled this contact back up application and than i tried to back up my contact in my HTC TP2 (prior that I created a folder for contacts' back up on storage card). App scanned all the contact in phone but none of the was saved - "0 contacts saved".

Do you have any comments what am I doing wrong :confused: ?

THX
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
do you have any contacts selected in the people tab?

do you have any contacts that has a ringtone assigned?

remember this is not to backup all your contacts, but only your favorite contacts and/or contacts with ringtone assigned.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] illi:
Suggestions

Would it be possible to backup My Contact Card too?

Thank you.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Yarda_Yardovic:
That might be the problem - thanks for your explanation.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
have not looked into this yet. Will look into this.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
After using Dutty's Leo R2 for awhile (which is based on manila 2.6), I didn't find any problem with the backup & restore of the favorite contact ordering. However, I did find that one need to soft reset in order for the new order to be reflected in the people tab, so that's something I will add in the next release (prompt for reset)

I will also be adding contact mgt by category in the next release (hopefully), i.e. mass clear/update of ringtone, favorite contact, by category.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] neonoxDE:
The backup file is empty, what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT: Sorry, my fault. Works perfect, thanks!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] t0k0m0k0:
very useful app! thanks ;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Rickmasta:
What about support for facebook contacts?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] teorouge:
Yes, FB link backup is actually the only feature I'd like, as MyPhone does the same thing (ringtones too!). Hope you're adding that! ;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ebaron:
error message

on my HTC touch pro getting an error where a newer version microsoft.net compact framework is required

Any ideas?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] golightlygl:
0 Contacts saved

OK, not sure what I'm doing wrong here. My Manila 2.5 People tab has 10 poeple in it. When I run the app, I see the prog flashing through my 293 contacts but reports "0 saved". When I look at the backup log, there are ten contacts reported.

found 0 -2147483460

found 1 -2147483420

found 2 -2147483433

found 3 -2147483394

found 4 -2147483556

found 5 -2147483437

found 6 -2147483471

found 7 -2147483481

found 9 -2147483480

found 10 -2147483574
​

The backup file itself is created but emtpy. i.e.:

<?xml version="1.0"?><!--Backup of HTC Favorite Contacts by dzenkinz (ping@zenyee.com)--><ContactList />
​

A restore does nothing. It reports 0 contacts retsored and has an empty log. The poeple positions are all "stocked" when I do a simple ActiveSync, but they're all in the wrong order.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] PapaDocta:
golightlygl, same thing here on the HD2!!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
did you do a restore or backup? It sounds like you are doing a restore?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] golightlygl:
I backed up (I posted the logs and the actual backup file created which confirm that I "did" a backup). But the I then tried to do a Restore and nothing was restored.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] PapaDocta:
same here when I try to backup I get zero contacts saved and when restoring nothing happens
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] xnnc:
Same for me on my blackstone with EnergyROM Leo 28011
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
ok I *think* I have found a bug, I've extended this program support from manila 2.1 to 2.5, but have not cater for users who use this program for the first time does not backup from manila 2.1

I will work on a fix, ETA .. hopefully in a day or two time.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] PapaDocta:
great news.. and can't wait :D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
can you manually unzip this attachment, copy the file to your phone and run and see if you can backup? I will update the CAB if you can confirm this fixes the bug.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] PapaDocta:
still gives me 0 contact saved :(
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zenkinz:
ops, will check and update after that...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] PapaDocta:
thanks man :D