If you’re like most people, you use your Windows 7 Media Center to store your favorite TV shows, movies, and music. But what if something happens and you can’t access your Media Center? Or what if you want to make a backup of your Media Center settings? Fortunately, there’s an easy way to backup your Media Center settings with mcBackup. This free program lets you create a complete backup of your Media Center configuration in just minutes. To start using mcBackup, first open it from the Start menu. Next, select the “Backup” tab on the main window. This tab contains all the options for creating a backup of your Media Center settings. To begin backing up your Media Center settings, simply click the “Start Backup” button on the main window. mcBackup will start copying all of your media files and configuration files to a local folder. You can stop backing up at any time by clicking the “Stop Backup” button on the main window or by pressing Ctrl+C in Windows 7. Once mcBackup has finished copying everything to disk, you’ll have a complete backup of your Media Center configuration! If something happens and you need to restore your Media Center settings, simply click the “Restore” button on the main window and mcBackup will restore everything exactly as it was when it was last backed up. ..

mcBackup 3.0 for Windows 7

This handy utility will backup WMC scheduled recordings,channel lineups, and Recoded TV . The current version is currently a Beta and is only designed to work with Windows 7 Media Center and does work with extenders.

There are versions for 32 & 64-bit systems so download and install the one which is right for your system (links below). Make sure you’re closed out of WMC and run through the installer as normal accepting the defaults.

 

After you have it installed you can access it from the Start Menu under TheDigitalLifestyle.com folder.

The first time you launch it you’ll see the backup service is off by default.

Just click on the link to start it up.

Under the Backup and Restore Now tab you can select what to backup and start the process right away or if you’ve already created backups you can restore them here as well.

Under the Backup Location tab you can select where you want to store certain items.

If you backup Recorded TV it’s a good idea to back it up to a location with plenty of storage since the files can be large.

Note: tried to backup to Windows Home Server, but it didn’t seem to support network locations.

However we were able to backup to an external USB drive.

Under the Schedule tab you can select the days and time you want to backup WMC.

After you create a schedule make sure to apply your settings and close out of the app UI. It will run quietly in the background and do it’s job.

When you start a backup, nothing exciting happens, you’ll see that the backup as started in the lower left corner of the app.

You won’t get a “backup successful” message…however, when you launch mcBackup it displays the date and time of the last successful backup.

Restore a Backup

To restore a backup go to the Backup and Restore Now tab, select what you want to restore, and click the Restore Now button.

You’ll see a Command Prompt window open while it loads the backups.

Then a message letting you know the tuner has been restored.

The project is still in beta, but it looks like there are some new features that will be available soon.

If you are a HTPC enthusiast or just enjoy using Windows 7 Media Center for you’re TV viewing, mcBackup 3.0 is a cool utility to have to backup and restore your Recorded TV and other WMC settings. Again it’s still in Beta so you might experience a few quirks here and there. But overall it seemed to work pretty good and since it’s still a work in progress we would expect it to get better and have more new features.

Download mcBackup 64-bit

Download mcBackup 32-bit