Upgrading Retrospect

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Upgrading Retrospect is a straight-forward process on both Mac and Windows. Below we walk through the steps for both platforms.

Upgrading Retrospect for Windows

When you upgrade from Retrospect 7.7 for Windows or later all of your existing settings should still be available. Retrospect automatically imports all of your old scripts, backup sets and other preferences. Retrospect stores its configuration information in a file called Config77.dat; this configuration data contains your entire backup environment, including scripts, clients, backup sets, and execution history. All of this information is immediately available upon upgrade, and it is not necessary to uninstall the previous version before upgrading.

When upgrading, while not required, we do recommend that you quit Retrospect and save a copy of your configuration files to a safe place. You can make a backup copy of C:\ProgramData\Retrospect. While nothing should go awry during the upgrade process, it’s always good to have a backup. Configuration files, backup sets, and catalog files from prior versions are upgraded (except those noted below). However, once you use the new version of Retrospect, you can no longer use them with prior versions.

For Retrospect 7.6 for Windows and earlier versions, this upgrade is more complicated. Retrospect 7.7 for Windows used different configuration files from previous versions. Backup set files and backup set catalog files are still usable, but you will need to re-create your backup environment.

For more information, see our Documentation section for Retrospect for Windows, including how to update clients.

Upgrading Retrospect for Mac

When you upgrade from Retrospect 8.0 for Mac or later to a more recent version, later all of your existing settings should still be available. Retrospect stores its configuration information in a file called Config80.dat and configs.xml; this configuration data contains your entire backup environment, including scripts, sources, media sets, and activity history. The files are found in library/application support/Retrospect. All of this information is immediately available upon upgrade, and it is not necessary to uninstall the previous version before upgrading.

When upgrading, while not required, we do recommend that you quit Retrospect and save a copy of your configuration files to a safe place. While nothing should go awry during the upgrade process, it’s always good to have a backup. Configuration files, backup sets, and catalog files from prior versions are upgraded (except those noted below). However, once you use the new version of Retrospect, you can no longer use them with prior versions.

For Retrospect 6.1 for Mac and earlier versions, this upgrade is more complicated. Retrospect 8.0 for Mac had a new underlying architecture and used different configuration files from previous versions. Backups made by Retrospect 6.1 are read-only, so you cannot back up more data to those sets. Next, the media set catalog files do not include all the information about these sets that Retrospect requires, so you will need to rebuild the catalog file for each set to restore from them. Finally, the configuration file is not migrated, so you will need to re-create your backup environment. Note that Retrospect 8.0 for Mac and later versions do not overwrite or remote existing Retrospect 6.1 (or earlier) installations.

For more information, see our Documentation section for Retrospect for Mac, including how to update clients.

Last Update: January 2024