C.Y.A. - How Does it Work?

This is a technical overview of how Qualitas C.Y.A. does its job. Though it is unlikely that you will ever need this information to use Qualitas C.Y.A., it can give you a better understanding of the product and explains where and how files are stored.

The first time you capture a set of files, Qualitas C.Y.A. automatically creates the set of backup files that you requested and a full copy of the Registry for future reference. By default, Qualitas C.Y.A. is preconfigured to capture the CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI and the System Registry.

This set of initial files is referred to as the Base Capture Set. Due to the size and format of the Windows Registry, this is the only time that Qualitas C.Y.A. stores a full backup copy of your Registry. For subsequent captures, only differences between each copy of the Registry are saved and stored. Storing the Registry like this saves a significant amount of disk space each time you capture files. The original copy of the Registry is compressed into the CYAn.ZIP file and stored in the CYADATA subdirectory. The name used for the full backup of your Registry is CYAn.REG and the subsequent difference files are stored as REGDIFF.nnn.

The Capture Set

Qualitas C.Y.A. stores the list of files you chose to define as your Capture Set in a file called CYA1.LST in your CYADATA subdirectory. This file is an ASCII text file which may be viewed with any text editor. We don't recommend that you make changes to this file manually as it may result in errors. This is an example of the CYA1.LST file:

C:\CONFIG.SYS
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI
C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI
C:\WINDOWS\NET.CFG

If this file somehow gets damaged, you can safely delete it and Use the Options/Configure menu on the Qualitas C.Y.A. main window to redefine your Capture Set.

Each time you create a capture set using Qualitas C.Y.A., the program makes a backup of each file you've named in your Capture Set. The backup files have a numeric extension which is incremented each time you create a new capture. Your first capture set might create CONFIG.000, AUTOEXEC.000, and so forth; the second capture set creates CONFIG.001, AUTOEXEC.001, etc.

The Registry is a special case. Because the Registry is typically such a large file, it is undesirable for you to have too many copies of it lying around occupying disk space. For the Registry, Qualitas C.Y.A. saves a full copy only when you run your first capture. Thereafter, only those changes which have occurred since your base capture are saved. The changes since the base capture set are stored in a file called REGDIFF.nnn where the nnn is a 3 digit extension starting with 001 and incrementing with each subsequent capture. This system takes a little more time than saving a full copy of the Registry with each succeeding capture, but it can save you as much a 1MB of disk space each time you capture a set of files.

Qualitas C.Y.A. identifies each capture set by the date and time at which the information was collected. In addition, you can add your own description to each capture set to help you reference it. Qualitas C.Y.A. records the description and content of each capture set in the file CYA1.DAT in your CYADATA directory. Like CYA1.LST, this file is an ASCII text file. You should not manually edit this file or you may introduce errors. If this file is altered, Qualitas C.Y.A. can no longer automatically restore your backup files. This is what the CYA1.DAT file looks like for the CYA1.LST file referenced above:

*,840057206,Windows 95 System
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT,C:\qcya\cyadata\autoexec.000
C:\CONFIG.SYS,C:\qcya\cyadata\config.000
C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI,C:\qcya\cyadata\win.000
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI,C:\qcya\cyadata\system.000
c:\WINDOWS\NET.CFG,C:\qcya\cyadata\net.000
Registry,C:\qcya\cyadata\regdiff.000
*,840203044,Install Sound Card
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT,C:\qcya\cyadata\autoexec.001
C:\CONFIG.SYS,C:\qcya\cyadata\config.001
C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI,C:\qcya\cyadata\win.001
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI,C:\qcya\cyadata\system.001
c:\WINDOWS\NET.CFG,C:\qcya\cyadata\net.001
Registry,C:\qcya\cyadata\regdiff.001

Note that, though the above numeric extensions are synchronized, that may not necessarily be the case. If you, for example, added the file STARTNET.BAT after the above two captures, the next section in the CYA1.DAT file looks like this:

*,840479458, Include STARTNET
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT,C:\qcya\cyadata\autoexec.002
C:\CONFIG.SYS,C:\qcya\cyadata\config.002
C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI,C:\qcya\cyadata\win.002
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI,C:\qcya\cyadata\system.002
C:\WINDOWS\NET.CFG,C:\qcya\cyadata\net.002
C:\NOVELL\STARTNET.BAT,C:\qcya\cyadata\startnet.000
Registry,C:\qcya\cyadata\regdiff.002

Since this is the first time STARTNET.BAT is included in the capture set, it has the initial numeric extension of .000.

Where Capture Sets are stored

Once all information in a particular capture set is gathered and Qualitas C.Y.A. has added a record for the capture set in CYA1.DAT, Qualitas C.Y.A. adds these files to your capture set archive. All captured files and Registry changes are stored within an archive using the ZIP format standard in order to minimize disk space usage. The capture set archive is stored in the CYADATA subdirectory in your QCYA directory. The archive file is named CYA1.ZIP.

The CYA1.ZIP file contains the information from all capture sets. When you delete a capture set, the contents are deleted from this archive permanently, so it is important to delete capture sets with some care. Below is an example of the files that would be stored in the CYA1.ZIP file for the .DAT and .LST illustrations above.

Searching ZIP: CYA1.ZIP

Length Method    Size Ratio   Date   Time   CRC-32  Attr  Name
993194 DeflatN 110577  89%  08-14-96 17:13 fb3d294c  ---  qcya/cyadata/cya1.reg
    12 Stored      12   0%  08-14-96 17:13 f1958f82  ---  qcya/cyadata/regdiff.000
   658 DeflatN    356  46%  08-14-96 17:06 964d616a  ---  qcya/cyadata/autoexec.000
   637 DeflatN    383  40%  08-14-96 17:05 c02bc75b  ---  qcya/cyadata/config.000
 18554 DeflatN   6471  66%  08-14-96 16:13 8820a443  ---  qcya/cyadata/win.000
  4037 DeflatN   1398  66%  08-14-96 17:13 0dfbad89  ---  qcya/cyadata/system.000
   152 DeflatN     80  48%  08-14-96 17:05 8dea6f10  ---  qcya/cyadata/net.000
 30567 DeflatN   5766  82%  08-16-96  9:44 422b21a4  ---  qcya/cyadata/regdiff.001
   662 DeflatN    357  47%  08-14-96 17:27 cefd7300  ---  qcya/cyadata/autoexec.001
   648 DeflatN    391  40%  08-14-96 17:32 924626e1  ---  qcya/cyadata/config.001
 18554 DeflatN   6472  66%  08-15-96 11:05 57e7c316  ---  qcya/cyadata/win.001
  4037 DeflatN   1397  66%  08-16-96  8:25 b42739cd  ---  qcya/cyadata/system.001
   152 DeflatN     80  48%  08-14-96  7:05 8dea6f10  ---  qcya/cyadata/net.001

If you have PKZIP, you can view this output for your own data by using the command PKUNZIP -V CYA1.ZIP

When you Restore a File

When you request to restore a file or a set of files, Qualitas C.Y.A. checks the CYA.DAT file to determine the correct location for the files that you want to restore. Once located, it copies it to the file(s) of the same name in your current configuration. When you choose to restore files, remember that you need to restart Windows to activate the changes in Windows start-up files. If you have restored boot files, you should reboot the system instead.

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