Setting a Computer System exclusion file

The Advanced Settings of the Computer System plan type contains an Exclusions field where a custom exclusion file may be defined to exclude from the backup a set of files and folders . To set the plan to use an exclusion file, follow the steps below.

• Open a command prompt as administrator and change to the installation folder's Configurations subfolder. Refer to How to open a command prompt as administrator and change to the installation directory
• Copy the SystemExcludes.xml file, renaming it as the plan Excludes file. E.g. for a plan called pdq, type:

copy SystemExcludes.xml PDQExcludes.xml

• Open the plan Excludes file in notepad. E.g.

notepad pdqexcludes.xml

• Highlight everything below the first <exclude> entry, up to but excluding the closing </root> entry at the bottom, and delete it. The file should look like this:

• Entries that begin <! and end --> are remarks. Edit the text to reflect the type of exclusion to follow. For example, if the exclusion was for an antivirus backup folder that did not need to be included in the system backup, you might write:

<!-- This folder pattern is associated with antivirus backup  -->

• Edit the <exclude> entry on the next line to reflect the name, path, and subfolders fields, to indicate the folder you want to exclude:

<exclude name="antivirus Backup Folder" path="%SystemDrive%\cfrbackup-*\" subfolders="true" />

• In this case, the name can be any text meaningful to you, the path can be a full path to a folder such as C:\cfrbackup-*\ (the final backslash indicates a folder has been specified, not a file), or use a system variable such as %SystemDrive% and use a single wildcard so that any folder beginning cfrbackup- on the root of the system drive is excluded. Refer to: Wildcard Exclusion Rules for details about syntax and examples.
• Add an additional <exclude> line for each additional desired exclusion.
• Click File and Save.

The entire document, in this example, looks like this:

• Close the plan excludes file.
• In Archive Manager, edit the protection plan's advanced settings.

• In the Exclusions field, enter the relative path to the plan excludes file. E.g. Configurations\PDQExcludes.xml.

• Click OK to save the setting.