The best way to make a backup copy of your auction is to zip it, because it consolidates the entire auction into one file with a zip extension. You can easily copy this zip file to a CD, jump drive or another computer, i.e. a travel server. You can also attach this zip file to an email.
There’s a simple utility in CUS for Windows to zip up an auction for you. Go to the Utility Menu and choose Zip Backup an Auction. Select the auction from the drop down list then enter the drive letter where you want to save the zip file. You can enter your local drive C:, your network drive (usually F: ) or a different letter for a jump drive/external hard drive. There’s no need to enter a directory name because the system will create a new folder using the auction name and save the zip file in there. The first time you create a zip of this auction the file will be named auctionname_0001.zip. The next time you create a zip of the same auction on this computer and save it to the same drive letter, the zip will be called auctionname_0002.zip. This will allow you to keep the earlier generations of this auction data without overwriting or deleting them. There is a handy program called WINZIP that you can download from www.winzip.com which is the best way to unzip or extract this file if necessary.
Note: with this method, you are zipping individual auctions one at a time as appropriate. This does not eliminate the need to regularly take a full system backup of all CUS directories on your server. Please ask us for guidance on this subject.