2 source files exclusion, Source files exclusion – Acronis Backup for VMware 9 - User Guide User Manual

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8.5.2 Source Files Exclusion

With the source files exclusion rules you can define which data will be skipped from the source data
during the backup process and thus be excluded from the list of backed up items. These can be files
or folders defined by a path set up for exclusion.

This option is effective for the backup of virtual machines which contain volumes of
NTFS/FAT16/FAT32/ext2/ext3/ext4/ReFS file systems. Specifically, it works with all switched off VMs
(with FAT and NTFS file systems) and for switched on VMs with OS version windows server 2003 and
higher. Besides, the option requires VMware tools running on the target VM.

Use the following parameters to specify which files and folders to exclude.

Exclude files matching the following criteria

Select this check box to skip files and folders with names matching any of the listed criteria (called
file masks). Use the Add, Edit, Remove and Remove All buttons to create and manage the list of file
masks.

You can use one or more wildcard characters “*” and “?” in a file mask.

To exclude a folder specified by a path containing the drive letter, add a backslash (“\”) to the folder
name in the criterion, for example: C:\Finance\.

For example, you can set the Source files exclusion to Exclude files matching the following criteria:
*.tmp, *.~, *.bak.

You can exclude the whole volume of the backed up VM by specifying exclusions in the following
format: C:\* or D:\*. Note that the drive letters specified in the exclusions settings enumerate the
partitions without drive letters in the end of the list. For example, you have Windows 2008 guest OS
which has system reserved partition (without a drive letter assigned). Then, to exclude the files from
the C: drive you have to specify C:\* in the exclusions settings in Acronis Backup for VMware,
however to exclude the System Reserved Partition you should specify the L:\* for exclusions in the
example below.

Suppose the source system has the following partitions:



System Reserved



C: (Local Disk)



D: (CD-ROM)



E: (Local Disk)



K: (Local Disk)

In Acronis Backup for VMware these volumes will be enumerated in the same order starting from the
“C:” partition and skipping CD-ROM(s):



C: (C: (Local Disk))



E: (E: (Local Disk))



K: (K: (Local Disk))



L: (System Reserved)

Tip: you can check the volume letters enumeration via the File Recovery feature (where you browse
through the files/folders tree inside an existing recovery point).