Your computer stores its data in files. Some file types need to be backed up, and some usually do not. Although Remote Backup can back up virtually any file on your computer, some files are considered critical and some are not.
Data files are considered critical files because they contain your most recent and critical data like your customer records, accounting files, word processing files, and other data you work with on a daily basis.
Program files are usually not considered critical because if they are lost they can be restored from your original distribution diskettes that came with your software. For this reason it is important to store the original copies of your software diskettes away from your computer, not in the same building if possible.
Your computer also has a lot of other non-critical files. These are files that are left over from installations of programs, temporary files, compressed folders, others that would not affect the operation of your computer if they were lost. These should not be backed up.
The vast majority of the files on your computer are probably program files and other non-critical files. They can be identified by their file names. Program files have common extensions like:
.exe .dll .ovl .reg .cab .zip .hlp .bmp .sys .wav
Some file types that probably should be backed up include:
.mdb .sql .dbf .fpt .ini .lnk .doc .xls .pst .msg
These are by far not the only file types that should be backed up, but they are common data file extensions.