Suggest re: restoring fonts

[techgirl]

I was restoring to a different machine, so I was using File Level Restore.
Using the Veeam File Explorer, I attempted to "copy to" the contents of the C:\Windows\fonts\ folder to the C:\user\desktop\fonts\ - with the intention of then using the proper "install" function on them from there. It did not work with Veeam.

Luckily the old computer still running, I used the old method - to zip the fonts folder onto desktop, copy to USB and move it to new machine desktop, extract, and then installed them. There were errors here too, but it happily continued ON ITS OWN to install from the files that were installable. All fonts and their varieties installed A-OK as far as I can tell. I vaguely recall there are specific font files you need, and others you should skip. Given all the files for a specific font, Windows will complain yet ignore those that are extraneous and proceed anyway.

With Veeam, where fonts had variations, I was getting errors that the font already existed, so It would not copy all the files. It would prompt to continue or stop, with no choice on the prompt to "do this for all". i.e. A font with 6 varieties erred 5 times each - 5 prompts to answer ... unworkable if you have many fonts. I quit and attempted to install the fonts I copied thus far, and most (if not all?) of those which errored also failed to install. The trick is to get Veeam to copy over that magic 1 out of the 6 that is the installable one.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Techgirl,

Fonts is a special beast as you are already aware. For example, one font can exist out of multiple files. So if you want to install that font, you actually need to be aware what files the font need. Our Veeam explorer will not be able to do that as the OS is "offline" and therefore only sees flat files. What happened is when you used the old computer, and copied the files, it actually copied the multiple files. An example, on your running computer, copy the font AGENCY FB from windows\fonts and then copy it somewhere on your desktop. You will see that it actually generate two files instead of one.

For this type of "application", my suggestion would be to always have a copy of the fonts (from a download or purchase) and make sure you have those backupped also. Then you can always restore the font to a new computer is needed

My 2 cents
Mike

[techgirl]

Special handling, yes.

In an ideal world , If C:\Windows\fonts\ was among the files to be backed up, Veeam would trigger Windows to zip the entire fonts folder and then Veeam would backup that. Then if you try to copy over font files, individually, it should pause right away and issue an informational warning - perhaps with a link or buttons - something to the effect of

" Raw font files may not work if simply copied over; they must be installed. We can instead copy your zipped font package onto your "desktop" so you can extract then install them using Windows built-in "Install font" function.
[ Proceed to copy individual files ] or [ Copy zipped font archive to extract and install ] "

I am sure fonts is only one case of file type awareness that would be a sweet trick if it could be built into the Veeam products.