Does Quickbooks support backups using Volume Shadow Copy?
A:
The Volume Shadow Copy will copy/clone/backup the data files, but the QuickBooks application itself does not support the VSS/shadow copy service. Thus, any opened QuickBooks files will be marked in a "crash consistent" state, which means that I/O writes could have not completed and the file could be corrupted.
Your best bet for QuickBooks backups is to use the backup scheduler that's built into QuickBooks, or make sure that everyone closes out of QuickBooks at the end of the day, so you can do backups overnight.
Keith Palmer
2010-06-10 12:17:09
Thanks Keith! Do you know if Quickbooks has an API that will initiate a dump of the database so we can safely back it up?
Steve
2010-06-10 14:39:13
I don't believe so. If it does, I've never heard of it. Is there a reason you can't use the backup scheduler that's built into QuickBooks?
Keith Palmer
2010-06-10 14:45:41
Keith, that would be a good idea. Have you heard of a place where I could figure out if there was API's etc... to do so? Thanks!
Steve
2010-06-10 14:49:56
I would ask on the Intuit Developer Forums: https://idnforums.intuit.com/I think you're just going to find out that there isn't an API for that though...
Keith Palmer
2010-06-10 15:22:04
Thanks Keith. Will do. Do you know if there is a way to SAFELY close down the application and then restart it so I could simply script the backup software to backup the db then simply reopen it up after the backup? Thanks!
Steve
2010-06-10 17:45:34
Don't know. Again, I'd recommend using the backup program built in to QuickBooks, so that you don't need to worry about all of these problems...
Keith Palmer
2010-06-12 23:55:00