Carbonite Support > Message: "Files under # juncti...

Message: "Files under # junction point directories are not backed up."

Summary:

When a backup completes, you may receive a notification similar to the following: Files under 114 junction point directories are not backed up.

The actual number will vary from system to system, based upon the actual number of junction point directories that exist. The notification will appear in the CSSB user interface. It will also appear in the body of email notifications, if email notifications are configured on your system.

Note: This message is not an error. It is a notification about potentially important information.

This article applies to:

Carbonite Plans Products Platforms
Power and Ultimate (Not sure?) Carbonite Safe Server Backup (Not sure?) Windows

Solution:

The sections below are collapsed. Please click the section title to open / close a particular section.

What is a Junction Point Directory

A junction point directory is a directory that points to another directory.

Junction points were introduced in Windows Vista, and are a part of every version of Windows since. The release of Vista marked a change of the the location of a number of standard directories used by most applications.

For example, \Documents and Settings\[user]\My Documents\, which was used in Windows XP, has become \Users\[user]\Documents\ in Windows Vista. Junction points were created to link one to the other, seamlessly, to make the change easier on application developers and users alike.

In this specific example, \My Documents\ is the junction point that links to \Documents\.

You can read more about Junction points in this Microsoft article.

Why Doesn't CSSB Back Up Junction Point Directories

Carbonite Safe Server Backup (CSSB) does not back up junction points, so that the same data is not backed up twice.

To CSSB, a file in \My Documents\ is not the same as a file in \Documents\. Since they have different paths, they are therefore believed to be different directories containing different files. CSSB detects if the directory is a junction point. If it is, its contents are not backed up. However, files in the source directory (which is the directory that the junction point links to), are not skipped. They are backed up as usual, so long as they are part of the backup set. This behavior prevents files from being backed up twice.

Let's use \My Documents\ and \Documents\ as our example again. Backups will skip \My Documents\ because it is a junction point. Files in \Documents\ will be backed up because it is not a junction point. This way, files are not backed up twice.

How to Resolve this Warning Message

If you choose to back up the entire system drive (usually C:\), all standard Windows-created junction points and their source directories will be included. Junction points will be skipped and you will be notified. Sources will be backed up as normal. No further action is needed.

If you choose to back up specific directories on the system drive, you must take care to include source directories. It is possible to obtain a list of all junctions on a disk volume from the command prompt.

  1. Open an elevated command prompt by right-clicking and selecting Run As Administrator.
  2. Enter the following command: dir /aL /s C:\.
    1. You can replace C:\ with other volumes such as D:\ to get a listing of those other volumes.
  3. A listing of all junction points on the volume specified will be generated.
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