Backing Up and Restoring SecureCRT® for Windows® and SecureFX® Settings

Note: This tip is for use with SecureCRT for Windows.

Have you ever wanted to try out a new version of SecureCRT or SecureFX, but wanted to back up your configuration so you could revert to a “known good” setup if you made a configuration change you didn’t like? Perhaps you are moving to a new machine, and want to transfer your current configuration so you don’t waste time recreating sessions on the new machine. Or maybe you just want to play it safe; almost everyone knows someone who has lost important data as a result of a computer crash.

Whatever the reason, you might decide it is important to back up your SecureCRT/SecureFX configuration settings. If you’ve never done it, it can seem daunting and complex. In reality it’s fairly simple and involves just three basic steps:

1. Locate:     Determine your configuration folder location.
2. Backup:    Copy the contents of your configuration folder to a backup location.
3. Restore:   Copy the contents of a backup to your configuration location.

The remainder of this document will provide more details of each of the steps outlined above, including an example walk-through.

Determine your configuration folder location

To find out where SecureCRT/SecureFX are currently storing configuration files, open the Global Options dialog and select the General category.

The Configuration folder setting shows where configuration files are kept. Press ALT+F to select the contents so the path can be copied (CTRL+C) to the Windows Clipboard (for pasting (CTRL+V) into the Windows Explorer address bar to navigate quickly to this folder location).

SecureCRT/SecureFX users are typically prompted for the configuration folder location the first time they launch the application. Different versions of SecureCRT/SecureFX running on different versions of Windows will store the configuration folder in different default locations. So be sure to check the Global Options dialog, rather than assume your current configuration is stored in the same place shown in the graphic above.

Back up your configuration

To back up your configuration, browse to the location of your configuration folder as shown above and copy the entire folder contents to your backup location. You can also choose to add your configuration folder to a compressed archive such as a zipped folder.

Note:  It’s a good idea to close all instances of SecureCRT/SecureFX prior to backing up your configuration. Otherwise, recent changes made to your configuration may not be included in the backup.

Here’s a step-by-step example:

1. In Windows Explorer, browse to the SecureCRT/SecureFX configuration folder.

   Tip: If you copied the configuration folder path from the Global Options dialog to the Clipboard, you can paste the path into the Windows Explorer address bar and press ENTER to navigate to the configuration folder more quickly. To activate the Windows Explorer address bar in preparation for pasting, press ALT+D.

2. Select all files in the configuration folder. Right-click on the selected files and choose Send to a Compressed (zipped) folder.

3. Rename the compressed (zipped) folder.

4. Send the file to your backup USB drive or other media.

Restore your configuration

To restore your configuration, browse to the location of your backup files and copy them to your configuration folder. If you backed up your configuration to a compressed archive such as a zipped folder, extract the contents of the archived file to your configuration folder.

Here’s a step-by-step example of restoring a configuration from a compressed (zipped) folder archive:

1. Browse to the location of the compressed (zipped) folder archive containing the configuration backup. Right-click on the compressed (zipped) folder and choose Extract All… from the menu.

2. Paste the full path to the configuration folder (copied from the Global Options dialog as explained earlier) and
    continue with the extraction process.

3. After the extraction process is complete, launch SecureCRT/SecureFX and open the Connect dialog to verify
    that your saved configuration has now been restored.