Microsoft Visual Studio Backup Macro

Introduction

Have you ever screwed up the code of your project and needed to revert to a past version?

Unfortunatelly, Microsoft Visual Studio doesn't has a backup option. If you need to do so, you have to manually copy your solution folder to another folder or media.

Tired of doing that, I decided to make a backup macro: my goal was to add a context menu option to Solution Explorer, to automatate the process of copying its files to the destination location.

How It works

As described above, this adds an item to the solution context menu(named 'Make backup').

When this option is selected, it cleans the solution's temporary files, then copies it's folder contents to a destination with the following format:

  F:\BACKUP\Solution Name\month-day-year hour:minute:second

The F:\BACKUP folder name is hardcoded in the macro and must be changed to your backup destination folder.

Installation and Use

First you have to add the macro code to the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. This is easily done from the Tools->Macros->Macro IDE menu.

Now, as stated above, you have to change the destination folder, which is hard coded in the macro as an optional parameter. I use F:\BACKUP, which is in an external USB Hard Drive.

Then, you need to create the context menu item that calls the macro:

• Open Tools->Customize menu
• Select Commands tab
• Check "Context Menu" radio button, then select "Project and Solution Context Menu | Solution"
• Click on Add Command button
• Select Macros on the menu of the left
• Select the created macro from the menu on the right(Macros.MyMacros.Backup.Make) and click OK
• Now the option is added, but with the name of the macro. I changed it to "Make backup" from the Change Selection button

Source code

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports EnvDTE90
Imports EnvDTE90a
Imports EnvDTE100
Imports System.Diagnostics
Imports System.IO

Public Module Backup
    Public Sub Make(Optional ByVal backupdir As String = "F:\BACKUP")
        Dim SolutionExplorer As UIHierarchy
        Dim Item As UIHierarchyItem
        Dim Solution As EnvDTE.SolutionClass
        Dim SourceFolder As String, TargetFolder As String
        If Not Directory.Exists(backupdir) Then
            MsgBox("Cannot access destination folder(" + backupdir + ")", MsgBoxStyle.Critical, "Backup copy")
            Exit Sub
        End If

        SolutionExplorer = DTE.Windows.Item(Constants.vsext_wk_SProjectWindow).Object()
        For Each Item In SolutionExplorer.SelectedItems
            Solution = CType(Item.Object, EnvDTE.SolutionClass)
            If Solution.SolutionBuild.BuildState = vsBuildState.vsBuildStateInProgress Then
                MsgBox("Cannot make backup while building solution", MsgBoxStyle.Critical, "Backup copy")
                Exit Sub
            End If
            Solution.SolutionBuild.Clean(True)
            SourceFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(Solution.FullName)
            TargetFolder = Path.Combine(backupdir, Solution.Properties.Item("Name").Value)
            Directory.CreateDirectory(TargetFolder)
            TargetFolder = TargetFolder + "\" + Format(Now, "MM-dd-yy HH_MM_ss")
            If Not CopyDir(SourceFolder, TargetFolder) Then
                MsgBox("Destination folder already exists. Backup aborted", MsgBoxStyle.Critical, "Backup copy")
                Exit Sub
            End If
            MsgBox("Backup done succesfully", MsgBoxStyle.Information, "Backup copy")
        Next
    End Sub

    Private Function CopyDir(ByVal source As String, ByVal target As String) As Boolean
        Dim diSource As DirectoryInfo
        Dim diTarget As DirectoryInfo

        diSource = New DirectoryInfo(source)
        diTarget = New DirectoryInfo(target)
        Return CopyDir(diSource, diTarget)
    End Function
    Private Function CopyDir(ByVal source As DirectoryInfo, ByVal target As DirectoryInfo, Optional ByVal AllowCreate As Boolean = False) As Boolean
        Dim fi As FileInfo
        Dim di As DirectoryInfo, td As DirectoryInfo

        If AllowCreate Then
            If Not Directory.Exists(target.FullName) Then Directory.CreateDirectory(target.FullName)
        Else
            If Directory.Exists(target.FullName) Then Return False
        End If

        Directory.CreateDirectory(target.FullName)
        For Each fi In source.GetFiles()
            fi.CopyTo(Path.Combine(target.ToString(), fi.Name), True)
        Next

        For Each di In source.GetDirectories()
            td = target.CreateSubdirectory(di.Name)
            CopyDir(di, td, True)
        Next
        Return True
    End Function
End Module

Conclusion

I hope you find this code as useful as I do. It was only tested in Visual Studio 2010, but I think that it should work in previous versions.

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