Kezyma's Mod Backup Utility

ModBackup is a utility to allow you to easily back up and restore your modded game setups.

I mod a lot of my games and while it can be enjoyable at times, returning to a game after a few years can be a frustrating experience when you find yourself spending days to weeks re-downloading and re-installing the mods you used in the past, followed by inevitable tweaking and troubleshooting before you can even play the game. This is partially mitigated for some games with tools like Mod Organizer that keep most of your mods separate, but this isn't available for every game and certainly isn't a complete solution if you install anything manually.

When you download ModBackup.exe, you should place it in the location where you want to store your backups, it will create a folder next to the exe file on first run that will be used to store all the files it generates. 

This application requires .Net Core 3.1, however I have compiled it as a self-contained application, so installing .Net Core 3.1 shouldn't be required and (hopefully) this app should still run perfectly fine long into the future when .Net Core is obsolete and unavailable. 

It is also worth noting that there is little to no error handling in this application's current state, however there are only a few small areas that could cause problems.
- Permissions, whatever account you run ModBackup as must have permission to read, create and delete files in all the folders you select to backup. If not, scanning will simply freeze and not continue, or, the backup itself will be missing files. When you first take a backup, you can either browse the files inside it or do a test restore to confirm that it's backed up successfully.
- Impatience, backing up can take a long time, if you close the application, try to go back and do something else or it crashes during any process, it's likely that everything it was working on has failed. If this was adding a new game or taking a backup, delete it and run the process again. If it was restoring, re-running the restore should solve the issue.

- Adding a new Game
1. Install your game.
2. (Optional) Run the game once to generate any configuration or settings files.
3. (Optional) Create an empty folder somewhere to store any modding tools that are separate to the game files. e.g. Mod Organizer 2
4. Run ModBackup.exe
5. Click 'Add Game'
6. Type in the name of the Game you are adding.
7. Select the Game folder.
8. (Optional) Select the folder in (My) Documents if there is one for this game.
9. (Optional) Select your modding tools folder if you created one.
10. (Optional) Type a name for any custom folders you need to add and select them. 
11. (Optional) (Un)check the game backup box if you would like to take a backup of the vanilla game files.
12. Click 'Scan Game'

At this point, ModBackup will scan all the folders you have selected and generate a configuration file with details on all the vanilla files. 
If you decided to take a game backup, a zip folder will also be created with all the selected files inside.
Leave the application to complete this process, it can take some time depending on the size of the game.
To add a second game, you must return to the Game List and then click 'Add Game' again, if you try to scan a second game without doing this, it will simply overwrite the first one.

- Updating Game Folders
1. Run ModBackup.exe
2. Select the game that has moved.
3. Click 'Update Game'.
4. Select the new folders.
5. Click 'Save Changes'

This will update the folder locations in the configuration file without re-scanning the game. 

- Taking a backup
1. Run ModBackup.exe
2. Select the game you are modding.
3. Click 'Manage Mods'
4. Type in a name for the new backup
5. Click 'New Backup'

At this point, ModBackup will scan all the folders you originally selected for this game and compare the files with the details stored in the config file. 
Once scanning is complete, it will create a zipped folder with every file that is either different or new as well as a configuration file with details of the backup.
Leave the application to complete this process, it can take some time depending on the size of the game and the number of changes made to it.

- Restoring
1. Run ModBackup.exe
2. Select the game you want to restore.
3. (Optional) If you want to restore a modded game, click 'Manage Mods' and select the backup you want to restore. If you want to restore a vanilla install, skip this step.
4. Click 'Restore Backup'/'Restore Game'
5. (Optional) Select the folder locations for each of the folders in the backup if they are different to those in the config file.
6. (Optional) (Un)check whether you wish to delete all the exiting files first. This is selected by default if you are restoring a vanilla game and not if you are restoring a backup.
7. Click 'Restore'

If you have selected to delete existing files, they will be removed first.
The game or modded install backup will be extracted into the selected folders.
If you are trying to restore a modded install, you must first either install the vanilla game or restore it from a backup before restoring the modded backup as this restore only includes changes to the vanilla game and not those files themselves. 

- Manual Control
After running ModBackup the first time, a folder called Backups will be created alongside it, inside this, you'll find a collection of files based on backups you've taken. These files are;

GAMEGUID_Config.json - These files contain details on a scanned game, including all the files in a vanilla install.
GAMEGUID_Game.zip - These files contain the backup of a vanilla game.
GAMEGUID_BACKUPGUID_Backup.json - These files contain details for a modded game backup.
GAMEGUID_BACKUPGUID_Backup.zip - These files contain the backed up modded files.

To restore a vanilla game, the minimum files required are the _Config.json and _Game.zip files and they must both be present.
To restore a modded game, the minimum files required at the _Config.json, _Backup.json and _Backup.zip files.
If you delete a _Backup.zip file, you must delete the _Backup.json file that goes with it or you will cause problems in the future. 
If you do not need a vanilla game backup, you can delete the _Game.zip file without causing any problems, you just wont be able to restore it.
You can manipulate these files at your own risk.

The only reason I can see to change these files is to add things to a modded backup without re-scanning the entire game. 
Please note, I cannot confirm that this will work for every game, anything that requires registry entries to restore is not supported, It will also not work if you miss any required folders, such as games that generate things in AppData. Always test your backups before you need to rely on them.