Drup.org

To backup windows using rdiff-backup to another computer, four sub-systems need to be configured:

1. Install cygwin (including rdiff-backup) on the windows machine
2. Configure and test rdiff-backup across ssh using manual passwords
3. Configure public key authentication for passwords
4. Configure scheduled tasks to run the process automatically

1. Install cygwin

Just follow the instructions on http://cygwin.org and remember to include rdiff-backup (and rsync if you need it)

2. Configure and test rdiff-backup

Here is my script:
rdiff-backup /cygdrive/c/Common jordan-backup::/backup/stillwater/Common
rdiff-backup /cygdrive/c/Users\ Shared\ Folders jordan-backup::/backup/stillwater/UsersSharedFolders
rdiff-backup --exclude-globbing-filelist sw-exclude.txt /cygdrive/c jordan-backup::/backup/stillwater/c
This assumes that there is an "exclude" file in the same directory in which the program is run from. See at the end for mine. I also wanted to do a database dump into a directory that would be backed up. Here is my dump command:
'/cygdrive/c/Program Files/MySQL/MySQL Server 5.0/bin/mysqldump.exe' -u xxxx -p --compress --add-drop-table --extended-insert -A > /cygdrive/c/Common/MySQLBackup/stillwater.sql

3. Configure public key authentication

An excellent tutorial for this is available on: http://arctic.org/~dean/rdiff-backup/unattended.html
(A cached version is available here.)

4. Configure scheduled tasks

Create a file called daily-backup.bat (the --login creates path and environment variables):
C:\cygwin\bin\bash --login \common\scripts\rdiff.sh
Create a file called rdiff.sh (which must have unix line endings):
#!/bin/bash
rdiff-backup commands... (as tested above)

sw-exclude.txt

/cygdrive/c/backup
/cygdrive/c/Common
/cygdrive/c/Users?Shared?Folders
/cygdrive/c/download
/cygdrive/c/TEMP
/cygdrive/c/pagefile.sys
/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32/config
/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32/wins
ignorecase:/cygdrive/c/**ntuser.dat
ignorecase:/cygdrive/c/**UsrClass.dat
ignorecase:/cygdrive/c/**/*.dat.log
/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Exchsrvr
/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Microsoft?SQL?Server
/cygdrive/c/System?Volume?Information
/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/NTDS
/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/ntfrs
/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/Debug
/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/SoftwareDistribution/EventCache
/cygdrive/c/**/*webpam.lck