I use Genie backup manager for the job. It makes things so very simple. I use Genie because it's the only backup software I've managed to find that allows the user to include registry keys in the backup jobs.
Use Genie to create the task, schedule it to run automatically (set it and forget it) and restore when needed in a couple of clicks (without loss of any blood
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So, my Genie MC backup job includes:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiverthis covers, amongst other things, all settings made in 'options'
rename from props saved templates
display bar customisations
navigational favourites
C:\Documents and Settings\<...>\Application Data\J River\Media Center 11 (library backup zip files excluded)
this covers the library itself plus the thumbnails and coverart
MC's installation directoryfrom here, I include the mega and mini skins folders and the visualisation folder.
MC's installation\data directoryfrom here, I include the custom art and custom rescource folders and a folder called 'screengrabs' that contains video thumbnails. (screengrabs may not be needed any longer.)
with all of this backed up automatically every night, I'm reasonably confident that every corner of my MC experience is covered. the only exception is the plugins. I found that after a fresh install, the plugins really needed to be installed properly themselves. backing up and then restoring produced some odd results! anyway, it's a good excuse to check for any updates to the plugins.
After a fresh install, (and with MC closed, of course) Genie can put all of this back where it came from in a matter of seconds, which is nice
especially if you've spent some considerable time customising your copy of MC.
Personally, I would dearly love for MC to offer up its own "installation" backup system that would take care of this task for us, but untill then, the above works fine for me.