Yes that is exactly what we have been doing for years.   Our work mail server occasionally fails as we tend to use old workstations as servers.   Each time it has taken just minutes to get Mercury running again by merely copying the last automated backup and starting the program.   There are loads of backup programs you can use, we use Arcserve and make automated copy's to disk on a backup server every night.   You can of course just take the backup copy pop it in a new server share and map the appropriate drive, start the Mercury.exe and away you go running again in moments.

I run Mercury with great success, but now that I am handling mail for a few friends I'm worried about data reliability.  I'd like to make Mercury's user/mail files part of a regular, automated backup regimen.  How can I best back up all the user files and configuration?  Is there a way to stop/close Mercury so the files are unlocked or not in active use during this process?

I'm running Windows Server 2003.

The beauty of a program that is a single folder install with no reg entries. Just backup the mercury & mail folders.

I've never struck issues with locked files and my ongoing backups are always done with the server running.

I would try to avoid backing up mail folder files ( *.PMM, especially large ones) while they are being used, so shut down all Pegasus or IMAP4 clients during your backup (or schedule it for 3am). For new mail files (*.CNM that are being written during the backup, you will either get them or you won't, but it will not cause any problems.

Outstanding. Since I don't run Pegasus on the same machine, nor run IMAP, this should be pretty easy.

Thanks for the info.