Taking a backup of the CICS Explorer workspace

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Before you upgrade to a new release of CICS Explorer®, it is advisable to back up your CICS Explorer workspace so that you can restore the workspace to a previous version, if required.

About this task

For some releases, when you upgrade to a new release of CICS Explorer, data stored in your existing workspaces is automatically migrated to the new data format when you use those workspaces with the new release. The workspaces will no longer work with previous releases of CICS Explorer.

Therefore, it is recommended that you backup your workspace before the upgrade. If you need to work with a previous release of CICS Explorer, you must back up your existing workspace before the upgrade. An example of this requirement is when you want to test a new release, but continue to work with the previous release.

By default, the workspace directory of CICS Explorer for Aqua is called .zosexplorer and is located in your local user directory. CICS Explorer on Eclipse Marketplace uses the workspace of the Eclipse it is installed into.

To back up your CICS Explorer workspace, including the connection definitions, use the following procedure.

Procedure

  1. Close CICS Explorer to ensure that your current workspace is saved.
  2. Copy the workspace folder (for example, the .zosexplorer folder) in your CICS Explorer workspace location to another folder, or compress it into an archive folder.
    The location of the workspace folder depends on your operating system and whether you have set your own CICS Explorer workspace location. Typical locations are as follows:
    Windows XP:
    Documents and Settings\$USER\
    Windows 7:
    \Users\$USER\
    Windows 10:
    \Users\$USER\
    Linux®:
    /home/$username/
    macOS:
    /Users/user_name/
  3. Upgrade CICS Explorer as normal.

What to do next

To revert to the previous workspace with the previous release of CICS Explorer, replace the workspace folder with the backup copy that you made.