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Full backup, but exclude a certain directory

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I am using True Image 9.x. Up to now I have been doing a full backup each time I do a backup of my Laptop. I exit my laptop and boot with the CD. One of my directories is called C:\Data and I back this directory up regularly, not using TrueImage, just regular Explorer. So, I don't really need this directory as part of the True Image backup. The directory is quite big. When doing the backup I have not selected the option labeld files and folders. I was afraid if I did True Image would exclude or not backup something crucial to a full restore. However, someone recently suggested it is possible to do a full backup but also exclude the directory I spoke of. If this is possible it would be a big help as the data directory is rather big. Is this possible? I just want to be sure that in the process of excluding this direcotry that I don't make it impossible to do a full restore.

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Hello Woody,

Thank you for using Acronis Products

If you want to exclude some folder it should be kept in slashes. Here is the example:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Test\

In this example folder Test should be excluded using exclude specified file/folders option.

I have done some tests on an installed version of Acronis True Image Home 2010 v13.0.0.7046 in WinXP Pro SP3. I used "Disk and Partition Backup" to backup my C: partition. I tried to exclude C:\WINDOWS directory with the following exclusions:

C:\WINDOWS\*.*\ --> C:\WINDOWS present as are the files in it's root. Subfolders also present including the files inside them
C:\WINDOWS\*.* --> C:\WINDOWS present including it's subfolders and their files. Files in root of C:\WINDOWS not present (except dotless ones)
C:\WINDOWS\*\ --> C:\WINDOWS present including the files in it's root. Subfolders not present.
C:\WINDOWS\* --> C:\WINDOWS not present
C:\WINDOWS\ --> C:\WINDOWS not present
C:\WINDOWS --> C:\WINDOWS not present

So if you want to keep the directory but just make it empty, you could add two exclusion rules, for example:
C:\WINDOWS\*.*
C:\WINDOWS\*\
This would keep the folder C:\WINDOWS present in the *.tib file but it would be empty (except any dotless files would still be in it's root). Acronis True Image Home 2010 obviously can't handle dotless files if using wildcards.

I will be using this to exclude all the files and folders under D:\Programs\uTorrent\downloads\ without deleting the "downloads" folder itself. :-)