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WinHTTrack

WinHTTrack is used to copy a Web site from the World Wide Web to your computer. It is useful for Web designers or if you fear a useful Web site may be taken down.

After installing the program you'll be greeted with an info window with a language to choose. Make sure English is chosen then press OK. When asked about a proxy, remove check mark from Use proxy for FTP transfers then press the OK button.

  1. At the welcome screen, press the Next button.
  2. In Project name, type in any name you'd like. I usually just name the project after the Web site I'm downloading (e.g. Computer_Voodoo).
  3. Leave Project Category empty. You might use this if you're downloading many Web sites on a regular basis.
  4. The Base Path is where you'd like to save the Web site's files to. The default in Windows XP is C:\My Web Sites\. Press the ... button to choose a different directory.
  5. Press the Next button to move to the next step.
  6. Now you'll enter the URL (a.k.a the Web site address) of the Web site you want to download. You can type it in directly in the Web Addresses: (URL) box. Make sure to include the http:// first (e.g. http://www.computervoodoo.biz/).
  7. Press the Next button. There should be no need to change Preferences and mirror options from their default settings.
  8. The radio button for Please adjust connection parameters... should be chosen already. When you're ready to start downloading press Finish.
  9. The program will now scan and download files from the web site. Wait for it to finish.
  10. When done you'll be presented with the finish screen. You can check the log file by clicking View error log or start viewing the locally saved copy of the Web site by clicking Browse Mirrored Site. If you're completely done with the program press the Finish button and press Exit to close the program window.

If you want to view the Web site later you can use Windows Explorer to navigate to C:\My Web Sites (or whatever you set the base path to in step 4). You'll see folders labeled by project name (step 2). Open one of the project folders then open the index.html file. Your default Web browser will open the copy of the site being stored on your computer.