Backing Up / Restoring entire Eclipse workspace

Question

I got into this learning the Android Operating System. I'm still in learning mode. Along with learning Android, Seems I'm getting a bit of a refresh on Java, and because most of the examples I find expect you to use Eclipse... well I guess I'm also learning Eclipse (This is a good thing, I'm not complaining)... This question is primarily about Eclipse, and how to perform a rudimentary save of my current state.

I'm running without a Version Control system. Something I will fix once I have a good feel for where I'm going, what I want, and what I need it to do, so for the moment, I'm just looking for some advice on how to save (perhaps quite crudely) my current state of affairs, and be able to restore to that point if I manage to mess up my world.

Question 1:
If I just copy my entire workspace to a different location (CD Rom?). and then perform tasks / experiments - on the original workspace (Create new projects, create project from existing sources, deleting projects.... all in the saved workspace) and really manage to trash the workspace, or maybe I just want to go back to my saved point, and try the same things in a different manner.... Will exiting Eclipse, deleting the modified workspace recreating the workspace at the same location, from the CD Rom, and maybe running "Clean All Projects" - safely put me back to my origin saved point?

Question 2:
If not. What do I need to do, to accomplish something morally enlivenment to this?

Perhaps this is already answered in some web documentation I haven't found. Pointers to a couple of well written web pages may be all I need?

Thanks for any advice Joe

Answer 1

You don't even have to delete your workspace. In one of the menus there should be an option like "Change Workspace". I believe this will accomplish what you want. Just change your workspace to the backup.

Answer 2

Eclipse saves almost everything into the workspace so backing that up is sufficient in most cases. The only other instance I have encountered is installed plugins which are saved under the eclipse folder.

Be sure you backup "hidden" files as .settings is hidden on some OSes.