>any help?
Sorry not really any help from me. It is just too difficult to try to explain
in typed words. If you are wanting the subforums that are hidden unless logged
in, you will need to be logged in via httrack to get those. You would need to
exclude the logout link so that httrack doesn't logout during the mirroring
process.

Some things you don't need: the typical register, quote, reply, report, new
thread, send private message, etc. forum links you don't need so it would be
best to set up exclude rules for those type links so that time is not spent on
mirroring unnecessary things. The member's profile links you might want to
exclude, too.

If you have posted on the forum there is probably an edit link, and possibly a
delete link under those post you made, and you would want to set up exclude
rules so that those type links are not mirrored by httrack.

Above are just some of the things to look for that can be excluded from being
mirrored to save time. If there is a print view link used on the forum you
have to decide if you really need the print view of thread pages, or if those
print view links are to be excluded. If the forum uses thread and flat view
for threads, do you really need both views.

Then you need to set up rules if necessary to make sure that the things that
you do want are being mirrored.

Since you write that it is an active forum then people might be posting new
threads while the mirroring is taking place. This isn't a big problem
necessarily but it can shift the threads listed on the subforum index pages
forward while the mirroring is taking place.

There are many ways of mirroring a forum and different strategies can be used
depending on the forum itself. Forums can be mirrored all at once, or the
forum's subforums can be mirrored one at a time, instead of trying to mirror
the whole forum at once.

I have mirrored several forums over the years and the knowledge only came by
me using trial and error experience. I have also mirrored a few of those
forums while logged into them but I prefer to mirror while logged out. But I
had used winhttrack to mirror typical websites before I even thought of
mirroring the first forum I did.

Keep in mind that if the forum you are wanting to mirror is real large, you
could annoy the forum administrators by using a lot of their bandwidth.

Good luck, sorry I can't be of real help to you.