What's new in released version 3677 ?

[pierrelambert]

Hi,

what bugs are fixed / new features in this version ?
To Menorcaman > fire away !

thx

[foghorne]

Let me guess ......


GUI fixes,
Better hardware support

:-)

F

[Xpilot]

Well foghorne your guess was 100% correct!
Will Acronis ever get off their collective backsides and give us some useful and factual information about the latest builds? I happen to be blessed with a fast DSL connection, but even so why should I take time out to download and install a build which may or may not address any issues that I may have with the build that I am using? I think this cavalier way of treating paying customers is almost beyond belief. As far as dial up customers are concerned, are they really expected to spend considerable connection charges to download something that may not be of any use to them at all?
I actually love the product, there is nothing to beat it IMHO but for goodness sake Acronis treat your customers like adults and tell them what the new builds ACTUALLY DO.

Xpilot

[djmorgan]

Scheduler edit function has been fixed.

[starsfan09]

Originally Posted by Xpilot

...I happen to be blessed with a fast DSL connection, but even so why should I take time out to download and install a build which may or may not address any issues that I may have with the build that I am using? I think this cavalier way of treating paying customers is almost beyond belief. As far as dial up customers are concerned, are they really expected to spend considerable connection charges to download something that may not be of any use to them at all?

Sorry about the folks that have Dial-up, and having to download the FULL 3677 update (75mg). I know it's slow, and takes a long time, but however, I really don't want the file size to change just to accomadate Dial up. I have programs that make you download Small updates to install on top of the full version you paid for. I never did like doing that.

I LOVE Acronis just the way it is. I'd rather download a whole complete Fresh install of v3677,....than download a small file to install over v3666 any day.

Originally Posted by Xpilot

I actually love the product, there is nothing to beat it IMHO but for goodness sake Acronis treat your customers like adults and tell them what the new builds ACTUALLY DO.

Xpilot

Yep!! I'd like to know what was changed in advance.

[jelenko]

Originally Posted by djmorgan

Scheduler edit function has been fixed.

OK, what does that mean? What was fixed?

[simusphere]

It means before the new build (3666) you couldn't edit a schedueld task. You had to delete it and start over. Now (3677) it works like it should and you can just edit the old task as required and you won't get the error you used to get. This is a relatively minor fix what would be nice is to get the DVD direct burn to spaned volumes to work. Now that would be worth something.

[pvsurfer]

I was hoping they finally fixed the problems creating/restoring DVDs! But I guess that's too much to ask.

[shieber]

No it was worse than that in 3666. Even if you created a new image-task. YOu could not edit that task after creating it. You could only edit file-and-folder tasks in 3666.

Originally Posted by simusphere

It means before the new build (3666) you couldn't edit a schedueld task. You had to delete it and start over. Now (3677) it works like it should and you can just edit the old task as required and you won't get the error you used to get. This is a relatively minor fix what would be nice is to get the DVD direct burn to spaned volumes to work. Now that would be worth something.

[bigliam1970]

Originally Posted by pvsurfer

I was hoping they finally fixed the problems creating/restoring DVDs! But I guess that's too much to ask.

I just posted a query regarding problems I am having backing up to DVD, does anyone care to enlighten me as to the problems quoted above? Is this a known problem within ATI 9 home?

I sure hope not cos I'd have thought that backing up to DVD would have been a integrated part of any backup application.

[starsfan09]

Originally Posted by bigliam1970

....I sure hope not cos I'd have thought that backing up to DVD would have been a integrated part of any backup application.

I used to think the same thing! I'd burn a lot backups to DVD's with another program, and before I knew it...I had a stack of them to throw away. Since discovering Acronis, I now make the backups straight to a USB External HD. It's much better than the DVD's. You won't believe the difference!!
But however, I understand some people want to do the DVD's. Acronis is just now adjusting the software to accomodate the DVD Burning. They've had a few bugs with it in a couple of versions now, but they may have it fixed with this new version (3677). Don't know yet.

[bigliam1970]

Originally Posted by starsfan09

I used to think the same thing! I'd burn a lot backups to DVD's with another program, and before I knew it...I had a stack of them to throw away. Since discovering Acronis, I now make the backups straight to a USB External HD. It's much better than the DVD's. You won't believe the difference!!
But however, I understand some people want to do the DVD's. Acronis is just now adjusting the software to accomodate the DVD Burning. They've had a few bugs with it in a couple of versions now, but they may have it fixed with this new version (3677). Don't know yet.

OK, that would make sense as to why I have a stack of useless DVD's too.

TBH, I am losing faith in Acronis software very rapidly as a combination of True Image and Disk Director have already put me in a position where I have had to format and reinstall my OS from scratch, it seems that Disk Director can't manage to move the Acronis Safe Zone on my HD without corrupting it and making it unrecoverable. No backup, no chance of recovery.

Needless to say I uninstalled Disk Director immediately.

And now I find that ATI will not back up to DVD's? How ridiculous that a software company releases a backup application that doesn't support DVD removable media.

I am also concerned about the amount of 'Please be sure to download the latest version of True Image' responses from the tech support team. It seems that the average download for updates is approx 75 megs. I really can't be bothered with that.

[ErikAlbert]

I also downloaded build 3677 from my personal account, where you also can read the improvents of each build you ever downloaded.

I don't use DVD/CD's to backup my HARDDISKS. If you want a reliable backup use a similar backup medium, like internal/external harddisks : disk to disk.
Use DVD/CD's to store music, movies, photos, ...

[bigc73542]

Originally Posted by bigliam1970

OK, that would make sense as to why I have a stack of useless DVD's too.

TBH, I am losing faith in Acronis software very rapidly as a combination of True Image and Disk Director have already put me in a position where I have had to format and reinstall my OS from scratch, it seems that Disk Director can't manage to move the Acronis Safe Zone on my HD without corrupting it and making it unrecoverable. No backup, no chance of recovery.

Needless to say I uninstalled Disk Director immediately.

And now I find that ATI will not back up to DVD's? How ridiculous that a software company releases a backup application that doesn't support DVD removable media.

I am also concerned about the amount of 'Please be sure to download the latest version of True Image' responses from the tech support team. It seems that the average download for updates is approx 75 megs. I really can't be bothered with that.

ATI will backup to DVD I have done it several times and it works just fine in VER. 3666

bigc

[starsfan09]

Originally Posted by bigliam1970

OK, that would make sense as to why I have a stack of useless DVD's too.

TBH, I am losing faith in Acronis software very rapidly as a combination of True Image and Disk Director have already put me in a position where I have had to format and reinstall my OS from scratch, it seems that Disk Director can't manage to move the Acronis Safe Zone on my HD without corrupting it and making it unrecoverable. No backup, no chance of recovery.

Needless to say I uninstalled Disk Director immediately.

And now I find that ATI will not back up to DVD's? How ridiculous that a software company releases a backup application that doesn't support DVD removable media.

I am also concerned about the amount of 'Please be sure to download the latest version of True Image' responses from the tech support team. It seems that the average download for updates is approx 75 megs. I really can't be bothered with that.

Actually, Reinstalling XP is a great thing. I know it gives some bad nightmares, but I love doing it. It gives me a change to update the whole system, and I love a smooth running machine!

No one said Acronis couldn't burn to DVD. It will burn to DVD, but the problem I think lies within the burning plug-in that may burn to fast. You can take the DVD Acronis made, and copy that very same .TIB file over to another DVD using a 3rd party software (Nero, Sonic, and etc) at slower speeds, and it will work great. But I'm contacting them to give my conclusions on this DVD thing. With v3666, I got some DVD's to read, and others didn't. But I have NOT tried v3677. It may work.
I'm not to concerned about it much anymore since I've found a better way. USB External!

I know some may hate to download a 75mg update, but think of this way....at least you get a complete FULL install ...without having to install a small file over top of the original installation. I have programs that do this, and it hate'em!! I'd rather install a fresh --New FULL update any day ...than over-write existing files with an update. Besides, Acronis puts about 85mg on the computer. I don't think it would be a good idea to just run an update over top all that.

[bigliam1970]

Originally Posted by ErikAlbert

I don't use DVD/CD's to backup my HARDDISKS. If you want a reliable backup use a similar backup medium, like internal/external harddisks : disk to disk.
Use DVD/CD's to store music, movies, photos, ...

ErikAlbert, thanks for your reply, however, to quote the Acronis built-in Help:

'The farther you store the archive from the original folders, the safer it will be in case of data damage. For example, saving the archive to another hard disk will protect your data if the primary disk is damaged. Data saved to a network disk or removable media will survive even if all your local hard disks are down'

The whole point of me buying True Image was because I was told I can burn rescue media onto DVD. I should not be expected to then go and spend a hundred and something euros on a USB HDD.

As for enjoying re-installing XP? Sorry StarsFan, thats not me. My original post detailed that the disks ATI creates are unreadable anyway so I wouldn't be able to burn them again in the way you advise. An ATI archive that is created as soon as the XP installation is finished should be the same as reinstalling XP from scratch, which brings me back to my original reason for posting.

I am going to try version 3666 and see if it works as recomended by Big C and post back.

[ErikAlbert]

Originally Posted by bigliam1970

'The farther you store the archive from the original folders, the safer it will be in case of data damage. For example, saving the archive to another hard disk will protect your data if the primary disk is damaged. Data saved to a network disk or removable media will survive even if all your local hard disks are down'

The whole point of me buying True Image was because I was told I can burn rescue media onto DVD. I should not be expected to then go and spend a hundred and something euros on a USB HDD.

There are also removable harddisks, which you can insert in your computer case, just like DVD/CD's.

[bigliam1970]

Originally Posted by ErikAlbert

There are also removable harddisks, which you can insert in your computer case, just like DVD/CD's.

I think your missing the point ErikAlbert, I don't want to buy any HDD, removable or otherwaise when ATI clearly states it can burn to DVD's.

I'm going to try 3666 and see if there's any difference.

Thanks for your replies so far guys..

Big Liam

[seekforever]

Originally Posted by bigliam1970

I think your missing the point ErikAlbert, I don't want to buy any HDD, removable or otherwaise when ATI clearly states it can burn to DVD's.

I'm going to try 3666 and see if there's any difference.

Thanks for your replies so far guys..

Big Liam

You are correct in wanting TI to create your backup on DVDs as advertized - it is supposed to work.

The reality is that even if you have a backup on DVD it is a slow, pain in-your-anatomy to do a validate and restore. Having to restore once in every few years when your disk crashes is no problem but if you do backup/restores for testing on a frequent basis it is terrible.

IMO, the best way is to backup to another partition, ideally on a different HD, and then burn the resulting file(s) to DVD using your favorite burning program. You have total control of the burning speed and you can use the burning software's "verify after burning" feature. This is the 2-step process and is favored by many and it works with every version of TI.

You now have a reliable image you can put away as a second backup and you can quickly use the one on the HD whenever necessary.

[starsfan09]

Yep, this "Two Step" is the best way to get the DVD option to work. After going through about 14 last week, I finally realized that. But I'm so convinced this DVD burn problem is a very simple fix, ..but yet, I wonder why they haven't found it yet. I'm sure it's the Acronis direct burn plug-in, or it's burning to fast to the DVDs.

[simusphere]

seek & stars, I'm with you on the DVD burning. The only thing I really use it for though is to make one really good backup of my main system disk when not too many programs are loaded and hence it fits on just one DVD. This way I never have to reinstall from scratch should something get out of control with my current images. Everything else is done to USB drive or network share.

[bigliam1970]

looks like I opened a can of worms there guys huh...

Thanks to all posters so far, seems like this DVD thing is a concern to many poeple and not just me.

It would be interesting to see if Acronis Tech Support will reply to this. They seem to have been tight lipped so far.

[Xpilot]

Originally Posted by ErikAlbert

There are also removable harddisks, which you can insert in your computer case, just like DVD/CD's.

I have recently changed to removable hard disks. These combined with a fixed slave drive give one the best backup system ever. It is faster than any other. No need to run validations as a backup can be Proved after its creation. No need to clone. Recovery from a real disaster just takes the time to reboot to the backup hard drive.
I was using USB2 drives, now they are no longer necessary.


Xpilot

[pvsurfer]

Originally Posted by bigliam1970

I just posted a query regarding problems I am having backing up to DVD, does anyone care to enlighten me as to the problems quoted above? Is this a known problem within ATI 9 home?

I sure hope not cos I'd have thought that backing up to DVD would have been a integrated part of any backup application.

Before addressing this I just want to say something about backing up to DVD. Some here have suggested that an external (or removable hard drive) is far more preferable... Sure it is, but keep in mind that some of us use a laptop (with a built-in DVD burner) and when 'on the road' it's very difficult to lug an external drive in addition to the laptop! Yet when on the road, I still consider it important to backup... The bottom-line is that with a desktop, backup to DVD is far from ideal, but with a laptop, it is sometimes 'the only game in town'!

That said, I just installed the latest TI9 build on my laptop and decided to (again) test creating/restoring a backup of my laptop's HDD directly to DVD. I did this at my home where I could first backup to an external HDD, just in case.

After a successful backup to my external HDD, I started creating a disk-image directly to DVDs (as it turned out, 3 DVD-Rs). It worked properly, although it went extemely slow (each of the 3 DVDs took about 45 minutes). But I guess that's understandable, so I was somewhat satisfied at this point. However, the restore process was another matter... It took about 12 disk-swaps to just get the actual restore going! Once the restore was underway, each of my 3 DVDs took about 40 minutes to complete.

Well, the good news is that the latest TI build produced a successful restore from DVD, but all of that DVD swapping madness added an additional hour (and lots of frustration!) to what is already a very long process... I've read Acronis' explaination for this, but imho it all boils down to an inefficiently designed DVD backup program!

[simusphere]

That is precisly why I still use the two step method for creation and recovery of DVD backups. Works every time and no sensless DVD swapping.