So since I keep tempting fate, what is the state of ISR's?

At least weekly (well maybe every one to two weeks) I'll use XP Home's System Restore. This isn't do to malware problems but to over zealous removal of software or services, etc. On occasion, system restore has not been able to restore, plus from reading these forums I'm aware that FirstDefense-ISR, EAZ-FIX and its clone Rollback RX are more dependable than Windows restore. Since FD-ISR is finished, I'm thinking that is off my table. If the other two are about the same/ is the difference just in the vendors and which is better? Last but not least question, is there another ISR program on the horizon worth waiting for? Thank You for your opinion and have a great 2008, ratchet

 

Just a quick thought... I have never used an ISR and I doubt I will. I rely on imaging from outside of Windows. But that said, run, don't walk to something, anything other than System Restore. As you've discovered, it's not worthless... but it's not very good either.

 

I'm sure Peter and Erik will give you advice on this, but as a user of FD-ISR I can tell you that having a secondary snapshot and an archive of my C drive has saved my bacon more than once. As I speak, I have a problem on my primary snapshot that I can't figure out, so I made a snapshot of my archive and am preparing it to become my primary snapshot, where upon I will update my primary from the new snapshot and as Erik says, "like it never happened". I disabled System restore. I'm sure someone can steer you to a FD-ISR alternative.

 

ratchet,

If the problem is due to overzealous removal of object by yourself or some cleaning applications, you'll obviously need something that survives a restart which currently renders most light virtualization solutions (Returnil, ShadowDefender, PowerShadow) except ShadowUser Pro inappropriate and the current price of ShadowUser Pro ($70) remains somewhat dear unless a good deal emerges.

I personally tend to shy away from EAZ-FIX/Rollback RX since I run a dual boot system and being able to manipulate a Rollback RX installation not under the control of that application is simply asking for trouble. On a single boot system this concern is irrelevant and it's a potentially viable solution

While the full FD-ISR is not available, FD-ISR Rescue is currently available. The criticism of it is that it is a subset of FD-ISR and provides for only a single restore point, but let's face facts - unless you're actively trying to manage multiple different replicas of your system, a single restoration point is all folks generally need. Personally, I still view this as a quite viable solution. It's marketed by the Rollback RX folks (Horizon Data Systems). Whether Leapfrog has a consumer oriented follow-up to FD-ISR in the works remains unknown.

Then there are pure image/cloning solutions in which you keep a snapshot fully offline. This is the most robust approach, but the one which is most likely to not remain fully updated to the most recent "good" configuration.

Blue

 

You have mentioned all of the Alternatives. The NEW FDISR seems to be for rescue only. The old did a myriad of things besides. No one knows why it disappeared but it did. If you actually want to test software I suspect you could install Virtual Box & probably accomplish the same purpose. In fact Virtual Operating Systems might have been the cause of FDisr being reconfigured as a rescue only application. System Restore is close to useless it has worked ocassionally but most of the time I would not use it as I can simply not depend on it. In fact a registry restore application such as ERUNT for all its faults might work better. I am not sure what alternatives to FDISR exist now that Horizon data took over distribution & reissued the program essentially gutting most of the useful features . I have never used rollback or it clones. Some people in this forum have but it seems to have a reputation of not always working. I don't know why. Secondly Rollback seems not to work with servers at this point (including Raid Arrays) This includes Raid 0 which is how my hard drive is set up. Maybe you will need to install an image backup program such as Acronis or Paragon offer & use Virtual box or a similar solution if you want to test software. I suspect all of use will face the problem you are facing in the future when Microsoft issues new a new operating system but by that time maybe there will be another alternative to FDISR.

 

Basically correct, hence the name I suppose.

If it were commercially viable, it would still be here. The implication is that continuing sales did not cover ongoing development and support costs for the consumer level product.

Features were removed and the pricing adjusted accordingly. Pragmatically, from a vendor perspective, fewer features generally means leaner support requirements.

There did appear to be bugs in prior releases. The current release appears to have stabilized that situation.

Actually, if one wishes to jump in with both feet (and wallet...) - Windows Home Server is an alternative.

Blue

 

Thanks Blue, FD-ISR Rescue sounds like what I'm interested in. That is the first time I've ever seen this type pf software for less than like $70.

 

and that's why it has a shot in the mass market. At $39 (see here), it's at a price point where the potential audience is fairly large. The other reason is that the restricted feature set means support needs are unlikely to go through the roof if it succeeds in the mass market.

Blue

 

FD-ISR rescue is great if you want a simple program thats allows you to easily restore a working system. However if you want something a bit more robust that lets you play around with multiple different setups then rollback rx is great.

 

The current version of Rollback cant be faulted in my experience,accurate,reliable,light and fast.

The only catch is that a full defrag cant be carried whilst its active(it cant be turned off)so I used to uninstall RB every so often to do this.

However, full image backup apps. are now so good that I couldnt see much point running both,as a distinct overlap is occuring between these types of apps.

ShadowProtect is now my sole backup app.and as the schedule can be set to take incrementals every 15 minutes,the most data you could lose is this period.

These incrementals typically only take say 10seconds to run and the backups cant be noticed whilst running.

Full backups and restores take about 8 minutes.

Both could be trialled,with FDISR Rescue.

 

So what defrag issues, if any, with FD-ISR Rescue?

 

Dont really know about Rescue-actually its not really an issue with RB,as you can still defrag the snapshots,but not the whole disk.

I think most RB users never worried about this.

 

Well that does it, I'm finally going to take the plunge. I'll run the trial and test it to make sure I like it. I'll admit that up until now cost had played into my decision.

 

Just tried it and all I can kindly say is-you owe it to yourself to try Rollback before commiting.

 

Lack of features and I didnt find it user friendly or well laid out.

There were errors in the copy procedure,without the logs specifying further and only half of the active disk was copied.

 

Should be but other new customers seem to be experiencing problems not seen in original versions of the complete FD-ISR before it was tampered with from another distributors policy to make those changes.

But regarding authentic early versions from Leapfrog, all what is mentioned is very accurate.

 

Allow me to rephrase that for better clarity as concern my expression of the term issues. I was using the term issue but instead maybe should emphasize that issue translates to limitation in this regard, as in it is a stripped-down version of it's former feature-rich glory.

But also this:

 

As an alternative why not look at Imaging programs ( Acronis, Paragon, ShadowProtect... they are many to choose from) ? ISR programs offer options and flexibility but they can and do fail - an image that can be restored in minutes may be of use.

 

Easter,

In all fairness,I think the copying problems with Rescue could have been caused by a conflict with Shadow Protect,as both were running strangely.

 

I have to admit one thing. Viewing the gazillion screenshots on the Horizon DataSys site does indeed, make FD-ISR Rescue appear not to be very user friendly. I was assuming you created a restore point and that was it. As far as not imaging non essential files and folders, I really don't have a lot of documents, photos, music, etc. so I wouldn't even have to worry about doing that. I've only used 12.65 GB of 74.5 GB so I have a lot of free space for the image. Just how complicated is the task (and of course the restore)?