Rollback RX v10.x (Home & Professional)

...and another thing

Eaz-Fix doesn't seem to sell to commercial end users like ourselves, they do corporate and overseas sales, primarily. Rollback RX sells to individual users and its product release levels seem to be the earliest of the two vendors (sometimes not such a good thing ).

Another thing to mention... Rollback RX (also Eaz) has, in the past, been upended by certain Microsoft updates, blown out of the water as they say (made unBOOTable with loss of snapshots). In the pre-W10 days, HDS (Horizon DataSys) had their users TURN OFF those automatic updates until HDS cleared those updates for installation. With the advent of W10 HOME, this "supported" capability of stopping MicroSloth updates has been removed from the OS (there are claims that unsupported patches are available for the OS to assist the user in these endeavors) and as a result, the original risk of losing your system due to certain updates is now back, and with a vengence. The November 2015 major W10 update killed many Rollback RX-based systems following the update... some survived, it all depends on your system configuration (UEFI-GPT vs BiOS-MBR, MicroSloth SYSTEM RESERVED PARTITION, Microsoft RECOVERY PARTITION, etc.).

 

For instance, in relation to vulnerable System configurations above... to make yours as bulletproof as possible against MS update explosions while running RBrx, I would suggest the following...

Insure that your System SETUP (in the BiOS mgmt) is set to Legacy-MBR mode (can only be done with SECURE BOOT turned OFF)... no UEFI. This is fine if you don't need more than four PRIMARY partitions on any single drive.

Using your favorite partition mgmt tool (I use MiniTool's Partition Wizard) delete all partitions from your 500gB HDD (which should make it an MBR-based HDD), pre-partition the disk the way you want it (sounds like a single partition of 500gB to start with).

Now that it has a partition and is an MBR-based disk, do your CLEAN INSTALL of W10 to that partition you've already created on your HDD. When you do this, the installation WILL NOT create a Windows SRP (System Reserverd Partition), the installation WILL NOT create a Windows RECOVERY PARTITION and WILL NOT create an EFI System partition required for UEFI BOOTing. This type of System configuration is the easiest to manage in the long run. With this config, MicroSloth, rather than use a separate partition for RECOVERY work, places all the recovery requirements into your main Windows C: partition, which you are nicely already imaging for protection purposes. This is the area that has blown up previous RBrx configs.

Of course if you feel you need to have SECURE BOOT enabled (there are lots of levels of paranoia out there ), or you feel you need more than four PARIMARY partitions on your HDD (there are 3rd party solutions available to circumvent this restriction in MBR-based HDDs), UEFI is a requirement and the above will most likely have to go by the wayside...

 

Odd.. Years ago, I bought my license for RX actually on Eaz-Fix v9.x and it worked on Rollback RX.
(It was back then cheaper to buy eaz-fix license than RX license, and i asked the support if it worked on RX,and it did, same registration scheme..)
Why? (well froggie knows this anyways..)
They're the same software, as Froggie said, they're just targeted on different audiences under different brand names.
Both software are (about) the same and originate from the same developer.

 

Eaz-Fix was just rebranded RRX. I also bought Eaz-Fix back in the day. It seemed to always be a version behind RRX. Maybe their intention was not to push the update to Eaz-Fix until the users tested RRX.

 

I've changed my mind about Rollback!

Back in 2009 I purchased a copy of Rollback Pro_v9.0. My favorite app, GoBack, had
been abandoned and Rollback seemed like the perfect substitute. It was a disaster!

I posted many times on the Horizon DataSys Forums and went through that awful
"ticket" process trying to fix all the problems. Nothing helped and I didn't ask for
a refund.

I've got dozens of partial and full image backups. I could delete the entire Registry
and restore the system in less than 10 minutes. I decided to try the latest version
of Rollback Pro on a speedy RAID 0 desktop. I'm very impressed! So far, it's working
perfectly!

Just one important question.

I know Rollback must be uninstalled to make reliable image backups. I've got two of
the better known install monitoring apps. Advanced Uninstaller and Revo Uninstaller.
These apps track everything. When it's time to uninstall they remove all the files and
related Registry entries.

Should I use the uninstaller packaged with Rollback, or strip out everything with Advanced
or Revo Uninstaller? After creating a new image backup I'll immediately reinstall Rollback,
so it seems like the basic Windows uninstaller is the better choice.

 

Rollback's installation is unique and installation monitors do not work well at all with Rollback. Most of its ground level installation is done outside of the ability of the monitor to see what it's doing.

My best advice would be to use the Rollback uninstaller to remove it, and when it's done, whether it asks you or not to do so, make sure you reBOOT/RESTART your system to eliminate a driver it installs during its unmonitored process... that's the only way to bring the OS' TRIM function alive once again.

Other than that, the process should be painless.

 

I forgot that Rollback is very different from all other apps. Thank you for reminding me,
TheRollbackFrog. You're 100% correct about install monitoring. There is no way these
apps could keep an accurate log of a Rollback install.

I would never have tried Rollback again without a zillion reliable backups. I'm happy
the latest version is working fine, but if it blows up I can always restore the system.

 

LL, there's something you should know as you move forward with the current version of Rollback v10. If you did LIVE imaging under v9, Rollback would allow you to image your CURRENT SYSTEM STATE and would give you the original MBR it replaced when it installed itself. This would allow you to restore a BOOTable current system state and only Rollback itself would be neutered, requiring uninstallation followed by reinstallation to make Rollback operational once again.

V10 DOES NOT do things that way. It allows you to image your current system state but provides you with the funky Rollback MBR instead of a standard Windows MBR. This, basically, makes the restored image unBOOTable (a Rollback MBR with no Rollback sub-system or available snapshots). At this state you must use some sort of external process to rewrite the MBR with a standard configuration before the system will be BOOTable.

If you're doing COLD imaging from an external OS (WinPE, WinRE, Linux, etc), you need to image ALL SECTORS (used and unused) to get your complete system back... if you're only imaging used sectors all you'll get back is your original (or re-baselined) Rollback snapshot and it will not be BOOTable either.

Please keep the above in mind as you move forward...

 

Just to make sure I will do things right, if something goes wrong while Rollback RX is installed and I have a AOMEI Backupper Pro bootable disk, I just have to fix MBR to be able to successfully boot from the bootable disk, right?

Also, is Rollback RX not effective against malware/ransomware that touches the MBR? Is it useless, then, against these types of attacks?

 

I'm not quite sure of the question you're asking. "Fixing" an MBR is not required to BOOT from an already BOOTable Recovery Media created by AOMEI, but it is required if you want to BOOT successfully from an image restored by that Recovery Media. This is true if the image was created either under your LIVE Windows system or by an external Recovery Media (used sectors only). Please be aware that if the used sector only image was taken under a Recovery Media, following restoration and follow-up MBR repair, the system will be at your Rollback installation Baseline, not your current System state. If that same image was taken under your LIVE Windows system, following restoration and follow-up MBR repair, your System will BOOT to the last System state prior to your image. In both of the above cases, no snapshots will be available and Rollback will need to be uninstalled and re-installed on your restored system for continued use.

If the image taken was taken via AOMEI's Recovery Media and ALL SECTORS (used and unused) were imaged, that image may be restored successfully without any additional issues and Rollback and its snapshots will be in place for use.

Under a Rollback protected system, Rollback does not allow any process to modify its active MBR. If the MBR was modified from outside of that LIVE protected system, Rollback and its snapshots will be toast.

 

Thanks for that!
hahaha... I realized just now that my first question was confusing because of "fix MBR" along with using bootable disk. This is what I meant (your answer): "it is required if you want to BOOT successfully from an image restored by that Recovery Media".

 

"Danger, DANGER Will Robinson!!!"

Please see below titled post over in the Horizon DataSys Forums...

Big corruption issues with latest Rollback v10.4.2701484045 - DONT USE

 

I keep System Restore, Defrag & Fast Startup disabled & Windows Updates to Notify. And Rollback Rx Pro excluded in Eset Smart Security.

I am running this latest version on Win 10 Pro 64 from 3-4 days & have done 7-8 restore & all were successful & fine.

I checked the system now with chkdsk & no probs here. I had done clean install of this version i.e removed previous version & installed this version.

Should I or not uninstall the latest Rollback Rx & install the previous version back?

 

Yesnoo, I cannot advise you either way. Whether this is a 1-time user problem (Carfal is a VERY knowledgeable user) or something that develops over a few snaps, I have no idea.

I, personally, would step back a release and wait until I heard something definitive from HDS on this issue. If you have really good system backup, maybe it doesn't matter how you process this latest report, but if you don't, I would at least step back a release and wait for additional information.

 

I think will keep the latest version & see if face the probs or not.

 

How to manually defrag with Rollback Rx?

Should I select the latest snapshot & defrag?

And if I delete snapshots...I should still perform Rollback Rx defrag?

And does creating a new baseline Rollback Rx automatically defrags or not? Coz after creating new baseline if I analyze with Windows defrag it mention % fragmented.

Can over install be done for upgrade?

And Rollback Rx forum...they have given a clear for the last week Windows 10 Updates release.

 

If defragging using RBrx, you might as well select all your snaps and defrag them. If you plan to DELETE any snaps, do that 1st before you run the defrag. At this point not much will have been done until a system reBOOT occurs... that's when it all really happens.

Creating a new baseline does nothing in that area, but if you plan to do that, you might as well uninstall RBrx, reBOOT your system (required even if RBrx says it's not needed) and do some real defragging (if not an SSD), imaging and TRIM optimization (if it is an SSD)... then re-install RBrx.

I would NOT overinstall a RBrx upgrade (I'm not sure you can even do this successfully) no mattter what the advice may be. Even if it worked, snaps would be gone and only a baseline would exist.

 

So delete the snapshots & select all the remaining snapshots & defrag, right?

And defrag is still required after Rollback Rx uninstall too?

You cannot delete baseline, right?

 

Yes on the first count.

The defrag after the RBrx uninstall is of a different type... that's a real HDD defragmentation process. The "derfrag" under RBrx is a totally different type of operation, not even close to a real HDD disk defragmentation process... the two are very different.

...and no, an Installation snapshot cannot be deleted under RBrx.

 

You can overinstall over a previous version now, HDS introduced this feature maybe a year ago. But it first uninstalls the previous version to the current state, then installs the new one. So it is not much more than a shortcut saving the user a couple of clicks and 1 reboot...

Cheers
manolito

 

Mab, I would normally wholeheartedly agree with you, but since that "RickFromPhila" incident exactly 2-yrs ago I have urged users not to do that. It was during that exact procedure (the new "upgrade" not requiring a previous uninstall) that the program blew up and fired off a ChkDsk outside of RBrx's purview and scrambled his system... it turned out to be absolutely unrecoverable after that.

I guess I just always try and stay on the cautious side... a few extra <click>s never hurt anyone.

 

Just clean installed the latest version; no issues so far.

 

newest version installed here. No problems

 

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Hey Guys,
I'm new to this website and thread but it seemed to be the only website with continuing dicussions about Rollback. Needless to say I got screwed by Rollback. I use a Macbook pro and was using the Windows 10 OS that I partioned on the computer. I decided to download Rollback a while ago and today decided I had no use for it and uninstalled it. I selected my restore point and when I did and restarted the computer, the Rollback Rx PC logo appears in the top left corner of the screen. It appears to load while it shows the press home key for system recovery and once finished loading freezes on the logo. I've tried pretty much everything and would rather not wipe my harddrive, but I will if I have to. Just wanted to see if there was any hope.
Thanks guys.