Macrium Reflect

That was also my impression, but my experience with ATI was frought with restoring issues!
Certainly, fast backups/restores is a very nice feature, but RELIABILITY is paramount.

 

Yes, I initially had quite some issues with Acronis restoring to a UEFI/secure boot system, which resulted in failure to boot OS upon restore. Acronis also has issues when backing up a EXT4 partition installed under UEFI/secure boot environment - it can not identify the used sectors vs unused sectors so it tries to image all sectors which is very stupid. Drive Snapshot initially had the same issue with EXT4 but they fixed it within a couple of days once I reported the bug to them. Acronis doesn't appear to bother.

 

In my case I have created Full Images with ATI that did NOT verify! That NEVER happened with MR and to this day I always verify my MR images because of the ATI issue.

 

Notwithstanding our findings, Acronis continues to rank at (or near) the top in several published ratings of disk-image backup software!

 

Yes, I know and another thing I notice...for me anyway...is that MR is a little faster.

 

Not sure about Froggie, but in my case, it would be more accurate to say that I was very active on the MR Forum. Mr. Sills' recent actions to "moderate" some of my posts have led me to conclude that I can no longer participate in good conscience. So I won't.

As for whether recent trends are likely to become permanent, or whether my perceptions of those trends are even accurate for that matter, only time will tell. In any case, personal perceptions of possible trends have had no practical consequences at all for my own continued use Reflect v6.3.1821 as the best I've found to date for my own purposes. I just don't like adding v7's imposed kernel mode device class filter to my OS setup when it would provide absolutely no benefit at all for my usage. If others think its alleged "speediness bonus" is worthwhile, that's entirely up to the individual to decide. For me, speed is far from my top priority for incremental backups, especially when scheduled during idle times.

 

not an ati user anymore for a long while but when i was,i always ran it from bootable media and preferred cold imaging.and i never ran into a single issue.

 

Bothersome. On "their" part, I mean. :/ I have wanted to try out other options for various reasons recently but the sheer amount of time I have been using Reflect would leave me with many abandoned old backups. For the most part Reflect still works fairly well for me, so I suppose laziness more than anything else keeps me using it. I do not like the trend wherein Macrium seems to be losing touch with its user base and this interaction you have shared is just another step along that path. Their business practices are there choices, but where I take my business is mine I suppose.

 

BUMP - Still no reply from Macrium. Do I have to pay full price for a 5th license? Can I purchase v6?

 

Just have to say I was surprised to read this. My experience with MR and correspondence with them has been top shelf.

 

Yeah, I agree. I shouldn't speculate beyond my own direct experience, but I do notice a very "fishy" smell about a lot of the supposedly altruistic(?) help donations there recently. Some of it almost seems aimed deliberately at discouraging long-timers like us from providing forum inputs, or at least sidetracking and distracting OPs from any answers or "logical troubleshooting" suggestions that we did try to provide.

I can certainly understand your reluctance to abandon existing backups. I was in the same boat when I switched from ATI to Reflect and would be again if I decided to move to something else in the future. I kept my ATI backups and their recovery utility on hand for many months after switching to Reflect v5 and I even continued to alternate backup ops between the two for a while. I have no immediate plans to do anything like that again right away, but as you say, difficult business choices are sometimes inevitable.

 

AFAIK, they only offer v7 edition licences now for either new or upgrade purchases. But I've been able to download and run v6 with a v7 license key installed for the server edition. It gives you an upgrade notice on the first run, but that can be dismissed and turned off.

The delayed response is strange. Their sales people should be very eager and they usually are. If you opened a support ticket, it may have been misdirected or lost somehow. It happens sometimes. Try again and be sure to mark it as a sales inquiry.

 

Well happy to have you here if not on MR Forum @Arvy

 

Thanks, paulderdash. Happy to contribute whatever an "old geezer" can.

 

Hello Arvy...just curious as to why your staying with 6.3.1821. There have been a few v.6 updates since then, 6.3.1835 being the latest.

 

1821 was 7 June, then 1835 was today 26 June.

 

No big mystery. You're just quicker than I to grab the v6.3.1835 update today. I'll take a look ASAP and see what the latest "various bug fixes and changes to improve Macrium Reflect" are all about. So long as they haven't added a useless (to me) kernel mode device class filter or some other questionable gimmick, I'll install it.

 

I feel as you do concerning kernel mode. Appears as though there is none. Let me know if v.6 is faster after 6.3.1835 update. It is for me.

 

Reflect v6.3.1835 Patch Error: This most recent v6.3.1835 patch commits exactly the same potentially critical installation error as the previous v6.3.1821 patch. I posted a warning about that MacriumService.exe image path issue in their forum as follows:

I notice that the most recent update release has installed its MacriumService.exe file into the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Macrium\Common\" folder on all of my Windows installations. However, the image path set under the HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MacriumService registry key was not modified accordingly. It remains set as "C:\Program Files\Macrium\Common\MacriumService.exe" which is where previous releases installed it. I've noted no immediately harmful result as the most recent changes to that service executable appear to be minimal, but the discrepancy would seem to hold some significant potential for future issues if not corrected. I cannot say myself whether the same situation exists for v7 updates, but someone should probably look into that as well.​

I was assured by Nick Sills himself that it would be corrected. Apparently, however, he considers such registry image path issues for auto-start (0x00000002) services to be inconsequential. They may be for some updates, but that's a matter of pure luck and the sloppy patching attitude itself is anything but inconsequential. As I said in my reply there: "My reason for bringing it to your attention was only to ensure that it got caught and corrected for the future. My assumption was that patches don't normally update and reinstall the MacriumService.exe file for no reason at all and that some future change to that executable and/or its service dependencies might make it quite important for the right updated file to get loaded by the registry entry."

My own ad hoc "fix" is to stop the service and then copy the updated executable to the image path that is actually specified in the Windows registry for loading that service. In view of Macrium's apparent dismissal of its potential importance, I'd advise fellow users to do something similar and also to keep a watchful eye on any future v6 updates. Possibly v7 patches as well, but I can neither confirm that nor rule it out, Mr. Sills' assurances notwithstanding.

__
P.S.: @Rainwalker: Dunno about any speed improvement. At the moment, that's the least of my concerns about any Reflect updates.

 

I dunno. Below is a link to an old Macrium Support thread that might relate to your issue. Check it out.

http://support.macrium.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1071

 

Thanks, Pete. I've actually been here before while using Acronis, but then switched to Macrium and went mostly to their own forums. Guess I should have stayed here.

 

@Arvy
I checked my v.7 installation and both - registry key and file are in Program files subfolder.

You suggested to copy Macriumservice.exe file to Program files subfolder also. Are you not "afraid" that this could cause problem with next updates? Updater might replace that file in Program files x86 subfolder but file in Program files could stay at previous version. Since registry key would still show to this old executable, this could cause problems.
Well, just a thought and for consideration if others decide to do similar.

 

I did some further lookup and also found files Macriumservice.exe and ReflectMonitor.exe in Program files x86 subfolder. Though those files are from April, and files in Program Files subfolder are from June.
It seems that there are some leftovers there that I don't think I need them any more.

 

Can't answer for v7. Tried it briefly and went back to v6. In fact, even for v6, results will differ depending on whether you update using the patch or the full installer. Inconsistency between the two just adds to the problem and maybe that happened to you with v7. Anyhow, your concern and my own are identical. Definitely yes, there most certainly are potentially severe consequences when an application patch updates a service executable in a location that differs from the image path specified for that service in the Windows registry.

The only proper correction, of course, is for Macrium to stop doing that. As things stand, however, any ad hoc fix (including mine) is not and cannot possibly be a "set and forget" solution as we don't know what Macrium may do next time or the time after that. In the circumstances, any ad hoc fix must necessarily imply manual intervention in each case to ensure that the Windows registry loads the correct updated service executable and not anything else. Which is why it's essential to "keep a watchful eye on any future v6 updates" as I said, and maybe v7 too. Sure sounds like it in your case despite Nick Sills' denial. Reflect v6 never installed ReflectMonitor.exe at all. It's a "kludge" for v7 background ops that should only be installed under Program Files, not under Program Files (x86).

In any case, correctly synchronized versioning is the actual goal however anyone wishes to achieve it, and that must be done manually somehow unless and until Macrum makes it unnecessary at their own leisurely pace. It just seemed to me easier and less hazardous to accomplish that by copying newly updated service executables (if any) to where Windows expects to find them rather than changing any image path in the registry.

And yes, once that has been achieved, any "leftover" junk can be deleted. Even Mr. Sills agrees with that.