Thanks for clarifying That is IMO better approach than updating it in background. I also noticed that today I got DMP file created by Macrium during incremental update ( c:\reflectv7.2-3811-x64-15.dmp ). I checked log file and there is no indication of an error happening during backup. Will see if that happens tomorrow also.
This version should never have been released! Consider yourself warned. Check the Macrium Support Forum before plunging ahead with the update. The update does not install cleanly and has several undesirable side effects. I am backing off to 7.1 on all my machines.
There is no errors in Macrium log but it seems that Reflectbin.exe crashed during backup operation. Here is a system log: Code: Faulting application name: reflectbin.exe, version: 7.2.3811.0, time stamp: 0x5..... Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7601.24260, time stamp: 0x5..... Exception code: 0xc000041d Fault offset: 0x000000000000bded Faulting process id: 0xc8c Faulting application start time: 0x01..... Faulting application path: c:\program files\macrium\reflect\reflectbin.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll Report Id: e.....
Hi jphughan, Thanks much for your extensive reply! Much appreciated. When I saw that strange PE 4.0 in the title bar of the Rescue environment, I did put back a backup-image (yes, using the Rescue environment with that strange PE 4.0...). So, at the moment I'm back at MR 7.1.3196, and I hope that that proces went OK. Maybe I could try again to upgrade if time permits but I have several (doctor and other) appointments these days. You wrote For my MR 7.1.3196 I see only this folder: C:\boot\macrium\WA5KFiles Is that the kind of info you were asking for after I had upgraded? Thanks again!
I installed 7.2 yesterday without any issues. Tested backup & restore and rescue media & boot menu ~ all worked fine. I see some users had issues installing Image Guardian ~ I didn't have any issues but then I had this option switched off on 7.1. I also use AOMEI & EaseUS products so have a selection of recovery options if one goes wrong so will continue to use 7.2 for now.
Ok, that's definitely a WinPE 5 folder, and I doubt a WinPE 4 build got created when you updated to 7.2, but if you've already rolled back your system it's hard to dig deeper at this point. But if you encounter it again, I'd recommend performing the Command Prompt check I mentioned above to establish which version of WinPE you are in fact running there. If it shows 6.3.xxxx, it's WinPE 5, in which case somehow the Reflect title bar is incorrectly identifying it. If it shows 6.2.xxxx, then it's WinPE 4, in which case somewhere there's a WinPE 4 Rescue build on your system.
So far the only install issues I'm seeing there are: - One person who had an install issue because he was trying to uninstall Image Guardian as part of the update - One person who had an issue with Image Guardian on one of his 2 PCs that was running an Insider build, and he followed up saying it was an issue with his Windows installation because it was resolved when he did a clean install. - Somebody who encountered an already known issue involving a green screen on Insider builds when mounting images, which is not new for 7.2 and for which Macrium has published a workaround because the underlying cause appears to be a bug in a Microsoft driver on newer Insider builds. - Two people reporting longer shutdown times only when CBT and/or MIG are installed (unclear which component is the culprit yet since neither of them has tried them separately), but one of those people is running third-party AV, which I'm betting will turn out to be the issue, and the other hasn't reported back. "This version should never have been released!" seems a bit of an overreaction to those circumstances IMHO.
OK, at the moment still at 7.1.3196 with PE 5.0. I was curious how to do that and which PE version it would show. So, I booted into the recovery environment. I have to admit (a bit silly, I know...) that it was a bit of searching how to get there into the command prompt. It showed there at the top : Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600] So, that means that at least in 7.1.3196 with PE 5.0 it shows the correct PE number. Am I right here? I first wanted to know it is OK in 7.1.3196 with PE 5.0.
Ok yes, that is PE 5.0, so if the Reflect title bar on 7.1 also shows that, then you're good. However, I just installed 7.2 on a test system and used WinPE 5, and sure enough the title bar on that build says WinPE 4. I suspect it was a bug introduced when Macrium updated their title bar display info to show the "friendly version" for WinPE 10 versions, e.g. 1709 and 1803 rather than 10.0.17763 and such. I'll report it on the Macrium forums. By the way, if you're using WinPE 5 because you're affected by the forced low resolution issue on WinPE 10, try the new "Legacy EFI screen resolution" fix available in the 7.2 Rescue Media Builder in the Advanced Options area. Basically it causes Reflect to use the WinPE 5 bootloader files but otherwise use a newer WinPE 10 build, allowing you to have access to newer drivers, hardware support, DPI scaling, etc. available in newer PE versions (plus WiFi if you use WinRE), without the screen resolution lock.
I would consider sending the DMP file to Macrium anyway. Even if the crash appears "benign" on your system (or is in fact benign), it shouldn't be happening, and whatever is causing the crash may be causing truly problematic crashes on other people's systems, so getting the DMP file to Macrium may lead to a fix that will be important for others. I believe even if you don't have the paid version you can still submit a support ticket at helpdesk.macrium.com (click the support ticket button rather than logging in), but if not you could always just email support at macrium dot com.
Thank you very much jphughan !! Yes, in my 7.1.3196 with PE 5.0 it shows correctly both in the normal MR program PE 5.0 and in the Rescue environment. Thank you for testing it too! (You are much quicker than me). And thanks for reporting it! I started years ago with PE 5.0 for MR on my Win 7. If I remember me well it was advised to me at that time (but maybe I don't remember it correctly). And since that time I always used it. I don't use WiFi. What would you advise to use? Maybe I'll wait a bit now before upgrading. I haven't yet decided. Thanks again!
Check the 7.1 clutter the update leaves in the registry. Ticking MIG install resuilts in an installation that says MIG is not installed. Even if MIG is not installed/running (as the case may be), USB drives containing Macrium files remain held by SYSTEM and must be removed forceably. The slow shutdown problem is real, and in the case of a Windows 7 system was still spinning after 30 minutes with zero disk activity. And that condition is repeatable. So I'd say this release is beta grade at best.
I must've missed the reports about clutter in the registry, although from a purely practical standpoint I've never understood that gripe. Yes clutter in principle is not ideal, but very few people ever browse through their registry and encounter it, and the idea that leftover registry entries bog down system performance is a myth. Ticking MIG resulting in an installation that says MIG is not installed occurs if you check that before restarting, i.e. you ignore the installer prompt to do so, since the MIG driver needs to be loaded at boot. The only other user who reported this issue was on an Insider build that he followed up to say he'd found had an OS-level issue because that issue disappeared after a clean install. The only issue I saw with hanging onto USB drives was during an actual beta build (issue reported by this forum's own TheRollbackFrog), and he confirmed it was fixed with a subsequent beta release. I haven't seen any reports of that behavior on the production release in the Macrium forums, and I've been on them all morning. I agree that the slow shutdown and long startup issues are real, but at this stage it's unclear what other factors may be at play on the affected systems. If it turns out to be something like third-party anti-virus not responding well to the rearchitected MIG and/or CBT drivers, then I have a hard time blaming Macrium for an AV solution interfering with legitimate applications that the user wants to have on their system.
If WinPE 5 works for you and you don't need WiFi, then you can take a look at the list of the additional "features" of WinPE 10 in the Create Rescue Media wizard, which would be under the Change PE Version button on pre-7.2 releases, or under Advanced > Choose Base WIM starting with 7.2. The only feature that isn't mentioned there is that I believe WinPE 10 is the first build that supports DPI scaling, so if you have a display with very high pixel density, e.g. a 15" laptop display with 4K resolution, then PE 10 will avoid you ending up with microscopic text in the Rescue environment. But if none of that applies, then although PE 10 would probably also be fine, there's no particularly compelling reason to move from PE 5. The reason to move to at least PE 5 though was because it added native support for USB 3.0 and NVMe SSDs, which is handy to have even for people whose current systems don't have those things. I've seen threads on the Macrium forums where someone's PC unexpectedly died, so they went out and bought a new one, and they found that their Rescue Media didn't work -- because it had been built with PE 3.1 and therefore didn't know how to deal with the new system's USB 3.0 ports or NVMe SSD. They had to go build newer Rescue Media somewhere else before they could restore their old PC's image to their new one. WinPE 10 I suppose would also have built-in drivers for specific newer hardware than PE 5, so that could be nice, but again it's probably not a major issue.
Thanks again for reporting it! https://forum.macrium.com/Topic25915.aspx And thank you for your extensive reply !!
I've sent them support ticket with DMP file attached. I hope that it helps them if there is a problem with new version.
Mine may be the first. The entries installed by 7.1 remain mostly present, causing some inventory software to show that version 7.1 is still installed (Programs and Features does not, however.) I suspect that uninstalling 7.1 and doing a clean install of 7.2 would correct this (and possibly other issues). As for MIG: The update does a full download and automatically launches the install, which has a checkbox for installing MIG. Tick that. The install concludes with an option to reboot. Following reboot, the "Other Tasks" menu pulldown reports MIG as not being installed. That is a defect, not a procedural error. There aren't a flood of reports on Macrium Support for several reasons. 1) Few users have updated at this point, 2) The issues mentioned may not be immediately obvious, and 3) won't make an appearance on the support site until people actually stub their toes on them.
Well, so far absolutely no issues here...not even a slow shutdown or boot. Everything running as it should.
I am very confused about the new recovery builder in 7.2. Is it best to use Win RE or Win PE 10? Or doesn't it matter.
Ok. In your original post you referred to the forum after proclaiming that "This should never have been released" and then mentioned "undesirable side effects". If these are side effects that you personally observed and haven't mentioned yet, as opposed to issues being reported on the forum, then fair enough, but there was no way to tell that. I personally updated through several beta releases of 7.2 and never had the issue you're describing with MIG, even on systems that I kept on 7.1 until the final release. Not to say that there isn't an issue, since as I said someone saw the MIG behavior you described on their Windows Insider system until they performed a clean install, at which point it went away, but there's no evidence that it's widespread. In any case, Macrium has consistently demonstrated that they issue updates quickly when there are problems. MIG and CBT both had significant architectural changes, so it's not too surprising to see those components creating a few issues. Internal and even beta testing will never catch everything, and until root cause of the reported issues is determined, it's not possible to make an informed judgment as to whether it's something that Macrium should have caught before going to production. The "See also" articles in the Rescue Media Builder section of the 7.2 New Features KB article and the descriptions in the Choose Base WIM tab of Rescue Media Builder itself explain it pretty well, but see this thread in the Macrium forums where I provided a more extensive reply to this question: https://forum.macrium.com/Topic25876.aspx
Well... my upgrade went without issue. The release underwent an extensive developing period as well as a PRIVATE BETA for appx. 2+ months then underwent a selected PUBLIC BETA of appx. 1-month. I'm not sure what else a software publishing company can do to prepare for a PUBLIC release. There are literally 100s if not 1000s of different System configurations in the wild in a place where a myriad of Legacy-MBR, UEFI-GPT, various OS (XP, VISTA, W7, 8, 8+ and 10) and hardware combinations exist. They cannot all be replicated in the development and testing environment, so one must choose extensive hardware configurations that can cover as many bases as possible. Using this process is not one that I would say produced a release that is "beta grade at best." It's a solid release that is experiencing the appropriate issues following that release, nothing more.
There was another report of this just now on the Macrium forums, so in the interest of chasing it down, would you be willing to share your OS version (including 32-bit vs. 64-bit) and what if any third-party AV solutions you may be running that might be blocking MIG from loading its boot-time driver? UPDATE: User on the forum reported that fully uninstalling Reflect and then reinstalling it allowed MIG to work as expected.
Is Reflect 7.1.3317 fully compatible with Windows 10 v1809? I may wait until things settle down before upgrading to v7.2, and I wanted to be sure I would be OK using v7.1 if Windows v1809 were to be re-released soon and automatically installed on my PC. I use the free version of Reflect.
All signs say yes. The only two known issues both involve Insider Builds of 19H1, which will eventually become 1903. One of those issues (GSOD when mounting images) affects both 7.1 and 7.2, but Macrium has offered a workaround since the underlying cause appears to be a bug with a Microsoft driver. The other issue (Code 9 error when capturing an image) also appears to be caused by a Microsoft bug, and Macrium created a "hotfix" patch to 7.1.3570 that includes a workaround for it. 7.2 also includes that workaround. If you're the type to wait until things settle down though, I'd personally be much more concerned about waiting for Win10 1809 to settle before "upgrading" than waiting on Reflect 7.2. It was clear from 1803 and even more so with 1809 that Microsoft's QA has gone down the tubes. If you have Win10 Pro, you can switch it over to the "Semi-Annual" track rather than the "Semi-Annual (Targeted)" track. The former used to be called "Current Branch for Business", which basically means you're telling your system not to get a new Win10 release until Microsoft thinks it's ready for business, which has historically been 3-6 months after public release. So yes, consumers are basically beta testers, and Win10 Home users don't even get this deferral option.
MR 7 Free upgraded to v7.2 build 3811 on Win 10 Home 1803 build 17134.376 and has run scheduled new differential without incident. Do I have to recreate Rescue Media? I presume not, as there was no warning ...
