Well... the "letter of the law" (Macrium Licensing Agreement) says you can only use the Rescue Media created on a licensed System... on that licensed System. In fact, it will operate on any System's hardware that's supported by the drivers on the created Recovery Media. Should you use it on an unlicensed System (according to the license)... NO! Will it function properly... possibly YES.
@TheRollbackFrog well, that's pretty much what i figured, but i just wanted to make sure. so, technically, there's nothing (other than the "letter of the law") stopping you from running it on an unlicensed sys.
Not a Macrium rep. I haven't seen any sort of "fair use" enforcement mechanism implemented in Rescue Media, and when considering all of the possible recovery scenarios where customers might need to use Rescue Media, I'm not even sure it would be feasible for Macrium to reliably determine whether Rescue Media was being booted on the same system that originally created it. Hard drives might have been wiped/replaced, same with motherboards, etc. And then there's the fact that one explicitly allowed exception to this licensing policy involves ReDeploy, where you're allowed to use paid version Rescue Media on a different system as long as you're permanently migrating to that system from another system that has (or had) a paid license. And then there are scenarios like the Technician's Kit and System Deployment Kit licenses that explicitly allow Rescue Media to be used on systems that don't have their own Reflect licenses to begin with. But of course the fact that Macrium doesn't seem to have implemented any mechanisms like that due to lack of feasibility and/or to avoid creating problems for their paying customers who are trying to use it legitimately shouldn't be taken as an opportunity to misuse licenses that you might have. I was just calling that out. Why do you ask?
Not true... missing required drivers for the non-licensed System will keep it from operating properly there.
Still experiencing the endless 205 KB download issue, even when running Windows 10 in Safe Mode (without AV). I see posts from several years back with the same issue, but no solution...
Page 2 of this Macrium forum thread contains posts from Nick, one with direct links to the files that are suspected to be missing and another mentioning that MalwareBytes seems to be the common factor among affected users and asking if manually downloading the suspected missing files via those links and copying them to a particular location resolves the issue. As of this writing, nobody has responded to Nick's question.
Hi, inexperienced Macrium user here; I updated to the latest (free) version today, and tried to build USB media (used CDs before) per jphughan's post to another user on the Reflect forum, i.e. using the new Rescue media builder function. (I don't have a license key as a free user, hence my post here ). I tried it with an unused Sandisk Cruzer, but media creation failed almost immediately with this message: "Failed to generate WinPE WIM: The WIM could not be mounted". I don't even know what that means, really, but in the build wizard I had gone with all the defaults (incl WinRE). I'm not using any real time third party antimalware programs. Any ideas what the problem might be? (I suspect it may be something simple..) Thanks for any help..
If I were you I'd try to use another USB flash drive and delete everything first, I've had flash drives behaving erratically and not allowing transfers of data from some sources, if it is Macrium itself than the experts ought to chime in...
That is completely incorrect. If that were true, then Reflect Free would be practically useless for OS imaging and system recovery purposes. There's not much point in having backups that you have no way to restore, after all. Rescue Media generated by Reflect Free won't have all of the same capabilities as paid version Rescue Media -- e.g. no ReDeploy, no Rapid Delta Clone/Restore, no capability to create or work with File & Folder backups or Incremental backups -- but Reflect Free has no restrictions on the ability to create Rescue Media itself. It can use the recovery boot menu option, CD/DVD, USB device, and ISO file options for Rescue Media just like the paid versions. What led you to believe that Reflect Free users are not authorized to create Rescue Media?
In oversimplified terms, in the case of Rescue Media, think of a WIM file as sort of a zip file that contains a full Windows environment, complete with a Windows folder, a Program Files folder that (in this case) contains the Reflect application, etc. That's what Rescue Media Builder has to build. It creates and mounts a WIM file so that it can make the appropriate modifications and additions to the "baseline" Windows PE/RE environment in order to create the Reflect Rescue environment, which results in the boot.wim file that ends up on your Rescue Media device. WIM files are also used to contain the Windows Setup environment that loads from Windows installation media as well as the "full Windows" images that Windows Setup installs onto a PC. The error you're seeing relates to Reflect building the Rescue Media file set itself, before it even tries to export it to a flash drive, ISO file, etc., so the flash drive wouldn't be the culprit here. WIM file creation and mounting relies on Microsoft tools built into Windows rather than Macrium tools (since WIM files were created by Microsoft and are used in other contexts beyond Rescue Media), and it sounds like that's the part that's failing. If you haven't already, try simply restarting your PC. If you still see this error, click the Log menu at the top of the Rescue Media Builder window and choose the WIM Build log. Find the set of logs from the most recent attempt, which will always begin with "Beginning wim build" and post the log entries from that attempt here.
Thanks! Will try this later today. I do have MBAM installed on my system, but not resident; only as second opinion scanner.
What? OK, it's been a while since I read the EULA but I've been creating and using bootable rescue media for years. If I'm not authorised why does MR allow me to do so without issue?
your and @TheRollbackFrog 's replies to my post did. you said it shouldn't be used on an unlicensed sys. so, when you first install reflect, it gives you a 30-day trial time to test it. it is not installed as a free product. now then, if you can create a bootable media during the trial period and use it after the trial period ends, then what's the point with your posts referring to license issue?
When I said I suspected the problem was a simple one, I didn't think it would be that simple, but it was! I had been holding off restarting for a while due to an impending forced Win 10 version upgrade. After all that, creating the rescue USB went without a hitch. Thanks so much @jphughan ! I also realized it's been a loong time since the one and only time I had to restore an image, so please forgive the obviousness of the next question, but I couldn't find an answer in the Macrium knowledgebase: I'm using an old FAT32 USB hard drive to store images, so each image is split up. If you use the browse image option, which of those split images do you select to restore? For example, the restore tab is only populated with the last split file in the image (like 14 out of 14).. is that normal, and would clicking on that restore the whole image?... (For some reason I remember from the only time I've actually had to use it, the first image split file was listed (1 out of 14), not the last?)
No, what I said was that "you can only use Rescue Media generated by a paid version on a system where you're actually using a license for that version". That does not mean that only paid versions can generate Rescue Media. It means that if you for example only have a single Reflect Home license (i.e. not a trial) and you're using that license on one of the four PCs you own, then under the licensing policy, the Rescue Media generated by that Reflect Home system cannot be used with your other three PCs. It can only be used with PCs that have a fully licensed (non-trial) installation of Reflect Home (or better). But if you generate Rescue Media from Reflect Free -- which is absolutely allowed and is a separate product from a trial installation of a paid version -- then you can use that Rescue Media anywhere that it actually works because Reflect Free does not require a license, ever. It's permanently free. But Free version Rescue Media doesn't have all of the features available in paid version Rescue Media, hence the restrictions on where you can use the latter. Reflect trials are a separate animal. The Rescue Media they generate includes all features of the fully licensed product except ReDeploy. But I believe that trial version Rescue Media also expires whenever the trial installation on the system that generated it expires, although I haven't confirmed that myself. But since trials don't require licenses either, then I don't think there are restrictions on where you can use trial Rescue Media while it actually works, but I'm not certain about that. In any case, the main restriction is on the use of Rescue Media generated by a fully licensed installation of Reflect.
Aha! Yes, a pending feature release can definitely introduce some weirdness. I remember reading posts where people wanted to create a backup just before rebooting to install a feature update and couldn't because the VSS engine wasn't available while the system was in that "staged" state. Rather ironic that the one time you might REALLY want a backup, Windows won't let you make one. And of course they couldn't do the backup from Rescue Media at that point, because getting there would involve restarting! I haven't worked with split backup files myself, but I'm not surprised that Reflect only shows one "segment" per actual backup, otherwise the list could get a little bit ridiculous, and listing multiple segments of the same backup would be redundant. But yes, I would fully expect that the entire backup would be restored even if you selected only one segment -- as long as all segments were available, of course. This is similar to the idea that you can choose to restore an Incremental backup and Reflect will automatically pull any necessary data from earlier backups in the chain to perform the restore; you don't need to restore the parent Full first, then each successive Incremental. As for WHICH backup segment you need to select, that might actually depend on how you store them. For example, some people back up to a series of optical discs, in which case I believe you would start the restore by selecting the FIRST segment. But if they're all available simultaneously because they're all on the same drive and Reflect is only listing the last one, then go with that. All that said, I would strongly discourage you from storing backups on a FAT32 partition, since NTFS provides a lot more capabilities to recover the file system in the case of incidents, in addition to offering features like not having a 4GB file size limit. If your device is in fact a USB hard drive rather than a flash drive, then if you don't actually NEED to have a FAT32 partition for some reason and only have one because that's how the drive came, then Windows actually supports in-place conversion from FAT32 to NTFS, preserving all existing data, so you could consider that. Open Command Prompt as admin and run "convert x: /fs:ntfs", substituting the correct drive letter. Or if you actually need FAT32 for something, then consider repartitioning your drive so it has both a FAT32 and an NTFS partition. For USB flash drives, as long as you're on Windows 10 1709 or later, it's now possible to create multiple partitions on flash drives, allowing (for example) a small FAT32 partition for Rescue Media as required for UEFI boot support and then an NTFS partition for everything else.
but you said the exact opposite in reply to Bellzemos' question: and you said: and i asked: "does that mean that it won't run or you'd rather not to?" then you said: and then @TheRollbackFrog said: and now you're saying: remember, the o.p. (@Bellzemos ) asked:
Did not help unfortunately. Files are already present on my system: J:\boot\macrium\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\BCDBoot\bootsect.exe J:\boot\macrium\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\x86\BCDBoot\bootsect.exe When using the Browse option to manually point to such a file Reflect complains that the selected file is not a valid Windows PE zip file. So apparently it is not complaining about these bootsect.exe files? (The dialog only mentions a 205 KB download; but it does not tell of what, so I have no idea what to point to in Browse)
@imdb , kind of hard to read your post given the seemingly unnecessary level of quoting you did, but some people use a mixture of paid and Free licenses among the PCs they own, often because they only care about having access to paid features on certain PCs. Bellzemos mentioned that it would probably be best to ask in the official Macrium forums, which require a paid license to post in, so I thought Bellzemos might be that type of person who had at least some paid licenses but was choosing to post here instead because this particular question happened to be about one of his Free installations. And since the question involved using Rescue Media generated by one PC on a different PC, I mentioned the licensing policy. That seems to have created quite a bit of confusion for you, because it led you to claim that people who do not have a licensed version of Reflect are not allowed to generate Rescue Media, which is completely untrue. I did not say "exactly the opposite" of anything. But let's see if this phrasing makes it sufficiently clear: With respect to Reflect Free: Generating Rescue Media is absolutely allowed, and there are no licensing-related restrictions on what PCs you can use that Rescue Media with, since Reflect Free doesn't require a license to begin with. However, Free version Rescue Media generated on one PC may or may not work on any given other PC, because a build created by one PC might not have all of the necessary drivers for the hardware in any given other PC. But that would be a technical issue, not a licensing issue. With respect to paid (non-trial) versions of Reflect: Under the licensing policy, Rescue Media generated by a paid version of Reflect, i.e. not a trial, cannot be used on systems that do not have a license for that version of Reflect (or better). That doesn't necessarily mean that you always have to use Rescue Media on the exact PC that created it. For example, if you have four PCs that are all licensed for Reflect Home and you find that Rescue Media generated on one of those PCs works on all four, i.e. you don't encounter any issues around missing drivers, then you can use that single paid Rescue Media build on all four PCs and be compliant with the licensing policy, because all four PCs have licenses for that version. But under the licensing policy, you would NOT be able to take that paid Rescue Media and use it on a PC that does NOT have a Reflect Home license (not trial) associated with it. Macrium does not seem to employ any measures within the software itself to enforce this policy, i.e. if you boot paid Rescue Media on a PC that doesn't have a license for that version of Reflect, there will be no licensing-related reasons that the Rescue Media will not work on that unlicensed system. However, there may be other technical reasons, such as missing drivers, that might prevent Rescue Media created on one PC from working on another -- but that is a completely separate issue and also one that can occur even if you were using Free version Rescue Media. But the fact that Macrium does not include mechanisms to actively monitor or thwart misuse of paid version Rescue Media does not mean that people should take advantage of that to disregard their licensing policy. (Basically, if you're the person who says, "Software vendors shouldn't implement a bunch of complex DRM measures because all that does is harm their paying customers!", then when you find a company that skews toward that line of thinking, you can't also be the person who says, "Well if the licensing policy is just a policy and there's no active enforcement to stop me, then I'll use this however I want. Suckers!")
@jphughan quite the contrary, my post is very brief and clear and contains your own posts; but your reply is too long, complicated and hard to follow. but i will not take this any further in order to not go ot. thanks anyway.
The topic of the thread is "Macrium Reflect", so I don't see how this would be considered off-topic. If you still don't get it even after my immediately previous post, then maybe choose your own scenario question(s) to find out whether it/they would be compliant with the licensing policy. If you're the one choosing the questions, then maybe that will help the answers clarify things for you. But there are some important distinctions to understand here. The first is the differences between Reflect Free, trial installations of paid versions, and fully licensed installations of paid versions. The second is that there's a distinction between Reflect's written policy and what the software actually does (or doesn't do) to actively enforce that policy. And the third is that there are reasons that have nothing to do with licensing that can affect whether Rescue Media created on one PC will work on another PC, meaning that you could have a scenario that's fine from a licensing standpoint but still doesn't work due to other technical issues, and you could also have a scenario that works from a technical standpoint but nonetheless violates the licensing policy.
exactly. this is exactly what @Bellzemos asked in his op in the first place. here: "I have a couple of Reflect related questions, it'd be probably best to ask those on the official Macrium forums, but I'm using the Free version so I'll just ask here, I think you guys might just know the answers. 1. When creating a rescue media (USB) with Macrium Reflect, why exactly is it a good idea to create it on the exact same computer that it's going to be used on for backuping and restoring of system images (of that particular computer)?" and here's what you said in reply: "1. Well first, just as a licensing policy note, you can only use Rescue Media generated by a paid version from a system where you're actually using a license for that version. But in terms of functionality, creating Rescue Media from the exact system you'll be using it with often is NOT necessary if you're just working with regular desktops and laptops (as opposed to high-end workstations and servers) and you're also using either WinPE 10 or WinRE built from a system running a recent release of Windows 10. ..." so, you are the one who brought up the license issue in reply to a question clearly related to the reflect free. and then i asked whether it would not run or you choose not to. that's all there is to it.
