True Image 10.0 Excruciatingly Slow Post VISTA SP1 Update

I've got Vista Ultimate and just installed SP1.

Everything seems to be working correctly (after driver updates, et. al).

One thing I noticed is that loading up TI (build 4942) is excruciatingly slow. It normally whizzes through the analyzing partitions section (I've got 5 partitions on my hard drive excluding an external Seagate drive) but now the analyzing takes a full 3-5 minutes for the whole analyzing process to finish. And when I select a backup I go through the same slow analyzing process.

What gives? Any recommendations/ advice?

Many thanks in advance.

 

Does it do it every time you start TI?

I've also noticed this with Vista SP1. It doesn't do it very often, but when it does, it takes several minutes on a partition or two. It did this just the other day. I closed TI and restarted it and it ran right through the partitions normally. I also just checked now and it started right up.

Sometimes a flashdrive or iPOD that's connected can cause delays. If you have any of those connected you might try it without them and see if it's any better.

 

Thanks for your message MudCrab,

Its at least comforting to know that it just isn't my computer or that i had a faulty SP1 install.

Oh well, I guess these are the growing pains when doing a major update. Just when you tweak things to your optimal liking, in comes a major update.

I wonder if its worth upgrading to TI 11? What is the latest verdict on this?

Last time I read the reviews weren't so great and people generally migrating back to TI 10...

 

If TI 10 is working for you, I'd wait until the next build of TI 11 and see what the response is before you upgrade.

However, I don't think I've noticed any delay problems with TI 11 (8,053) and Vista SP1 on any tests I've run (I wasn't specifically testing for delays, though).

 

I wonder if the Acronis folks will put out a final SP1 adjusted build for TI10?

If there is enough demand I suppose, it would be nice to get a fix that addresses the lag...

 

Hello agoodfella,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Backup software.

In order to fix the issue dealing with the long time to analyze partitions at Acronis True Image 10.0 Home startup, you can try to disable Distributed Link Tracking Client service as described in this post. In spite of it's originally suggested to fix the issue in XP, it can also make the trick under Windows Vista.
If the issue still persists after Distributed Link Tracking Client service disabling, please download the latest version of Acronis SnapAPI driver (this driver is responsible for all the operations under hard disk drive in Windows) and install it with disabled logging. This can also fix the issue.

Thank you
--
Nikita Sakharov

 

Thanks for your reply Nikita. It seems that the lag has reduced to an acceptable level. Its still not zipping through pre-SP1 install, (it normally took about 5-10 seconds) is now about 20-30 seconds -- which for me is bearable. If the serious (i.e. >1minute) lag comes back, I'll definitely think about the tweak you suggested.

Quick Q: are there any downsides to disabling Distributed Link Tracking Client?

Thanks again.

 

Hello agoodfella,

Thank you for your reply.

You can find out more about Distributed Link Tracking Client in the respective Microsoft KB Article. Briefly this service is used to maintain links to files on NTFS volumes on a computer or between computers in a domain. These links can be both shell shortcuts (like the ones in your Start Menu) as well as OLE application links (such as an Excel spreadsheet stored within a Word document). This keeps a shortcut linked to a file even if the file is moved, and is most useful in an enterprise environment where files are stored on network shares. On a home computer or home network you probably won’t miss this one to much, so it’s safe to disable, but if you move files around, you may have to manually fix shortcuts, this is the only downside disabling the service has.

Thank you
--
Nikita Sakharov

 

Thanks Nikita,

Sounds more complicated than I'd be comfortable with... are there any plans by Acronis to release a FINAL post-VISTA SP1 release of TI 10.0 which might address this issue?

 

agoodfella:

It is pretty easy to disable the Distributed Link Tracking Client service. If you want to try, here are step-by-step instructions:

1. Click on the START button and type "services".
2. Click on "services" from the menu.
3. Click "Continue" when the UAC prompt appears .
4. In the list of services shown, find "Distributed Link Tracking Client" and double-click on it.
5. Click the "STOP" button to stop the service.
6. From the drop-down list choose "Disabled".
7. Click "OK" and close the list of Services.

If anyone is wondering if it is OK to disable this service, the short answer is YES. For this service to do anything your machine must be joined to a domain. The domain controller must be a Windows Server, and the server must have Active Directory enabled and be running the Distributed Link Tracking Server. Unless you are part of a corporate network where this is all true then you don't need this service running. Virtually all home users can safely disable it.

 

Hello agoodfella,

Thank you for your answer.

Please accept my apologies if the explanation of what the Distributed Link Tracking Client is was complicated. K0lo, many thanks for such an easy step-by-step scenario. Agoodfella, following your question concerning with the new Acronis True Image update, please note that it's not the issue dealing with the developers' mistakes in the code or anything like this, so there is no update needed. Delay takes place due to the following thing: when Acronis True Image scans partitions at startup it also scans the objects which are maintained by Distributed Link Tracking Client (for example shortcuts in My Network Folder). So if the Distributed Link Tracking Client is on it tries to access these places to find out whether mentioned objects are available now or not, so if you have a lot of shortcuts in My Network Folder (or other objects maintained by Distributed Link Tracking Client) it can take much time to find out whether the places they point to are available. So another workaround how to decrease the time of the partitions scanning is to delete the shortcuts in My Network Folder (if you do not wish to disable Distributed Link Tracking Client).

Thank you
--
Nikita Sakharov

 

Thank you for posting this. I decided to bite the bullet and disable this service, and BAM! TI works like a charm now.

Many thanks to you and to Nikita for helping me resolve this problem.

 

agoodfella:

Glad to hear that. For years I haven't had any of the slow startup problems with TI, but during the last few weeks this has happened to me several times. Usually it doesn't happen, but sometimes it does.

Since I updated to Vista SP1 a month ago, I suspect that the SP1 update is somehow involved. I too had to disable the service on my machine, and I haven't seen the problem since. I'm on a huge network with > 100,000 PCs, and yet the domain controller does not run the Distributed Link Tracking Server, so I don't need the client running.

 

Just wanted to say that I was experiencing the same problem, with both winxp (pro) and vista but the fix given in the previous post (to disable distributed link tracking) seems to have fixed the issue. Thanks for the link and I hope future versions of acronis will have a permanent fix for the issue.

 

I've updated to version 8.101 and thought this would solve the problem. But it does not. And under "services" I don't find "Distributed Link Tracking Client" anymore. I'm using vista ultimate sp 1.
So the problem persist - from time to time - and is annoying.
regards
orion1

 

orion1:

The Distributed Link Tracking Client service is enabled by default in Vista Ultimate SP1. Be sure that you start "Services" as an administrator (click on START then type Services and then acknowledge the UAC prompt). You should see it in the list.

If you are viewing the list of services that you see in Task Manager then you will not see them all.

 

Just wanted to say that I was having the same delay issue with both TI11 & Disk Director 10 and the Distributed Link Tracking Client fix worked for me as well (Vista SP1).

Thanks all.

Ed

 

Hi there,

I am having a similar problem in that sometimes Acronis takes a very long time to load up. I stopped and disabled the Distributed Link Tracking Client service and rebooted. Upon reboot, I double clicked on the Acronis icon and timed how long it took to load. It took just under 3 minutes to load the program, with a message saying, "processing, please wait" on the splash screen. My system is new, with 2.2GHz processing power and 4GB RAM. Startup programs are very few so the system boots quickly. There are no other problems on the system.

It doesn't happen every time, but what could be causing this slow load of Acronis?

 

jaystak:

That doesn't sound right. On my 3-yr old hardware running Vista Business it takes TI 10 about 1 second to open, and another 4 sec to finish analyzing the partitions on a disk with 70 GB of used space. I don't have TI 2009 so I can't comment on its startup time.

Have you disabled any of the Acronis services? You can disable the Try and Decide service if you don't use that feature, and the TI Mounter Monitor if you don't mount images in read/write mode and modify them, but the others (Acronis Scheduler2 service and TrueImage Monitor) should be left running.

Other than reinstalling, the only other suggestion is to download Process Explorer and try figuring out what the program is doing during the first 3 minutes.

 

Hello everybody,
Using TI11 B: 8 108, I am experiencing the same annoying very slow partition analysis under Vista SP1. I will try to disable the service "Distributed Link Tracking Client", but is there any TI fix planned ?? (such as automatic disable the service at TI start and automatic enable it at end....if this correct the problem...).
Thanks for any answer.

 

Hello,
The stop service "Distributed Link Tracking Client" seems to work for me.
So i decided to create a vbscript file to do the following;
1- Stop "Distributed Link Tracking Client" service
2- Run True Image
3- Wait TrueImage to analyze partitions (for awhile..)
4- Start "Distributed Link Tracking Client" service

Save the file with .vbs extension e.g. "StartTrueImage.vbs", and create a shortcut to your desktop, then double click on it to start TrueImage.

Code:

' Services.vbs
' Example VBScript to Stop Services
' Author Guy Thomas http://computerperformance.co.uk/
' Version 1.3 - March 20th 2005
' Adapted for TrueImage slow partition analysis under VISTA by JEANM 28/11/2008
' This script: Stop TrkWks, Run TrueImage, Wait trueImage to end parttion analisis
'              Start TrkWks 
' -----------------------------------------------------------------'
Option Explicit
Dim objShell, intShortSleep, intLongSleep
Dim strService
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

' Values set
strService = " TrkWks"  ' Distributed Link Client Service  (in English)
                        ' Client de Suivi de lien distribué (in French) 
intShortSleep = 1500
intLongSleep = 3500

' Cmd prompt opened
objShell.Run "cmd"
Wscript.Sleep intShortSleep

' Service stopped with 'Net' command
objShell.SendKeys "net stop" & strService 'use net start to start service
Wscript.Sleep intShortSleep
objShell.SendKeys "{Enter}"
Wscript.Sleep intLongSleep

' Cmd prompt exited
objShell.SendKeys "Exit"
Wscript.Sleep intShortSleep
objShell.SendKeys "{Enter}"

Wscript.Echo strService & " service stopped "

' Start True Image
objShell.run "D:\Acronis\TrueImageHome\trueimage.exe"

' Wait TrueImage to analyse partitions
Wscript.Sleep intLongSleep
Wscript.Sleep intLongSleep
Wscript.Sleep intLongSleep

' Cmd prompt opened
objShell.Run "cmd"
Wscript.Sleep intShortSleep

' Service started with 'Net' command
objShell.SendKeys "net start" & strService 
Wscript.Sleep intShortSleep
objShell.SendKeys "{Enter}"
Wscript.Sleep intLongSleep

' Cmd prompt exited
objShell.SendKeys "Exit"
Wscript.Sleep intShortSleep
objShell.SendKeys "{Enter}"

Wscript.Echo strService & " service started "

WScript.Quit
' End of Example WMI script to Start / Stop services

- You will have to customize the "TrueImage.exe" path to fit your installation (line ' Start True Image).
- Also, depending the number of partitions you have installed, you may need to add/remove one or more lines after ' Wait TrueImage to analyze partitions (Wscript.Sleep intLongSleep)
- You can also suppress / Comment the messages boxes at lines:
Wscript.Echo strService & " service stopped "
Wscript.Echo strService & " service started "

Enjoy
Jeanm

 

Jeanm:

Nice work! However, from what I understand, most PC users can leave the Distributed Link Tracking Client service permanently disabled. You may only need the service if your PC is on a corporate network that has a Domain Controller hosting the Distributed Link Tracking Server. It is highly unlikely that any home network will have a Windows Server box running this service.