Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

I went into the File History feature of Win8 on my machine. It specifically says "libraries, desktop, contacts and favorites".

It is definitely not all files.

 

Previous Versions (still exist in 8 ) can recover files from "previous versions snapshots" (these need to be indexed by the library), "system protection snapshots", and from "windows backup snapshots".
It is much more flexible and powerfull than most users think. If a user has disabled system protection for the drive/partition only the files in the library will be monitored, but if system protection is enabled for the partition every file except those excluded from the "filesnottosnapshot" regkey will be included.

How to use previous versions for a folder not monitored from the library
http://its.uiowa.edu/support/article/2099
http://winhowto.blogspot.com/2012/09/windows-8-how-to-recover-previous.html

Panagiotis

 

So you validated what I said which you replied is not true. It works on a limited number of files. Everything you posted confirms that. We're talking of just File History... Not System Restore.

 

No, you were talking for file history... but did not specify it in your initial post.
I was talking about previous versions.

Panagiotis

 

It's the same feature, but called different names between Win 7 and Win 8. You said yourself in your post. I quoted you referring to both names, but it still support a limited number of files.

 

I believe that I already answered you on this.
If you want to disable system restore or windows backups is restricted from the library and even then no-one forces you to not include the files/folders that you want. It is your choise to criple it, not a restriction of the tool itself.

Panagiotis

 

System Restore was never mentioned in your post that I quoted to say that it supports a limited number of files. To which you says "Not True" and you've provided proof contradicting yourself. I don't know why you're bring it up "System Restore" which has nothing to do with what I said. You claimed what I said was not true and you were wrong. That's it.

 

Sorry but I did not know that I have to link all the microsoft kb. I pointed some links to let the users get started. But since you asked read here
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/recover-lost-or-deleted-files

Anyway continue to believe whatever you want.
We agree to disagree on this.

Panagiotis

 

Hi Isso, I have a request to make,,,,its a small one I would think would be easy to implement. Maybe others will like the idea or perhaps will find it of no use/value.

It would be nice if the AX64 icon on the taskbar (hourly snaps turned on) could flash when a snap is being taken, Rx actually will pop-up from the taskbar and tell you a snap is in progress and I have always found this reassuring in that I know things are working properly.

In addition, and this is more to the point, it has been mentioned a few times above that if you shut Windows down in the middle of a backup snap, upon reboot you get a message something to the effect that there was an improper shut down and the next snap will take longer than normal. What I am doing is taking note of the time before shutting down the PC so I make sure not to do this but if the icon were flashing during a snap it would make it easier to note this and I could simply wait until the snap is completed (icon stops flashing) before shutting down.

EDIT: I just noticed that AX64 was doing a merge of snaps. I would think shutting down the PC in the middle of this would not be the best idea so again, in this situation, if the icon were flashing to indicate that AX64 was actively doing something, it would be easy to avoid shutting down in the middle of it. My approach of noting the time will not work since the merges appear not to take place on the hour as the snaps do.

 

Hi bgoodman,

Thank you for suggestion - yes definitely a flashing icon in the tray would be a nice addition. I'll add it to the list.
For your information you can safely shut down the system while AX64 is in the backup or merge process. It won't result in "improper shutdown" message. This was an issue in old versions, but is fixed in latest one.

Isso

 

Dear isso,

when would we see your software support UEFI+GPT+Secureboot (i mean the recovery disk version of ax64)?

Regards,
oliverjia

 

Dear Oliver,

We are slightly delaying the release, sorry. Actually GPT/EFI support is complete, along with a number of other fixes/improvements. However testing revealed some problems, so we are in the process of fixing them. It may take a week, or maybe a little more.

Isso

 

Ok thanks.

No rush.

 

Hello Isso,

Give me a day or two more to evaluate the effects of my changes. So far it is looking very good.

I use IE10.

 

Thank you Isso.

A bit of an issue on my 5 year old XP PC (4 gigs of ram). As you can see from the attached things are a bit slower than would be expected. Especially when a merge of snaps is proceeding. In addition, while the merge was happening the PC performance slowed to a crawl. You can see the start and finish times in the 2 columns on the right. The merge took just under 1/2 hour to complete. This is a very long time to have the PC be so non-responsive.

 

Opps, forgot to post the 2nd image showing the time for the completed merge. Here it is.

Also, I have sent you the logs.

EDIT: Isso, I think I may have discovered at least part of the problem. Yesterday I selected to have Diskeeper auto defrag my drive on an ongoing basis. I am not sure since snaps have been merged but I suspect the snaps that were being created were larger (possibly considerably) than would otherwise have been the case. This would of course cause the files being merged to take longer to be merged. Still, eventually quite large files will have to be merged even if no defragging is taking place. Weekly and monthly merges would I think take place with snaps of considerable size and this would/could be a serious problem if the time to effect the merges and the sharp drop in PC performance I have experienced are any indication. I recall that there has been discussion about snap sizes and slowdowns before but I do not recall what solution, if any, was suggested.

I do have a suggestion here though and its simply to have merges take place when the PC is idle. If a merge is occurring when the PC becomes active again then the merge could be suspended until the PC is once again idle. If this is a reasonable suggestion I will add it to the requested features list on the website.

One last point for now, I have to agree with the suggestion that temp and other junk files be excluded as much as possible from the snaps. This would obviously be beneficial as snaps and merges would be quicker to effect and backup sets would be smaller. Being able to elect to exclude specified file types would be a nice advanced user feature and would address this problem nicely but at a minimum junk files should be excluded by default.

This issue was brought home to me this evening as I was doing some audio file editing and the number of temp and program specific working files that are generated when doing this sort of work can be significant and it would be real nice to be able to exclude these if the user wished to.

pandlouk suggested a solution but it is def not in keeping with the stated goal of having AX64 be a simple to use backup solution.

2nd EDIT: Isso, please see my follow up post regarding this issue at https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2238659&postcount=2405

 

glad to hear the progress.. please take your time..

Best,
oliverjia

 

Apologies if this has been covered already but so far I haven't been able to locate anything definitive.

Does AX64 support backup of multiple drives? If I perform a backup of drive C to NAS directory B:\AXTM, then it allows me to also backup drive D to the same directory. This all appears fine and the backup browser shows both snapshots as expected.

However, if after backing up drive D, I then backup drive C, it appears to treat this as a full backup rather than an incremental backup. i.e., looks as if multiple drives can be backed up but only the last one is treated as baseline for future backups.

I've only started evaluating AX64 in the last few hours so I'm not sure whether this is a problem with my understanding, my installation, or working as expected?

 

It is kind of hard to keep all this straight but multiple drives are not supported (at this time). This will be added in the future as many users have asked for it, however I cannot recall if Isso said when they might expect to have this feature in place.

Many of these sorts of questions can be answered by going to the features request page on the AX64 website and scrolling down the list. If you see something you would like added indicating this will help the developer to prioritize implementation of the features. You can find the list at http://feedback.ax64.com/forums/206143-general?filter=hot&page=1

 

Thanks, just needed to know where to look

Not high on my priority list but would allow me to remove Acronis from my backup implementation.

 

Your software looks very interesting but what is the difference between Windows 7 backup and AX64? I want to know the difference to spend 40 dollars on AX64.

 

Here ya go, this is a review I wrote and posted on another forum. The original may be found here http://horizondatasys-forum.com/rol...x64-time-machine-detailed-info.html#post42278

 

Thanks Bgoodman!

Sound pretty good. I'll try and see how it works on Windows 7 pro. I still have ISR Pro/Rescue install on it. I hope there is no conflict between them.

 

Don't use them together. If you change snapshots in FD-ISR you will break the monitoring of AX64 and will lead in corrupted AX64 snapshots.

Panagiotis