Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Saving isn't the issue here, restoring is what you clearly said there was a problem with. How do you restore from those snapshots?

 

Yea I suppose that makes sense. I would need a sector by sector image of the drive (and the appropriate program) to do what I'm talking about, right? That said, I got rid of bitlocker. I'm having issues with 8.1 so I turned off bitlocker so I can fix things if need be.

 

No offense intended but ever since this merger i noticed a disturbing trend which didn't exist at all when Isso had full control of the project. I'm not at all happy now despite the attempts to suggest things would be for the better.

What worries me about this whole merger matter now is that the RealCopy group seems to have overtaken center stage to press favor more to that product and lessen the integrity that AX64 had already firmly established, including the flawless support.

Also taken note (obvious), that Isso's normally very active contribution in these discussions be it support or his encouragements have fallen off noticeably.

I don't want to come off as too awful critical or frustrated, but it's become of some serious concern on my end since this merger and is escalated to the point of disappointment to some degree.

I find it somewhat prohibitive in that even AX Time Machine's name is also been considered so easily discounted by Real Copy's ambition to draw recognition of Isso's initial project more to the favor of RealCopy exclusively. Sorry, but i find this merger too one-sided and unfortunately gives the impression to AX64 being completely swallowed up as though it's merits didn't meet to another standard.

This is an honest assessment on this end and in no way is intended to discount RealCopy's future potential as much as expressing the proven track record of AX64's performance and personal/team support which is earned users trust and already met expectations long before Real Copy entered the picture.

Thanks.

Regards EASTER

 

Was this an actual merger, or was Isso bought out and then offered a job?

 

Yeh after purchasing AX64 sometime ago I am a bit concerned also. Seems like ISSO is now playing 2 Fiddle now. RealPlayer will be just another backup like the majority on the market now. ISSO had a program that is totally new. What a way to run a business.


.

 

I hear you, guys. And, as we've been promised that AX64TM will continue as a stand-alone product, and, that ISSO will still be involved (though likely not in charge), I'm going to be patient and hang in there until we see where this is really going. And we will see, though it may not be sooner, more likely a bit later than sooner.

What I see is some decent guys trying to build something here. That takes resources: time, talent/expertise, and money. With Isso, we've seen the talent. If he could have brought this fully to market on his own, he would have done so. So he must have needed the other resources.

Now, with Waj and the rest of the Real Copy team, they've been pretty up front with us, and we can hypothesize from what's been shared, that they are challenged trying to get things done in the time frame all of us (including them) would like.

This has to be due to a lack of available resources. Most likely, there's not enough "free money" to pay enough quality programmers to do the job now. So they have to do it as they can.

Dependencies form. I need Isso and AxDev to take care of getting these 3 products moved forward. If I only have a few guys doing this or a few more than a few guys, I have to focus them where I stand to get the best bang for the buck — in service to keeping the company going, which serves all the products, which serves the people we serve out in the marketplace.

But if I'm short of $$$ this week, and if I can't pay for some of the help, then those guys have to get other gigs to put food on the table. Then, when I get some more cash available and call the guys, they may not be available until a week from now. That means a delay.

And that means the best-ever group of guys on Wilder's have to wait. That can't be very comfortable for Waj who is responsible for all of this (it appears) and is the one who has to face us; and certainly not for ISSO, who it appeared really liked being able to be responsive to us.

Long winded. But this really helped me avoid facing not being able to uninstall Windows XP Mode and Virtual PC on my wife's Win 7 laptop, since it doesn't show up in the add/remove section. Grrr.

 

Chamlin, are you (a) copying-and-pasting their personal communication to you, or (b) imagining their response, or (c) you are in fact one of them?

This is quite scary

 

First, I'm from the 7th dimension. That should explain something. And thanks for asking. Didn't realize it could come off like that.

No, not copying any personal communication (I would not do that), imagining their responses (not that creative), and I'm certainly not one of them. I don't know them personally, don't know who they are, have no connection other than a happy and hopeful user of AX64.

I was, however, in days gone by, a CEO of small organizations (not software), and have lived situations that looked like this. So while not imagining, I am projecting my prior experiences on to this one. Is my reflection accurate? Who the heck knows. Just my 2 cents of perspective.

Most entrepreneurial businesses are quite well-intended, but sometimes fail to deliver as envisioned and promised due to financial and other challenges. This is quite typical of new ventures, entrepreneurs. Under-resourced. It's quite a struggle at times. Sometimes you climb a mountain, straining all the way, other times...someone with a helicopter sees you and gives you a lift.

So I just took all of the communications on the threads into account, filtered them through my own experiences, put it all in a blender, and out it came.

But in the meantime, I spent the day and was able to figure out how to get rid of XP Mode and the Virtual PC components from the laptop. Yea! Score one for the remedial team.

 

I have some backups from an old install of Windows that I'm trying to get files from. They are in my old user folder but it looks like I don't have permission to get them from either the backup viewer or by mounting the backup. Is there any way to get those files back?

EDIT: Nevermind. It was a permissions issue with the drive I was copying to.

 

Hail Mr Chamlin, greetings from the 5th dimension.
Please forgive me for not recognizing you

 

I initially used the AX64 Time Machine was good then had few issues not to be unexpected its new, Yes I know that but couldn't uninstall the app.
Reloaded windoze now am just using Aomei Backupper
Totally Different app but works and less versions, musings, confusings all over etc
If and when AX64 gets into prime time then maybe put it on again.
We'll see

 

Never been a fan of AX64.

It's more like a hype to many, maybe most of average consumers. Not everybody like to do system recovery that often. Yes it could do manual backup/restore, however it's far from being stable and reliable at production machines at this stage.

It could be a toy for a few who loves to play with backup and recovery and trying out new softwares. These few a not representative of the general computer users. To be honest, I don't think AX64 will ever be as popular as Acronis and Paragon.

Sorry the above may sounds harsh but I have to be honest with myself.

 

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I suspect that many here will vehemently disagree with you.

I have been a freeware "junkie" for the past 10+ years. Until recently, outside of a computer game or MS Office, I haven't paid for a commercial software product in those 10+ years. AX64 was the first commercial software "utility" that I purchased in a long, long time. And, it's worth every penny as far as I'm concerned. It really gives me a sense of protection and takes away a lot of anxiety from even doing something as simple as Windows Updates or video card driver updates.

I know that I can always hot restore if I run into an issue.

P.S. In all fairness, I just remembered (after looking at my sig) that I did purchase Sandboxie a year ago or so. WSA was something I just purchased recently (after AX64) since I got it at such an awesome price.

 

Unless you manually backup every major change that you made, which would be tedious without ISR, your backup will always be outdated. General computer users don't use disk imaging in the first place.

 

Now that we're all getting a little anxious to see the new AX64 get released under its new name, some folks are losing their nerve. I have been updating my AX64 as betas come along, and so far haven't had a problem. In fact, on a few occasions AX64 has saved my bacon. I think as long as it works for me, I'll continue to use it. You can't find a simpler, easier to use program. I only hope that the new program will keep it's edge in its new company.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Yes I know many ppl in this thread are very fond of AX64 TM, and I believe the unique feature of AX64TM surely fits the best need of some ppl here, that is, instant and rapid hot restore without messing up the MBR. For some, AX64TM really is the best to use.

However, I am thinking from a market point of view - what could be the potential customers, i.e., the potential for this software to take over market share. This is the part I see not-so-impressive for AX64, because majority of computer users probably do not want to do that frequent backup and restore, therefore the unique feature of AX64 does not appealing to them. Disk imaging market is already dominated by a few big companies via hard disk OEMs such as Western Digital and Seagate (Acronis TI WD edition and Seagate Disk Wizard, all re-branded Acronis).

Another thing is that Windows are more and more robust nowadays. I have Windows 8 installed for over a year and I have no problems at all after numerous install and uninstall of many pieces of software. So I don't really see the need for that frequent of imaging in modern OS.

 

I'm a general user, and that's my problem! I know enough to get myself in trouble, and stable as Windows 7 may be, it's not at all unusual for Windows Updates (often turned ON by the general user community) to create system conflicts.

Though I've had a few challenges with AX64, there have already been 5 times when I was sooooooooooo glad I have it, because I made some inexperienced application installation choices and was able to magically time travel and shift to a parallel universe.

 

Evidence AX64 is paying attention:

Got a message while doing a manual backup: "The computer was shut down improperly. The backup will take longer than usual."

That's cool that it explained itself in that way.

 

So, is it safe to use AX with 8.1? I'm doing a backup now from my laptop, hope it works :/

 

lol, good for you to find a good use of AX64, although it appears you are more advanced than a "general user".

I would prefer to do a full-blown recovery from a full image. I keep the OS partition large enough to install all necessary programs and keep all data/documents on separate partitions/disks. So if something is wrong with my OS and programs, I just recovery the whole OS partition, since with partial recovery methods like the Windows built-in "last known good configuration" and AX64, I am not sure all the bad traces could wiped and replaced with good bits.

My way of doing things is simple, straightforward and thorough. I feel more comfortable this way knowing the newly restored OS from a full image is clean and neat as in day one. Reality is I only need to do such restore every half a year or one year.

 

People will use those dominating softwares, until they run into problems.
For Acronis, then these people will start to search forums etc., and they will find that they are not alone, & the problems are well-known.

That's when these people will start to find alternatives.
Unfortunately, AX64's support for the newest Windows (8 & 8.1) is still uncertain.

Never say never.
Like what Sir Chamlin said, even Windows own softwares can cause conflicts (I experienced it firsthand).

 

AX64 doesn't do partial recovery.
Its unique features (among others) are the "auto-incremental" backup, and "somewhat-differential" restore, which contributes to its speedy backup/restore.
(Sorry for the unofficial terms)

If you want to "feel" the extended time of a full restore, just do it from the bootable media

But it does for the time being only support 1 partition at a time.

 

You have completely missed the point and aim of AX64, it is intended mainly for folks WHO ARE NOT CURRENTLY IMAGING. It is intentionally very simple just for this reason. There is little to nothing to set up and little to nothing that you have to do/learn, to do a restore.

I have recommended AX64 to quite a number of friends who I have tried without success in the past to get to do regular/timely backups and they love it. I love it too because now I do not have to FIX their PCs when they have a problem. They just do a restore (2 clicks is all it takes) and their PC good to go again.

The folks here on Wilders who are doing using AX64 are not AX64s main market. We are in effect the programs testers so that the product that goes out to the general public will be as issue free as possible. Even at this very early stage in its development it is pretty darn close to being robust and issue free. Its not 100% yet but it sure beats the heck out of the market leaders such as Acronis etc.

I agree the folks here using it are not typical but we are, for the most part, experienced and know an excellent product when we see it so, like us, I predict that many technically knowledgeable PC users will make the jump to AX64 as well.

Isso has said from the very beginning that the market he had/has in mind is primarily the non-technical user. The folks who know little about PCs and don't want to know any more than they absolutely have to. For the folks in this category who have already tried AX64 it is a god send (my friends all agree). I have every confidence it will be a god send for many, both those who are proficient with PCs and those who are not, in the future.

 

Keep in mind AX64s primary targeted audience,,,,these folks will for the most part only have one partition to protect. Isso said he would add multi-partition support for advanced users because we asked for this feature. At this point it looks like the app that will accommodate this will be the AX64 RealCopy hybrid thus enabling AX64 itself to retain its extreme simplicity.

 

The last thing I want to do is go back to day one. Having to set everything up again, having to transfer all data, both old and recent to a new set up, is exactly what I do not want to do. In addition, I REALLY do not want to wait an hour or two to be able to use my PC while a traditional restore is being done.

You think your way is simple and straight forward because you are used to it. For most PC users your approach is anything but simple and straight forward.

Also

You have no doubt not read this entire thread but AX64 has been run through the ringer by a number of different users and it has passed just about every test thrown at it. It has, on occasion, failed to do a hot restore but it has almost never (Never?) failed to do a cold restore. I have had Acronis, Drive Cloner, and Macrium fail more than once each (Acronis many times actually). AX64 in my experience beats the heck out of these popular workhorses in terms of reliability and speed. The only app I have seen that is anywhere near as reliable as AX64 is ShadowProtect and it is anything but simple to use.