Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Dear friends!

AXV2 Beta 3 Build 398 has been released! You can find the download link at the bottom of this post.


Thanks to all the users who have helped us find bugs. Without your feedback, AX64 development would not have come so far.

Please find below v2 build 398 optimizations, fixes and feature additions since beta 2:

• Merging does not refresh browser list after completion
• Task: check mounting images on all OS
• TEST: Windows XP
• On non-English systems the application does not determine that the Local Storage is installed.
• Bug: When no description is available a quote mark is shown in browser.
• Feature: Update Recovery screens
• Startup Manager is deleted when you open Startup Manager installation page in Rescue Media Wizard
• WinXP: wxWidgets Debug Alert when you click install Startup Manager
• Bug: Spelling removable instead of removEable
• BUG: System tray icon remains to show backup in progress after its done
• Feature: Instead of blocking black listed apps, warn the user during installation
• BUG: Backup description is not displayed in browser list
• Feature: Show the percentage complete in the taskbar icon (Win7&
• Bug fix: WinXP: LE_TASK_READ_ERROR (-99996) is displayed after the restoring from Rescue Media CD
• FEATURE: Add an ability to change the menu time in the BCD menu
• BUG: Double Full Restore options in advanced menu
• FEATURE: Save "Hot Restore" in advanced settings
• BUG: Always load minimised from task scheduler
• BUG: Merge does not happen when it is supposed to.
• The last page in Rescue media Wizard changes its size and has overlapped items
• Overlapping in recovery wizard when the size of all items (related to DPI) is 150%
• Restore window does not load in PE. Instead the browser loads
• Bug: Add text around delay timer on startup manager screen
• The time machine recovery option should be removed after exiting WinPE
• If the restore environment already exists create it anyway.
• The system tray icon remains in copy status after a backup
• Fix the text in the hot restore warning
• BUG: Desktop / startmenu shortcut launches app minimized
• Remove context menu for Recovery Window
• Bug: Exiting the application does not remove the system tray icon
• BUG: don't have the status box selected in WinPE restore

Install note: If you are upgrading from V1, please uninstall V1 first, then install v2. If you are updating from a previous version of V2, then simply run the installer as per normal.

As always, your continued help and support is very much appreciated. If you find a bug or any oddity please report it in detail along with logs to info@ax64.com.To save logs, simply from within the AX64 UI:

1. Click on backup tools tab

2. Click on about

3. Export logs


Caution: As this is a beta, there is a higher probability of bugs and instability occurring Therefore, please use caution while testing and using this beta release. It is highly recommended that you backup your PC with your chosen alternative disaster recovery solution before proceeding with using/testing this software.




Download AXV2 Beta 3


Happy testing,

Wajamus

 

Wajamus, I know this seems minor, BUT... each new version seems to remember MOST of the settings from the previous EXCEPT the status of AUTOMATIC/MANUAL. Any new installation seems to start out in AUTOMATIC mode, even if the previous was set to MANUAL.

Is there a reason for this? Thanks...

 

Reposed... puzzled, I am.

Your HDD/SSD subsystem looks very reasonable as far as speed is concerned... at this point I can't even hazard a guess. Even that 3-min immediate HOT restore seems a bit long to me with that I/O subsystem of yours. How big is the partition on the Vertex 4 that you're protecting, and how much of the partition is in use?

Lemme sleep on this for a bit...

 

Reposed... how big (# of snaps) is your current backup chain?

 

Hi Wajamus, Does it look to you like this version will be the last beta, and the release version will be next?

 

The whole drive is being backed up, of which 214gb out 476gb is been used. The number of snapshots may be the issue. I have 57 and counting. I basically set and forget. It is being used to replace Rollback RX so I use it in the same way, but as I can see no option to remove backups older than a week automatically, they have been accumulating. I probably should manually remove the > 1 week backups and see how I go. If I get time later on today, I will try do that, but as you cannot seem to select more than one backup at a time to remove, it may take some time to do.

 

Hi,

Yes we think this is going to be the last beta before final release. Thanks!

 

on win8, does the local rescue media still use the old win7 BCD or keep the win8 graphical one?

 

Thanks Pete, but see my answer below.

 

Thanks for the explanation - I thought that might be the case and don't want to force a new baseline.

The reason I like having a long chain is that in addition to backing up my system partition, I also use it to effectively 'version' my data. I like being able to go back months if necessary.

One thing I don't understand is why the length of the chain would make any difference to an incremental restore - surely it's just tracking and restoring the difference between now and then. If I restore back an hour or two it shouldn't care whether I have no incrementals or 100 incrementals before that point should it?

 

Taotoo, as Pete mentioned, when Windows makes some changes in your "inactive" system (and it does quite a bit), those changes will be scattered across most if not all your incremental snapshots. TM will have to traverse all of them to get those 500+ mB back due to its incremental nature. If differential imaging was an option, that would occur much quicker.

An incremental imager is just not a good tool for data versioning, unless you restart those chains often (keeping the chains reasonably short and saving the old ones for versioning purposes)... not an elegant solution, but it will suffice, if needed. Even a differential imager is not really an elegant tool for data versioning. While it will provide for a quicker access to old data, if the BASELINE is not updated frequently, the differential snapshots will keep getting bigger and bigger as you traverse your timeline, eventually taking up a lot of storage.

I would look for other solutions for your data versioning requirement.

 

I just created a new chain and restored the first automatic backup thereafter (first increment) which was about 80 minutes minutes old. Restored in warm recovery in just 1 minute 57 seconds. So the chain length makes a big difference.

 

Admittedly, the following is a minor issue, none the less an annoyance. For most of the first year of ownership, the failure to see the cursor from a Microsoft BlueTrack, 5000 mouse during a media boot/restore, was attributed to (by me) as a USB issue, since during testing if I used a PS/2 mouse recoveries were normal. Then I discovered a Logitech cordless laptop mouse also worked in any USB port. I contacted support and was told there'd be more drivers in v2 (if in fact that is the problem) but it still didn't solve it. I again contacted support.
I'm thinking the same thing happened during an attempted warm restore, which is now being recommended as the preferred options, so that elevates it to a more pressing issue, although I own and use other backup apps.
I have not tried any recent v2 releases, as v1's hot restores for me are impeccable!
I post this information here since things seem quite active now. Thank you!

 

Thanks for the reply Pete - maybe there's something I'm fundamentally misunderstanding here.

To my mind if I'm hot/warm restoring to my most recent snapshot, the chain of incrementals should be entirely irrelevant, since I'm not actually restoring any of them. All I'm doing is reverting any changes made SINCE the last snapshot. The software shouldn't have to reference any incrementals other than perhaps the most recent one - but I imagine it doesn't really even look at that, instead just checking the tracking file(s).

As for file versioning software - I've tried loads of them and have found none of them to be ideal for my needs, except for one that is no longer supported - what I really want is for NTFS to have versioning built in, but anyway all of that I suppose is not for this thread.

 

Thanks to you also for the reply RollbackFrog - but as above - my long chain of incrementals should be irrelevant when doing a delta restore to my most recent snapshot shouldn't it?

Maybe the software actually checks the differences between the baseline, all incrementals, and the current state for some reason, regardless of which point you restore back too. (Edit: if so, and the resultant long restore time is unavoidable, the software then doesn't appear to offer any real advantage over Rollback RX - it would similarly only be useful for keeping short chains, and rolling back a day or two, and depend on a second imaging process for longer term backups).

 

You're never doing a DELTA restore ONLY to your most recent snapshot. The CHANGES in your current image, from the previous snapshot, are all over the snapshot timeline, not just from your last snapshot state. The only way an incremental imager can get those back is to traverse all the snaps that contain the things that have changed since your last one... and they are everywhere.

The changes in your current system image affect data that's spread all over your snapshots, not just data in your most recent snapshot. If the current system state has made changes to data which only exists in snap 2 (out of 57), then the imager must go back there and get the old data... that data is NOT in the most recent snapshot.

That's correct. If you're only using TM as a snapshot application, there are no advantages... BUT, TM is also a backup imaging program, which Rollback IS NOT. If you want fast snapshot returns, and data versioning , you'll get both with Rollback... until it fails or your disk fills up with snapshot data (where it also fails a lot). At that point you have NOTHING unless you're using some other app to backup your broken system, and that app may not version your data very well at all.

Many people still use Rollback WITH an imaging program to protect themselves against hardware or software (Rollback) failure, and neither gives them decent data versioning when you have a failure.

 

You're not doing a restore to your most recent "snapshot," you're doing a restore to your most recent "system state"... that state contains data scattered all over your snapshot chain. If your current system state has changed data that's all over the chain, the restore process must traverse that chain to obtain the needed data to be restored.

I'm hoping this a li'l bit clearer...

 

I have installed Beta 3 having uninstalled V1

First the good:-
Did a backup and hot restore and there was no problem. But this was only after 5 mins so not a real test.

Now the bad.
Could not create a boot USB - same story stops at a blue screen when booting from it. Though can use V1 boot to recover the backup.

On the basis of that I decided not to install the boot menu feature, but discovered it had installed without my consent.

Once AXTM was installed I found that it delayed boot up by about 30 seconds. There is a long pause after the BIOS screen.

Tried uninstalling it but TM was still there after reboot. It had been removed from from the Windows uninstall procedure. The pause on booting was still there. Also the non GUI boot menu was still in place.

Then resorted to fully restoring (incl Header) the disk from my other back up and still the pause remained. After further trying the restore again without success, I turned off the power to the computer and left for a few minutes. On booting the pause had gone and was back to normal speed. Don't know what it is doing to cause that.

Have gone back to V1 as V2 is not useable for me currently.

I will forward this onto you with the logs.

 

Thank you! I knew I must be ignoring something - it now makes sense.

But it does make me wonder:

If I, say, browse the web and then restore my system to an hour-old snapshot, the only data that will have changed is the browser cache, log files, etc.

Presumably those files are constantly being written, modified or deleted, so any modified sectors would probably be retrieved from the most-recent snapshot.

Or perhaps those newly modified or written files get written to new sectors - in which case, might those sectors have old data in them (marked as 'unused', but still filled with data) from many weeks or months ago, and TM insists on restoring them to their prior state?

I have to say that TM's benefit of being both a snapshot and an imaging program doesn't seem to count for much (for me at least) when its (again, for me at least) core feature stops working after a couple of days...

Right now I could warm restore back an hour or two and it would take 8-10 minutes. Alternatively I could do a cold restore which would take 4 minutes. Other than saving wear-and-tear on my SSD, the latter option makes far more sense (or indeed the RX + image solution).

 

Just installed beta 3 after leaving AXA64 for a short while. I am happy development is continuing, like others I began to doubt.

I do like all of the new features brought in with beta 3 multi partition backup especially.
Unlike some I also like the new interface and consider it a great improvement over previous versions.

With every version I am given the option to select an installation directory.
I always select D:\disk and backup tools\Time Machine. The installation routine always creates the new directory, then goes ahead and installs into C:\Program Files, leaving my chosen location empty.
This has happened on every version I have installed and I am sure I have reported this several times in the past.

 

Hi Glbth,

Thanks for your observation on this. We'll see if we can fix this in the next build.

Best regards,

Waj

 

Thank you wajamus, hope this issue gets fixed.