Would you recommend Macrium Reflect v6?

Exactly like MerleOne said, those are the main issues with Reflect's protection scheme. I do kind of wish they have an online panel where you could deactivate a PC and move the license to another PC in case one of them crashed. This would make it much easier without the need to have to contact support. But yeah. Perhaps I should just save up money and buy both hahaha.

 

As I recall Shadow Protect had a similar requirement to 'Remove License' before switching PCs, so it's not just Macrium.
I was upgrading my PC, thought that all I had to do was uninstall SP from the old PC and then install it on the new PC.
It turns out I was wrong, after contacting their support I found out that I had to 'deactivate' the license before uninstalling. Had I done that I wouldn't have had to contact support. Subsequently they added a prompt to the 'Uninstall' explaining things.

However there's nothing in the Reflect license that says that you have to contact their support when you exercise your rights under the "fair use" exceptions.
Have you had experience where you did need to contact them and were without Reflect on your computer until they 'reset' your license?

I would have thought that the Redeploy feature would take care of that as long as you didn't use the old PC ever again.

From the License file (I added some formatting):

 

I just asked for clarification in their support forum, I'll report their response...

 

Like I said, the main issue is if Macrium ceases to be operational. In that case, there is nothing to do. But there are many software companies that propose the same kind of online activation, it's even worse in some cases, for instance TMPGEnc re-validates its licence every 90 days or so, even after being activated. But the advantage is that you may move the license very easily, just install the software on a new PC and don't use it on the older one.

 

Is upgrading from ver 5 to ver 6 pretty simple and smooth? Does the upgrade retain all of your current options and settings?

 

I looks like the version labels may have changed a little. I currently have Reflect 5 Pro. Is that now the same a Reflect 6 Home? Are Pro and Home essentially the same, or did I miss something?

 

This is what I asked and Macrium's response. It's easy, without a need to go through support (unless you screw something up and need help and then they will)

Stephen replied:

 

I settled in on an older Acronis boot disc for my home backups. That and some basic file sync stuff. I could have just as likely have picked Macrium as my imager. Both ATI and MR are on my officially recommended list.

 

Thanks, Pete.

 

Good explanation, Jwcca. I assume by screwing something up you mean the case that you're not able to start your PC - it's broken for example - HDD, MOBO crashed, or whatever - right?

 

No, I was considering the user might do something that shouldn't be done, but just in broad terms, there are occasionally folks that hit Delete instead of Save... and then say 'Oh, Oh, I shouldn't have done that'.

The most critical step would be that they must remove/uninstall Reflect from the old PC just in case it still works and they might use it occasionally, then there'd be two PCs with the same licence, etc. which is a 'No-No'. If the old PC is 'dead' then that won't happen.

As long as a user has current Recovery media (USB stick or CD/DVD) and follows the plan, there won't likely be any 'screw ups'.

 

Thanks Jwcca.
As I'm not a Macrium user (not yet) just want to make sure what if my PC is completely broken down - and I'm not able to start Windows so that I could either release (remove) license from Macrium or uninstall Macrium... what then? I buy a now PC and would It be possible to install Macrium on it and using as a licensed copy?

 

Thank you Peter. Good to know it's not a problem
As they improve Macrium and are planning to implement some new (serious) features like viBoot I don't think they would go bankrupt either. I wish them the best!

 

That would be like the EMSI licencing then? Good idea!

 

I had some navigation software I bought online. The company went belly-up, but the activation scheme was through a third party activation provider that was still around. They wouldn't budge and outright refused to help me activate the software. You wonder why people pirate stuff...

 

Oh! That sounds great! Was going to email but seems like everyone is already several steps ahead.

But yeah protection schemes are a bit worrisome because of that. However there are a few cases where the company found ways to allow people to still activate their software when they go out of business. But it's not something to rely on. Just mainly hope that there business is doing good enough that they do disappear.

 

ATI was long ago my imaging product of choice, but as time went by it became obvious that the company has an unprofessional development process with poor quality control. Macrium by contrast is a highly professional development shop that turns out polished product. I certainly could not nowadays recommend Acronis's shoddy workmanship.