Macrium Reflect

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Stigg, Nov 23, 2013.

  1. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello,

    A new update has been released, version 7.2.4808.0...
    Homepage - Download Page - Release Notes
     
  2. Buddel

    Buddel Registered Member

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    Got it via internal updater. Thanks, @puff-m-d :thumb:
     
  3. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello @Buddel ,

    You are most welcome ;) ...
     
  4. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I'm pleased to report that with the latest Macrium update namely v.7.2.4808, the problem with OneDrive and the BSOD associated with locking the newly created 'Personal Vault' has been resolved. I've also tested a backup incremental and restore and there are no issues. That was a quick fix thanks.
     
  5. jpcummins

    jpcummins Registered Member

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    I have Macrium Reflect Home, I hesitate to update to Version 7.2.4808.1, because of the "German Language Version Only". Am I correct in saying I still need to download and install the update then using Ctrl, Shift, L change the language back to English? I ask because I have never needed to do this before when installing Macrium updates. If so, will this be the normal procedure when installing updates? As always I will appreciate all replies and would thank you in advance.
     
  6. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    It is easy. Anywhere in the MR window, press Ctrl+Shift+L
    ScreenShot_136.png
     
  7. jpcummins

    jpcummins Registered Member

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    Curious if anyone creates Rescue Media after an update. With Macrium Reflect Home, I create a monthly backup religiously; but, I only create Rescue Media upon a new version change. Is this acceptable or should I be doing differently? I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks in advance.
     
  8. Antarctica

    Antarctica Registered Member

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    like you I have been creating a new Rescue Media upon new version change only for the last five years. So far never had problem but I am no expert:cool:
     
  9. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Upon update you should ALWAYS read the current RELEASE NOTES (Help/Release notes). Macrium tells you in those notes whether you need to create a new rescue media and why. If they don't mention it, you're fine to continue using what you have.
     
  10. jadinolf

    jadinolf Registered Member

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    For the record, I installed that update on all 6 computers and they all come up with my mother tongue - ENGLISH.
     
  11. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I only update my Rescue Media when the release notes specifically mention a change that pertains to Rescue Media -- most Reflect updates don't have such changes, although the ones that do usually have those items called out in the release notes in red text -- or if I need to create new Rescue Media and by that point it just so happens that I've installed a Reflect updates since the last time I did so, in which case Reflect by default rebuilds my Rescue Media automatically.

    There's really no need to update your Rescue Media with every single Reflect release, especially if you actually read the release notes prior to updating. And in fact I would argue that there's a case to be made for NOT updating with every release, because there have been multiple occasions where a new Reflect release introduced a new bug that affected Rescue Media, so people who updated purely for the sake of updating ended up worse off. (For that matter I don't even update Reflect automatically on production systems. I read the release notes to determine whether there are any fixes/enhancements that matter to me, because if not, updating would just mean risking the introduction of new bugs for no gain. I've seen multiple cases of releases containing fixes for problems that were introduced in the immediately preceding release.)

    But whatever you do:
    1) Always keep an ISO build of "known good" Rescue Media. That way if you update and find that the new version produces bad Rescue Media, you can at least create good Rescue Media using that ISO until Macrium fixes the problem. Otherwise, you'd have to either roll back to the previous Reflect version (not easy unless you happened to have kept an older Reflect installer stashed somewhere) or roll back your entire OS partition using a recent Reflect backup to undo the Reflect update (not always practical).

    2) Whenever you build new Rescue Media, always -- ALWAYS! -- test it immediately. That means making sure that it boots properly and that it can see all of the hardware you'd need it to see in order to perform restores or backups, i.e. any drives that you'd back up or restore or that contain your backup files, network locations if needed, etc. I have seen cases on the Macrium forum involving people who blindly updated their Rescue Media with every Reflect update without ever testing the updated builds, only to find out when they actually NEEDED their Rescue Media that the updated build didn't work, even though they remembered a previous build working. Don't end up there!
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2020
  12. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Jphughan, thank you for your invaluable advice!
    I always update unless there is a clear warning from fellow members that something is definitely wrong, and I always make an incremental backup before the update. Now my first question is, after updating I always update the Windows 'bootable' rescue media, should I wait as a precaution? I don't usually bother to update the rescue media with my USB flash drives, and let a month go by before doing it. Old rescue media in flash drive format which has been tested successfully say three month ago will always recover a backup image?If yes, then why bother at all updating flash drives...
     
  13. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    An Incremental backup before the update is nice, but suppose you don't realize there's an issue with the new release until a few days later. Are you sure you'd be willing to roll your entire C partition back a few days at that point just to "undo" that Reflect update? For people who keep their personal data on a separate partition or entirely in the cloud, that might not be such a terrible prospect, but most people's systems only have a C partition, so they'd be rolling back even their personal data by a few days, and then at best they'd have to manually extract updated versions of that data from a newer backup. So even the best case there is a hassle. I used to be in the "always make sure you're running the latest and greatest" camp, but I've increasingly found myself gravitating more toward the "check whether the latest is in fact any greater for your purposes, and don't bother if not" camp. I definitely stay on top of security updates, but for applications that offer useful release notes like Reflect, if I don't see anything appealing in the new update, I take the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. For applications that just post updates without detailed notes, I decide what to do about them on a case by case basis. In today's world where there are toothbrushes and coffee mugs that have firmware updates, I'm losing the will to stay on top of updating everything just for the sake of updating. But I'm also not always willing to allow everything to auto-update.

    The fact that you have known good Rescue Media on external devices that you do NOT immediately update is good, since that means you could use the boot menu recovery option to validate that the updated Rescue environment still boots as expected and still sees all of your hardware. And if not, you still have the external device. The only problem scenario I can see would be if Macrium fixed a bug that pertained to Rescue and that could potentially affect you, but you never updated your Rescue Media before your system died and you became unable to use the recovery boot menu option. In that case, your external device running an older Rescue Media build could in theory become problematic to use. But that is of course an edge case. Still, that scenario is why I read the release notes, and if I see a fix relating to something that does apply to me or could potentially apply to me (e.g. fixing ReDeploy bugs in case I ever might want to use it), then I'll typically update my Rescue Media external devices. But I'll still have an ISO of a known good Rescue Media build to revert to in case things go south.
     
  14. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Once again, thank you for sharing your pertinent insights.
     
  15. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Apologies, I know this has been covered before, but ...

    Other tasks>Create Rescue Media>Windows Boot Menu>Advanced>Choose Base WIM ...

    I have Windows PE 10 (WADK) selected (presumably from previously) ... still says Release 1709 (64 bit) :doubt: - rather than Windows RE which I see is the new default - and updated this now in Home v7.2.4808.

    OK to leave as is, or should I recreate after selecting Windows RE?

    Which is the most bullet-proof?
     
  16. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    WindowsRE will contain the complete driver set from the machine it's being made from, including all needed WiFi drivers (if you need them in your rescue operations)... those are the biggest advantages. I do not use REs, they're much larger than PE builds but they work just fine.

    I'm sure JP will explain this in detail if you need additional information...
     
  17. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    WinPE 10 still says 1709 64-bit because that's the release Macrium currently has Reflect set to use. Prior to that it was 1607. They moved to 1709 because that release added support for multi-partition flash drives. I'm not aware of any significant updates to WinPE since then that would be useful for Rescue Media.

    WinRE is the default for new Reflect 7.2 installations, but if you upgraded from a pre-7.2 release, your existing WinPE environment was retained.

    I personally use WinPE 10 across the board, foregoing WinRE even on systems that are running Windows 10, and I recommend that others do the same unless they need WiFi support in Rescue (only available in RE) or really can't spare the storage to cache WinPE 10. The reason is that WinRE is a moving target. It gets customized on a per-system basis even before Rescue Media Builder gets to it -- my own WinRE environment has a driver package for my Synaptics touchpad, for example, which is huge because it contains video animations of various gestures. In addition, WinRE gets updated whenever you update to a new Windows 10 feature release (except 1909, which carried over WinRE 1903), which means there's always the potential for Microsoft to introduce a bug that will affect Rescue Media. In fact, the initial release of Win10 1809 had a bug that broke Rescue Media's ability to automatically load drivers at startup. That release was recalled and the re-release of Win10 1809 had it fixed, but it happened. By comparison, using WinPE 10 causes Rescue Media Builder to download (as of this writing) WinPE 10 1709, regardless of what version of Windows you're running, and that download does NOT get customized on a per-system basis before Rescue Media Builder touches it. So that way you're always starting with a consistent "foundation" that Macrium actually tested.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2020
  18. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Thanks Froggie, and jp ...

    I'll stick with what I have now then (1709 WinPE) and yes, it was upgraded v5, V6, onwards.

    On my other system, which is WinRE, can I just change it to WinPE and build over?
     
  19. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Absolutely...
     
  20. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    The notes to v7.2.4797 said that new features were implemented to address file system corruption issues related to applying recent Windows Updates. Does this also apply to the rescue media? Is it worth upgrading the rescue media for it?
     
  21. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I'm not sure, because I don't really understand that item from the release notes. I read through the thread that was linked in that note and didn't see anything mentioned about file system corruption. I suppose Macrium themselves may have diagnosed file system corruption as the underlying cause of the problems that were being reported in that thread, but I don't know if that's true. And even if it is, since there's no detail as to the nature of the corruption, I have no idea whether that fix would also apply to Rescue. Unless it's some issue that only occurs when the file system is actually online and/or VSS is being used, I would think it would apply to Rescue, but on the other hand Macrium didn't call that item out in red text as they normally do for changes that apply to Rescue.
     
  22. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    Thanks. I updated my rescue media. Better safe than sorry I guess.
     
  23. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Macrium said, "In response to potential file system corruption issues that could arise from applying some recent Windows Updates, we have reviewed our data integrity checks and implemented new features: See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/kb4535996/134c504e-bb55-4e3c-a5da-28794a4b6079"

    The way I read that statement is that RECENT updates created some issues with the FileSystem as far as REFLECT may have seen it. Since the Rescue Media runs on a much older Windows version, one which hasn't had any of those updates applied to it, I would think a Rescue Media re-Build would not be required.
     
  24. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    That wasn't my interpretation at all. If it was just a change that affected how Reflect does things, I wouldn't have expected Macrium to link to a thread that (last time I checked) discusses problems that have nothing to do with Reflect and doesn't mention Reflect at all. I would also expect that if it were as you interpreted, the wording for the fix would be something like, "In response to file system changes made by Microsoft in a Windows Update that affect Reflect..." But instead, Macrium used the phrase "file system corruption", which is much stronger language and suggests that the Windows update introduced a problem, not that it made a change that might be fine for most people but that Reflect in particular happened not to be happy with.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2020
  25. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    Latest Free version. Under what conditions does a purchase offer appear? I don’t have it. Or should it not appear?
    22.jpg
     
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