In fact looking at the forum at Macrium it seems that by not renewing, the license is not perpetual but is now treated as "restore mode only". Seems I will not be able to continue using the existing program to make new backups without paying for it unless I am misreading this.
@beethoven - v8 was sold in both license forms, PERPETUAL & SUBSCRIPTION. You speak of a "license renewal" due... sounds like a subscription. If it really is subscription, your application will indeed turn into a RESTORE ONLY version at the end of the subscription. If you're talking about a SUPPORT contract subscription, you have a perpetual license and that will continue to run normally until Windows breaks it, no problem. I believe the special upgrade offer from v8 to v10 has expired. Based on the above, You have a decision to make. If you really have a PERPETUAL license, stay with it. If you have a subscription license, either pay for the continuance or move on to another product. And, if you have a subscription license for v8, it should include full support AND under that banner will allow you to upgrade to v10 license without cost. I would chat with Macrium about all your options. If you have to move on due to cost, both IFW & HASLEO offer very usable solutions.
I'm wondering if there will be extra trump tariffs to pay if one actually decides to rent macrium reflect? I guess you can no longer buy it, so rental fees are probably the only way to use it these days.
An interesting question that I had not considered and am certainly no expert on. After some googling it appears that the general consensus is that software won't have tariffs but I guess we will have to see how that actually plays out.
Only physical goods are subject to tariffs now. But that doesn't rule out cost increases on other products caused by the fact that the companies producing them now paying higher costs for the physical goods that they consume.
I agree with you, I’m not going to pay $170.00 CAD to renew my subscription Using Hasleo has been OK, and I also have a lifetime subscription for Aomei which I haven’t been using for many years…
I like the way you think! I hope Hasleo puts Macrium (trash as of v10) and Acronis {trash since about 2018} out of business because of that nonsense.
I don't think they are struggling financially, I believe they are shifting their focus to business customers and home users are no longer their top priority. In doing so they are falling into the same trap that another company called Storagecraft fell into. They too shifted their priority to business customers and jacked up their rates so high that home users could no longer afford them. People stopped using them, and then slowly they fell out of popularity. Then businesses also started dropping them, because businesses are run by ordinary people like us who tend to use or recommend products that they have used themselves, or are comfortable in using. Storagecraft went down the drain, and got acquired by another company. Their backup product called ShadowProtect, which was actually an excellent product of its time, is not even mentioned anymore. The same fate awaits Macrium. Hopefully someone in the company is intelligent enough to recognize this and not fall into the same trap. If home users stop using them, then eventually businesses will stop using them as well.
I don’t think selling life licenses is a good business model. Let’s face it, how many home users will buy an imaging program? Not enough to give financial stability to any company, and the competition is fierce. Most average users will ‘reset’ their Window installation which is free and certainly with a low learning curve. The shift to a subscription model is inevitable after a while in order to survive financially, and business customers are not concerned by license costs, also because they buy large numbers of licenses. I personally prefer to support an imaging program (Macrium has never failed) than a useless antivirus.
@Osaban, I fully agree with you and usually I also prefer to pay and support the developers, but their price is really ridiculous and I just can’t afford it.
Macrium Reflect has never disappointed me. It works flawlessly. I've had negative experiences with other backup programs. That's why I pay for the Macrium Reflect subscription.
You know Antarctica, I paid for years antivirus companies, and I think at the end of the day what really matters is to have the possibility to restore a system within minutes, a remedy for any problem. My current plan with Macrium (after having relinquished my V8 license) is US $28 a year. It is money for sure, but ridiculously expensive, I don't know. I respect your opinion, and by all means I do have Hasleo which performs virtually like Macrium. If Macrium decides to increase their yearly plan unreasonably, I won't have nay problems working with Hasleo only or choose another company.
@Osaban, I said ridiculous because I just received the renewal from Storagecraft the other day and they ask me $170 CAD for two licenses anyway Hasleo has been perfect for the time being.
Macrium Reflect X issue when I do a restore I get a popup ( This licence is not valid for this hardware ) So I delete the licence and put in the same licence key and it works till the next restore. I have 4 licence keys for Macrium Reflect and it is the same for every key. I it seems to think my hardware has changed It has not. It backups fine but the restores are a pain
Current versions of MR have "Default Shutdown After Completion" enabled and set to "Reboot" by default in the bootable Rescue: I find this very annoying. Is there a way to disable it by default, so that I don't have to do it manually every time? I expected the Rescue media to copy this setting from the MR installed on my system, but it does not.
I'm on 10.0.8495 and have never adjusted the setting on my PC at all. Under my Defaults and Settings, that checkbox is unchecked. I believe that setting is supposed to be copied into Rescue Media, but if you've just changed the setting, it might be an item that requires you to force a full WIM rebuild on the Rescue Media rather than a change that auto-triggers one. In order to do that, select your Rescue Media build target, then hold Ctrl to expose a down arrow on the Build button. Click that arrow instead of the main Build button and choose Force WIM Rebuild.
Yes, 'unchecked' is the default for the installed MR, but in the bootable MR the default is now 'checked' (although it used to be 'unchecked' in previous versions of MR, a couple of years ago). Rebuilding the WIM doesn't help, it stays checked.
MR v10.0.8576 has just been released: Bug fixes and Improvements, v10.0.8576 - 19th May 2025 Updating To This Release This update requires a full installation; patch files are not available. After installing this build, please rebuild your rescue media to ensure that it includes the latest fixes. Security Updates This update includes a security enhancement for the Macrium Image Mounting kernel-mode component (mimkrnl.sys). We advise you to install this release to enhance the security of your system. Imaging Addressed a problem that could result in excessive memory usage and/or errors being reported during the Incremental backup process. This issue only arises when using a custom file name and/or path containing non-ANSI (non-English) characters. Note: New backup sets will not be affected by this issue. If you require access to an affected backup set and are experiencing issues, please contact support. Fixed a problem where the system could fail to boot with a "boot disk not found" error after restoring images to different disks using Drag and Drop or when using the Shrink or Extend to fill target disk options. Rescue Media PE 11 Rescue Media has been updated to build 26100, December 2024. Partition Handling Resolved an issue where the recovery partition of an MBR disk was incorrectly displayed as a primary partition after a clone or restore. File & Folder Fixed an issue where Reflect could crash with an invalid memory access when iterating some directory structures. Fixed an issue where Incremental File & Folder backups would fail with a "path not found" error when run from the Existing Backups view, if the source folder contained non-ANSI characters. General Fixed an issue where Reflect would fail to create a VSS snapshot, after Windows Installer reported an unexpected installation type for Reflect. Resolved an issue where scheduled tasks using the Macrium Task Scheduler could run multiple times after the system resumed from sleep or was restarted. Fixed a rare issue where Reflect could unexpectedly terminate when configuring or sending emails using OAuth2 authentication. Fixed an issue where the Shell Extension could cause Windows Explorer to crash when mounting certain image files. Various other minor fixes, UI and language translation improvements and other changes to enhance Macrium Reflect. Source: https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v10/v10.0.8576/details10.0.8576.htm
I purchased a Workstation 8 license years ago. Actually 3 of them for various systems. There have not been any updates since that I'm aware of. The 8.1 build 8325 seems to be the last one. To this day it works quite well on my systems with no perceived issues. The Workstation edition, part of Macrium’s business-oriented lineup (alongside Server, Server Plus, and Technician variants), is designed for commercial environments, targeting endpoint backups for business-critical PCs and workstations. It includes all Home edition features but adds capabilities like centralized management via Macrium Site Manager (for managing multiple systems), audit-ready reporting, and annual support and maintenance contracts that provide free upgrades during the subscription period. It’s licensed for commercial use and supports business needs like compliance and scalability. Macrium Reflect Workstation licenses for versions 6, 7, and 8 (and earlier) were explicitly described as perpetual, with no expiry date, licensed per machine. This applied to Workstation, Server, Server Plus, and Home editions. You could continue using the software forever on the licensed PC, even after the support period ended, for creating and restoring backups Getting the installer years later can be problematic, but I keep and archive all digital purchases to include all documentation, keys, and installers for any future installation needs. Macrium Reflect Workstation v8.1.8325 download link https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v8/v8.1.8325/reflect_wkstn_setup_x64.exe
Just an FYI, the last free version of Macrium for home users, v8.0.7783, is also working fine on the latest version of Windows 11 as far as I am aware of. I do not use the free version myself, but a few non-techie friends of mine that I recommended the free version to still use it, and since I am their free tech support guy, I would have heard about it if it had stopped working for them.
Indeed, the v8.x free version does still work well for Win10. In fact, I had to restore this machine yesterday after Windows stopped working and unexpectedly shut down.
I'm quite content to stick with Macrium Reflect 8.1 for a long time. It's running fine on my four PCs.
Version v10.0.8576 resulted in very slow backup and very slow disk check. I had to uninstall and go back to .8495 to get my computer running right.
