Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread

suggestion for the next version, which the user can choose the keyboard layout when it starts his computer with BootCD, example: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, ...

A+
lmo

 

I am a home user and fan of Acronis TrueImage since version 6. Currently using version 8 on XP Professional.

I would like to be able to restore an image that happens to live on a dynamic disk. Will dynamic disk support be included in the future?

 

It would add an extra level of security if the content of an image would be encrypted (e.g. image on cd while travelling).
This assumes, that the password only limits access to the image using ordinary protective measures.

 

For me, an automatic rebooting following the completion of a backup would cause me grief. I perform multiple backups to different drives from within the Recovery module. I would not want to have to reboot between each backup.

Instead of automatic, why not have a user option checkoff. Then we could have the best of both options.

Backup Verification:
I like having the Verification option now in Version 9 but I would like to see if further modified.

2. The verification option should be relocated so that it is more easily accessible. It is too easily bypassed. Make it more prominent--such as on the "Select Backup Type or Select Backup Mode" windows.

3. I would also like to see a statement (verification=enabled) (or disabled) on the "Create Backup Wizard" window which is just prior to clicking the "proceed" button.--Even a checkmark option to invoke or remove verification could be useful here. GroverH

 

Suggestion:ability to copy all relevant versioninformation to clipboard

so this information can directly copied as signature to this forum, so you always know which version of OS and TI are used

 

I would like to see the MD5 signature for installation files published on the Download/Update page.

 

universal restore feature for home edition as these days it is impossible to get a system with identical hardware after one or two year's use.

 

Just installed the update with DVD burn support which, at this minute just finishing making an image of my Data drive on a DVD.

I was again for a moment flummoxed when the program ejected my new virgin DVD! It seems we have to delay inserting the DVD until the 'save image to DVD' routine has been started. The program still shows the drive as a CD and why is the help file not updated?

It has happily spanned acorss discs and the imaging/write speed combination is terrific (my DVD does 16x write). The whole process takes only the same sort of time for a save to hard drive and the second step of then burning the image to DVD can be omitted.

A valuable addition in this update. Seems no problems so far.........

 

I would like to have ftp in command line Version of trueimage on Linux.

 

I would like to see the F11 recovery zone be scriptable. Perhaps display a list of options (multiple user prepared scripts) that are even able to access network resources/shares.

 

I would like to see the functionality of Acronis True Image to be able to backup and restore USB Flash Drives. As it is now, these drives are seen by windows as a "Removable Device" and acronis cannot see them in order to back them up.

With USB Flash Drives now in the 4GB size range, users need a way to backup and restore them.

Please see the below thread on this request.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=132589

Thanks In Advance
Jon

 

I'll definitely second that one. In fact, it makes the Workstation version appealing because of the option to add it as a plug-in.

 

From all the reports about workarounds, if this has not been suggested before I'll be surprised. If it has then add my vote for it:

In the Rescue CD have the option of the "quiet = acpic no apci" or whatever it is, available to be chosen by the user.

Also same thing for the "usbmouse = off"

 

Set up an option so that a user, when setting up a backup job, can type a comment every time a manual backup is run. It can be done now, but you have to open and edit the job parameters. I am speaking specifically of being able to set an option so that the comment page would pop up automatically each time a manual full or incremental image was run in that job. That comment would apply specifically to that particular backup. It would be very helpful when installing an operating system, drivers, and applications from scratch; or troubleshooting comptibility issues. Ideally, you would be able to look at a log with a backup file, a time and a description of why it was run. This of course would be idiotic to apply to scheduled backups, as it's likely nobody would be around to type in a comment. But it would be invaluable for system configuration and troubleshooting.

 

Secure Zone management

Secure Zone is a good thing, but I am frustrated with using it. There is very little information about what is in it (you have to almost mount an image just to see what images are there), and you get almost no control over the contents. It would be nice to have some tools for viewing and managing the contents, not just re-sizing it. The automatic clean-up just isn't enough for all the different circumstances that a user might run into. I'd like to see these things:

1. a detailed list view of the contents including sizes and dates, or better yet a tree view for the dependant incrementals and differentials
2. right-click on image name(s) gives a context menu with these items:
   • Mount
   • Delete (with warning/limitation for images with dependant incrementals)
   • Properties (shows date, size, manual/scheduled, dependancies)
   • Merge (if a full and its sequential incrementals are selected)
   • Export (copy from Secure Zone as a backup image)
   • Lock (keep the automatic clean-up from deleting it)
   • Check (check data integrity)
3. an import function to bring an ATI backup image into the secure zone

 

The single biggest item that needs updating in TI is the update / upgrade process itself.

I upgrade my anti-virus all the time...
Does it require a reboot? NO
Does it requre me to uninstall and reinstall? NO

I upgrade my corporate backup clients all the time...
Does they require a reboot? NO
Does they requre me to uninstall and reinstall? NO

The upgrade/update process for TI NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!! I am using the Corporate Workstation version of the product and the need to reboot and/or uninstall/reinstall every time a new version comes out renders the "Remote" management piece nearly worthless.

This is a GREAT product but it needs to be made MUCH more corporate management friendly. Managing 1-2 local PCs or even 10 is not bad. Try managing 40 - 100 with this... it's a nightmare

Monitoring backup jobs and their success/failure on 1-2 local PCs or even 10 is not bad. Try doing it for 40 - 100 with this... again it's a nightmare - you have to open a connection to each one individually...

PLEASE FIX THE REMOTE MANAGEMENT & UPGRADE/UPDATE PROCESS!!!

 

Nortan Ghost has "Partition Cloning" Option since MS-Dos version. i think it is a - to Acronis doesn't have the similar option...

 

True Image Update process needs be fixed

I fully agree with this. I have explained in Does upgrade need uninstall previous version(s)?, and there I have been told (on Sun 28 May 19:47 GMT, last line) to propose it here - which I am doing right now (follow link for details):

1. True Image > Help > About should display the exact and complete version and build number and date, and this in Copy/Pastable form (as appropriately requested by Omicron on Sun 21 May 10:09 GMT above).
2. The update or upgrade file should never and nowhere be presentend without telling at the same time if it is a patch or a full install.
3. The update/upgrade should automatically and silently detect the eventual existing version (without the need from the user to open True Image > Help > About), then tell the old and new version numbers (complete with build and date), require the user's authorization to install the new one, require the decision of uninstalling or not the old first, then of installing the new by overwriting the old or as a separate item (in which case, the 2 versions must both be functional: very important for Acronis, since the best source of improvement is users' testing), and then silently and quickly execute the whole - if possible without reboot. If one reboot remains required however, it's not too bad if everything around is automated, "reliablied" and simplified as far as possible.
4. While the required automatization above is developed, the updates may still be proposed unautomatized (for a short time - such situation can't be admitted for long in 2006), but they need URGENTLY to get the required presentation, as said in my link: tell the user the exact version and build numbers and dates of the existing and of the update (if necessary, it would be MANDATORY to tell openly and first to the user that TI setup is still unable to detect the existing - none can decently expect this in 2006 from a great product), tell him that TI is unable to perform automatically the removing of the old version - in short, keep him honestly informed. This may hurt Acronis in the short term, but help them work faster and better at upgrade, and get them big rewards in the long term - as average end users are much more educated than what is generally believed.

Paris, Fri 2 Jun 2006 11:53:20 +0200

 

End Users are Customers - the most important people in the business

I don't agree at all with this habit of lessening the end users; since this is addressed, please allow me to tell aloud some things that so many know too well but never dare to tell.

End users are the most important people in the business IMO. They are the more numerous, they are the ones from whom IT services get their living, they are most generally the most modest (because the most careful and knowledgeable - said Darwin: "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge". Don't be surprised or offended: in any more mature business, you aren't surprised that customers are taken as more important and respectable than salespeople or service staff). And fort 1 IT staff annoyed by TI upgrades, you have plenty end users who may be worse impacted; when an IT staff has 1 problem on "40 - 100" PCs, the end user may have in the same time "40 - 100" problems on 1 PC; and thousands end users may have the same problems while none in the big companies worries the tiniest, or even is informed (since average end users are too knowledgeable hence modest to make noise - just 1% are silly enough to make noise and serve as pretext to the bad ones in IT services to brag their inventions, hide their reality, and unjustly bash the educated end users). The big problem and the big damage is not in IT services IMO, but in End Users; in TI case, the update/upgrade process must be finished for everyone, still more perhaps for end users than for IT.

Microsoft particularly should remember that they built their success on the End User and the enpowerment they gave him; and other companies should take example from what Microsoft has been and done.

Paris, Fri 2 Jun 2006 11:54:10 +0200

 

I'm missing a command line (tool) to use with the rescue CD to restore an Image from a fileserver automatically. I save my Images to a network share under a certain name. When I want to restore the PC it would be th easiest if I only had to boot from a rescue CD, that is already configured to automatically restore a certain tib (boot partition) from a certain server - without asking the user (I'm myself not always in front of the PC) for shares or tib-names and passwords they don't know...
I thought the "deploy" command should work, but with the bootPartition it won't...
As far as I'm creating Images once a week, burning them on CD is not very practical.

 

A search option for the Help file would be very, very useful.

Best regards
/ber

 

Right Click Menu and Intuitive Icons.

For over a decade (under Windows) a common and accepted method of invoking a function on a selected object is to right click on it to bring up a popup menu of functions which may be applied.

When I wanted to manually start one of the items in the Active Tasks list I selected an active task and right clicked, expecting to see a start option in a popup menu. There was none and I had to struggle to work out which toolbutton was start by hovering over each to get textual feedback. Not very nice.

To make matters worse, the start button uses a chequered flag icon. A chequered flag to me is something associated with the *end* of a motor race, and therefore represents stop, not start.

F

 

since i only do backups to a SMB-Server, running on my router (which serves as PXE-boot server too), i would like to see an Option in the Installer to only extract the Kernel.dat and Ramdisk.dat for the Rescue Environment.

I said i would like to see that, it's not that i would drop TI and DD for not having that feature. It would only be nice-to-have.

 

I found Acronis 9's help to be well organized and well written, but I wish it included both an index and a search feature.

 

The more I think about this the worse it is. What exactly is the Chequered Flag metapor, which represents "Start" in True Image, based on ?

http://www.fotw.net/flags/xf@chex.html

F