Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Thank you Peter, I agree. Not that I'm complaining, it's just a lesson to learn. I mean if we released the program a year ago with those two hacks, we would at that point of time have a lot of funds still available for marketing (we don't have those funds now, because we spent them for the development past year).
Using those funds for marketing we could have some income from sales that would support our development throughout that year, and we would now release a new version with proper fixes (collecting additional revenue for paid update).
Such tactics would most likely result in much better position of the company on the market.

Isso

 

Oh yes it is! You may not see that now, but you will gain a following that will pay off (in time)!

Don't kid yourself; a great many Rx users (and ex-users) are (were) fed-up with HDS and are watching what you are doing with great interest!

 

Small and starting companies do work when they produce good product, offer good support and remain in close touch with their customer base. The makers of Macrium Reflect are a good example. They started small, but with a solid idea. Today they are very much respected and those in the field are familiar with the name. Stay true to your root and you idea. Your product and reputation will do the rest.

 

Luckily, fixing this issue on my machine proved easy.

1. Download this tool created by Josh Cell located here.

2. Open Windows Explorer and goto folder options and untick "Hide protected operation system files". You should now see the hidden "C:\Recovery" folder.

3. I've never been good with file permissions so this is where the above tool comes into it. Start it up. The interface says you can drag files/folders to it but it's never worked on my system. I just double click on the window and a file browser window pops up. Navigate to "C:\Recovery\{GUID}" and you should see 2 files "boot.sdi" and "Winre.dat". If yours is already "Winre.wim" then i cant help you any longer. Otherwise rename "Winre.dat" to "Winre.wim" by right clicking on it. You'll get all sorts of warnings but as you know just ignore them.

4. Close the program and your done. It should now work.

If this doesnt work then sorry i cant be of any more help. There are other issues affecting your system that's above my pay grade.

UPDATE: Well, I did a little digging around and found this solution which works beautifully. It adds "Repair Your Computer" back at the F8 advanced boot options and even fixed my "a device was inaccessible error" whenever i tried to run "Repair Your Computer" before.

Start a command prompt with admin rights

Reagentc.exe /disable
Reagentc.exe /setosimage /path c:\recovery /target C:\Windows
Reagentc.exe /enable

Your recovery enviroment should work perfectly now.

PS If you have RBRx installed (or had it installed) you must first check the hidden "C:\Recovery\{GUID}" folder and rename "Winre.dat" back to "Winre.wim" or the above commands will fail.

 

Shadow, you are so right about that. Count me as one of the ex-users who had a horrific experience with Rx with HDS Support in denial about my account of the episode.

Cruise

 

Thank you everybody for your support! I really appreciate it guys.

Let me just clarify my point - I didn't mean that releasing a crappy product is a right move. All I was saying is that spending too much time for perfection may actually kill the product. Not all users are so technically advanced like Wilders members, most of them don't even think about such details like TRIM support or recovery environment. Overall the product is working - so they buy it.

And by releasing the product sooner - even with some quality trade-offs, the company is getting very important market advantage.
Besides, if the company is promoting a new product, it often makes a lot of sense to release a half-baked product just to see how the people accept it. If there is a little interest, it may be better to stop the further development and don't spend too much money on it.

For example - I used to be developing a program several years ago, spent almost 2 years to get it perfectly working, just to find out that there is almost no market for it. I could know that much sooner, should I released a quick prototype first.

Hope this makes sense, may be some of you decide to start a software business and find my thoughts of any help.

Isso

 

As long as you're honest about it and go out of your way to inform the users of the current shortcomings (with a promise of further improvements), the tech savvy amongst us will be more than forgiving. Case in point, RBX v10's sneaky non-support of GPT in 64bit Windows (to put it simply... There are other caveats). Sure they made some post about it in somewhere in a thread on their forums, but you don't see any of that on the path to buy the product. The unsuspecting customer is lead to believe they're buying a fully Win8 compatible product. Now see how respected they are over here...

Your product is quite specialized and practically requires knowledgeable security experts to adopt it and then spread the word to those who really need it. To be honest, I don't think those who really need it will ever truly understand it or spend the time to try to. You need to establish a base of "technical believers" and you started on the right footing by being here. Be truthful about your strengths and your flaws, but keep working on your flaws.

 

While I have had very little trouble with RollBack Rx, and at the time of purchasing it for the first time I was not able to find much in the way of complaints about it, I have totally lost confidence in Horizon Data Systems. Had they been more forthcoming about Rxs shortcomings/issues over the last 6 months I would have been a loyal customer until something significantly better came along (and maybe even then). Now I am just waiting for a replacement. For me Rx does a job that I feel needs doing so for the time being I will continue to use it but even if they fix every known issue I would still switch once a viable alternative is available. I have said before that in my experience Rx is a fine program with a lot going for it. The publisher, on the other hand, has very little going for it and I would like to be rid of them. IF you cannot be honest with your customers and if you do not provide very good support, especially for a program like RX upon which folks are depending to keep their PCs working properly, then you do not deserve to be in business.

 

RollBack Rx also mess with pagefile + forcibly enables remote connection on your PC.
---
Isso, for this type of program there's always a market.

 

Hl Isso,

I agree with you that maybe you should have released the product earlier (at least a beta version, were you described the restrictions like trim and ssds). If not for anything else, just to investigate the market interest, and to make known your product.

Having said that, a program usually sells by itself if:
1) works as advertised
2) the price is right (for the targeted audience)
3) the support is helpful.
4) it has multi language interface, so that can target customers from all over the world.

ps. in case you add mui support count me in as greek translator.

Panagiotis

 

Hi

I find Panagiotis's comments extremely diplomatic.

Terry

 

Thank you folks! Marc, Panagiotis - your posts are really helpful and I totally agree with everything that you've mentioned.
Panagiotis - thank you, I will certainly consider your help for Greek translation ! (hope we'll get there some day...)

 

Morning, Isso... I need a re-affirmation of an assumption here.

Is the chart below correct, and if so, will there be a TIMELINE VIEW available in the browser when the product is complete? If the assumption below is wrong, pls explain... thanks!

 

Hi Froggie,

We do have plans to implement the second type of backup representation - adding a "timeline view" (or "tree view") as per your drawing. Tree view is obviously more natural, as it exactly represents the relations between backups.

However we won't include it into the first release, sorry. I'm targeting it to be as simple as possible, so I decided to go with only "List view" for now. Later we'll add "Tree view" too, it shouldn't take much time.

Isso

 

carfal - I didn't know about fixing recovery environment with Reagentc.exe, thanks for posting it, really helpful!

 

Folks, there is one issue that I'd like to get your advice on. It's the locking of backups. I'm thinking of two possible approaches:

1. Simple - no "Locking" feature, but rather treat all manual backups as locked. All automatic backups will therefore be unlocked.
2. Flexible - add a Lock/Unlock menu and let the user specify each backup state manually.

Which would you prefer?

Also a question for RBX (and similar program) users. Why do they need locking of snapshots? AXTM needs locking, because when automatic backup is enabled, the program automatically consolidates old backups, so it may merge some of the old manual backups (effectively deleting them).
Does RBX have automatic consolidation? If no, why does it need to lock/unlock the snapshots?

Thank you,
Isso

 

Hi Peter,

"Locked backup" in my understanding is the one that should not be deleted when the program does automatic consolidation of old backups.

Isso

 

Isso... it's primarily for the user's convenience (to protect the users from themselves) except in the case of the BASELINE which is always locked (it's the PARENT).

As with any PARENT/CHILD relationship, when a CHILD is deleted, anything still active in any of the follow-on generations will migrate to the next younger generation, all else will be deleted... this only happens when an unlocked snapshot is deleted (then defragmented for surface availability). RBrx does this with its database/pointers... not with the data itself.

 

I guess what I should have said is... RBrx provides for no consolidation of snapshots until one is deleted. At that time, all it does is consolidate its database pointers as far as all the PARENT/CHILD relationships are concerned.

If the system is re-Baselined, at that time all the active data pointers are gathered together in the latest generation and it becomes the new PARENT (all that came previously is gone)... the "time machine" has been reset, no more going back.

 

Isso... it happened again

Laptop, W7x86sp1, Athlon X2, 1gB RAM (small) - The 120gB storage device has 2-partitions on it (C:\=50gB, D:\=60gB). D:\ has 6-snapshots on it (Baseline + 5-incrementals).

I plugged in a 32gB USB FLASH device then ran AXTM, changing it's snapshot holding folder to the new USB FLASH device (F:\) and started a backup operation. I expected a FULL baseline on the F:\ device... instead I got an incremental snapshot on the f:\ device, representing the difference between the last snapshot on D:\ and the current system state... and the timing was incremental based, not a full scan.

This is what happened on an XP test system (extensive RAM) a week or so ago... I could not repeat it on the XP system at that time.

I will leave the laptop alone unless I hear otherwise from you...

 

Froggie, thank you for explaining RBX operation!

For AXTM bug with changing the output drives - I'll try to reproduce it, I guess it has something to do with automatic detection of changed drive letter (AXTM tries to detect a situation where the backup drive appears under different drive letter). Will let you know as soon as I have more results.

Isso

 

FWIW... I just did another incremental snap and it continues to do fast, small incrementals on the new drive with the original snaps on another drive.

 

Why not both?
e.g. A global option "treat all manual backups as locked" that can be enabled/disabled.
And a button, checkmark or menu in the browser to lock/unlock any backup.

Personally I'd go with the 1st (simple), but I'm certain that sooner or later some users will request to implement the 2nd too.

Panagiotis