Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

"sleeping AND eating" - what a waste of time...

 

Yikes! This may be my last question... for now

As a long time Rollback RX user, I have been able to use their snapshot system to bounce around amongst many different computing environments, similar to the diagram below.

Using AXTM, is there any reason why I would not be able to do similar ping pong ball bouncing amonst the system states below (I know it'll take longer), each one representing an AXTM snapshot?

Lemme know or clarify accordingly... thanks!

 

Froggie,

There should be absolutely no problem doing it, the only difference is the graphical representation, i.e. you will see all those snapshots in a list view rather than a tree. Later we are going to add a tree view, as it's more convenient for power users that use complex schemes like yours.

Isso

 

Then when the BETA's released, I shall build such a beast and keep you informed of what I gather in my honeypot.

To date, all my bouncing around along a single timeline has been flawless... 'cept during that Shadow Defender test. BUT... when I learn, I learn

Thanks!

 

Thanks Froggie, that part of the functionality is actually the hardest to test (because of many possible scenarios), so you help is much appreciated.

Regards
Isso

 

Frog, I must have missed that post. Would you please summarize the issue, etc.?

Thanks,
Cruise

 

Isso, I noticed that in your youtube videos on your website that when you minimize AXTM it runs in the systray. On my W7x64 system it minimizes to the task bar. Are you aware of this?

 

Carfal, that depends on the "Automatic hourly backup" setting. If you turn it on - the program will be sitting in the tray. Otherwise it's on the task bar.

Isso

 

Oops. A suggestion then. Is there any reason why it cant miminize to the systray regardless? IMO AXTM is a program that you would leave running for easy access whether you've scheduled a task or not. By letting it minimize to the systray by default would be a cleaner implementation. What are your thoughts on this? (anybody elses thoughts are welcome as well)

 

Questions, questions... always questions.

Isso, in going back over some of the things said concerning the RECOVERY disc/iso created by AXTM, it appears that you try and add specific system drivers at the time of creation. Does this make the disc/iso system specific, and as such a different one would have to be made for each system using it?

I guess what I picture is a general family of drivers (maybe from the Windoze distribution) and any unique ones found at creation time. Are my assumptions correct here or are you just picking up any driver found on the target system when making that WIM?

If they are, can I just "slip stream" (modify) your "boot.wim" and add specific drivers for specific systems if I want the disc to be a li'l more vanilla as far as systems I'm responsible for?

I guess what I'm really trying to find out is how "flexible" the driver set in your boot.wim is as far as lots of systems are concerned.

Thanks in advance for your help with this...

 

Carfal... at the moment the only thing AXTM can do by itself is the hourly backup, everything else in on-demand. On-demand things can be done just as easily from either the START button or pinned on the taskbar in the case of Vista/W7.

I think later if general purpose scheduling is added, then being in the SystemTray or turned into a service would be very useful. But at the moment, at 1.8mb in size, it's pretty responsive as an on-demand app as far as I can see.

 

Carfal,

The problem is that there is a large number of users that really don't like something running in the background for no apparent reason.
I agree with Froggie that main executable is lightweight and takes no time to launch, should you wish to take a backup. However later, when we add more options, I'll add a checkbox to minimize to tray.

Isso

 

Froggie,

What happens is following: AXTM takes plain vanilla WinPE, then looks for any specific drivers that exist on the user's OS (but don't come standard with Windows: such as RAID, USB3, network etc) and embeds them into the PE.

As a result you get a standard recovery environment - enhanced with some specific user drivers. This PE should work fine on any system, provided it doesn't require specific RAID etc drivers. And it should always work on the system that it was created on.

The other imaging programs normally provide the user only with the standard vanilla PE, but we decided to make the embedding of specific drivers automatic in order to make the recovery media creation as simple as possible, and guarantee that it will work even if the user has specific hardware.

You will only need to modify the .wim file if you intend to run the recovery environment on a different system with non-standard drivers. But in majority of the situations the PE created on one system should work fine on another.

Isso

 

Following this thread with baited breath with great interest per activity on Windows 8 64bit system.

A real relief Isso that you broke out and have gone full steam ahead with this new project. All the best.


Regards EASTER

 

EASTER, thank you so much for your support! I hope this is going to be a useful program.

Isso

 

RollbackFrog, i guess at this stage it doesnt make much sense to have it sitting in the systray but old habbits die hard. It's just so convenient to just right click on the tray icon and click "Make backup". To that end Isso's promise of

is an excellent compromise.

 

Dear Wilders members,

We have officially released the Beta version (1.0.878 ), you can download it from www.ax64.com. Following is the list of changes:

New features:

- Restore to an empty disk (i.e. if your disk has failed and you bought a new one)
- MBR restore (optional)
- Recovery environment creation for Vista
- Error and system information logging
- Locking of manual backups preventing auto-consolidation
- Arrow to indicate the current backup in the Browser
- Added handling of externally changed volume (i.e. from Recovery console or a dual boot OS)
- Made Preparing phase faster
- Optimized Restore making it faster


Bug fixes:

- Fixed all SSD-related issues. Now SSD/TRIM is fully supported
- Fixed broken backup to network disks
- Fixed uneven completion percentage reporting
- Fixed intermittently freezing restore
- Fixed broken restore in Recovery environment
- Fixed failing installation when the program is running
- A number of other minor fixes

Isso

 

Bad news is that we changed the format of the image file, so the new version won't work with old backup files, sorry about it.
Future versions will be backwards compatible.

 

Isso, what about the Intel RST issue?

Cruise

 

Cruise, sorry I didn't have time to look into it, but in upcoming 2-3 days I'll be working on that issue.

Isso

 

Been waiting on this to hit the beta stage. This is exactly what I was looking for a "save my bacon"-type software.

 

Isso, I just did a d/l of the Beta. I plan on trying it on my XP Pro 32 bit system. Will it generate a WinPE cd/dvd on its own or do I need to get winpe? I ask as I have tried Reflect Free and it will NOT create a disk. I d/l the 1.7 GB WAIK file and it freezes system during creation.

 

MPSAN, no WAIK is required. It will create on its own.

Isso

 

OK, cover me, I'm going in!

Also, I don't care about scheduling as I want to do a full image when I want to!

 

Hi Isso, is the recovery cd bootable on a system running on UEFI with windows 8 Secure Boot turned on?