Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

This is the normal behavior of AXTM right now. See here:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2222019&postcount=1070

Multi-partition support is on Isso's todo list...


Cheers
manolito

 

Isso, I would like to say that I admire your style/policy of product analysis and development and in particular your communication style and involvment of (feed in, tweak, feed out, quick response) your users and potential users.
In my opinion this is the only way to succesfully develop a product of this type.
Similarly I've admired Ronen Tzur for years for his development style and bi-lateral development with his usership. A good product will be succesfull with an active and involved usership and a developer that listens and welcomes that involvment, not as a marketing ploy but as a joint effort towards a shared goal.
For income, I like the idea of donationware and lifetime licences (The purchaser owns the product when he/shes paid for it) if thus model can achieve the income that you require but I don't like rentware models or monthly "touch base" type activation/registration. Ideally I would like one piece of software not a paid and a "nobbled" free, it seems devisive.
I think users would donate cash to buy a pruduct that they felt involved with
If the software itself meets expectations (which I'm convinced that it will), this is the formula for a "classic" software with a dedicated usership.

 

Panagiotis,

Unfortunately consolidation won't help, because those clusters wouldn't change between those snapshots, so they wouldn't exist in the newer snapshot. However I guess there should be a solution, I'll look into it.

Isso

 

Hi Pascal,

Thank you for the information. In fact nothing should prevent AXTM from picking the virtual CD, so I'll look into this and fix it. Most likely WinCDEmu represents the virtual CD in an unusual way.

Isso

 

David,

For multiple drives - see reply from manolito (thanks manolito!).
For recovery on USB hard drive - I will think about it. The main change that needs to be done is creating the recovery media without formatting the drive, as I guess unlike USB sticks the users won't tolerate their USB HDDs to be erased.

Isso

 

Hi sdmod,

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts!
For freeware or donationware - I would happily go with any. But there are problems with both:

For freeware I need to find an alternative monetization method - it could be a paid Pro version (that we don't have), or website ads (won't bring any considerable income), or adware, for example bundling with browser toolbars (I don't think anyone will like it). So basically I have no way to go with free version at this moment.

For donationware - it simply doesn't work. There are a number of donationware programs that have millions of users yet their authors are struggling to pay their bills. I don't think I ever can get millions of users, so this approach too is not an option (from business standpoint).

Lifetime license - if you mean "buy once-get lifetime upgrades" - this is unfortunately not a viable method too - because in such a case the price of the product should be much higher to accommodate for future development and support.

The best method in my opinion is "paid major updates", that's pretty much standard these days. Later I hope we'll be able to afford a free version.

Hope this makes sense.

Isso

 

Hi Isso

It seems I misunderstood what you said in reply to me here

From that I inferred that you could do manual incrementals of separate partitions. So you are saying now that if you backup another partition then it loses the information on the other partition. Note that I am not talking about backing up multiple partitions ie all partitions contained in one backup.

Re USB HD backup - I would expect the chosen partition to be erased, unless you are talking about the whole disk.

 

Hi David,

Looks like I wasn't clear about the multiple partitions, sorry. In fact I'm now thinking that we could keep tracking the previous drive when you switch to another one, so you can switch back without it resulting in a full backup. I'll see when we can implement it.

For USB drive - yes I was talking about the partition. But I think there should be a way to avoid erasing at all.

Isso

 

ok did some tests on Win7 x64 (same security config than my previous win8 x64) , no issues this time, maybe my Win8 x64 had something that hampered AXTM.

 

Dearest Isso,

I love the above approach. A product life cycle of 3 to 5 years is excellent for "paid major updates". This is the approach taken by Macrium Reflect.

The above approach require that anyone who purchased the paid version within 6 or 12 months of release of next major update, will be allowed free upgrade to "paid major updates". Basically, for someone buying the "paid major updates" almost at the end of the product life cycle. This should be stated very clearly at the website.

I like the 12 months approach, as customers don't stay away by not buying thinking that the next "paid major updates" is around the corner, if the time period is too short, like 4 months for Macrium Reflect.

Another approach taken by Macrium Reflect that anyone can access and read their forum. However, those who have bought the "paid major version" are allowed to register at their forum, and thus only the registered paid customers are allowed to post at their forum, keeping the trolls out of their forums.

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

Also, the next "paid major updates" are offered to the existing customers at 40% to 50% discount. Thus, continuing the loyal customers.

Best regards,

 

i think that Isso and his staff have already a good idea how to implement their paid system & beta-testers "gift"; this thread should focus more on AXTM than how they will get incomes. We are users not shareholders.

just my opinion.

 

Just another opinion when you release pricing. I have to keep a whole family going with various bits so I love when vendors have discounted (usually 4 copies) of their product in a family bundle. I'd guess this is useful too for the people who have a desktop + laptop + something else in the house.

 

Thanks Isso, that's good to hear.

On the USB side - erasing a partition is of no consequence for me. I set aside a small partition for this purpose. Others might differ of course.

 

Hi Isso,

The way I use my notebook there are hardly any changes to my system partition on an hourly basis to warrant checking that box ...and when I click on Make Backup Now (typically on a daily basis) I am alerted "The computer was shut down improperly. Backup will take longer than usual".

Actually, my laptop has not been shut down improperly ever since I first installed AX64TM (I'm currently running .967). My subsequent (differential) backups are not just taking longer than usual, they are taking considerably longer than my initial (baseline) backup (although the size of the diff. image is relatively small)!!!

As I reported several days ago, my W7(x64) notebook has the Intel RST RAID configuration. Could that be causing this?

Wendi

 

Isso... re: post baseline HOT or COLD rollback/restore + TRIM

I've been using the SSDtool to TRIM my SSD after each snapshot rollback/RECOVERY MEDIA restore. At one time you mentioned that would be a good idea to implement in AXTM itself to be sure the SSD was properly TRIMmed.

Has this been done in the current Build (967) and if it hasn't, is it needed (should I even be needing the SSDtool-like clean-up) and will it be done in the final release? Thanks!

 

I like that idea as well. I think that approach also is an inducement to buy their paid version.

 

Isso,

Can you consider a family pack or personal multi-licenses? I have about 3-6 computers I plan to migrate from *cough* that software to AX64, so even with the free license offer I will receive as a beta-tester I still need to buy quite a few others for my other systems (which I am happy to do so providing that the software is stable, which appears to be so).

Also, two questions:

1. One of my system is a WHS (Windows Home Server). For Rollback, there is a server string you can insert in the config file to make it work. Is AX64 compatible with WHS (v1 and v2)?

2. Will the final AX64 have any "call home" feature to check periodically for update or license validation? For Rollback, the latter is one of the most annoying features. The check would sometimes randomly fail even for legit license, and it always trigger my firewall which is entirely unnecessary.

 

isso can AX64 Time Machine work on WHS 2011?

thanks in advanced

 

I noticed this behavior on two different machines in the past 24hrs and unfortunately, I couldn't find a log file to provide.

When AX64 is in the process of merging, it just stops working in mid-process. On one machine, it went up to 54% and stopped there. The console is responsive, but the underlying engine seems to no longer respond. On the other machine, the merging stopped at 33%. And by stopping, I mean that the console remains at 54% and does not offer further updates. Of course, from this point, no more hourly backups can be done.

Rebooting resolves the issue. The AXTEMP file eventually gets deleted, hourly backups resume and the next merging is successful.

Odd behavior.

 

Hi Froggie,

The W7 where I created the Recovery Media is x86.

Thank you for all your help.

 

Nice new page, Isso. Download link doesn't work, though. Then again I'm probably too quick... hehe

EDIT: It's working now.

 

Yeah, it looks really neat and clean. And the purchase options are already there, however, it doesn't specify if it's a lifetime license, a yearly renewal license or a pay-for-version-upgrades license. I'm probably too quick aswell...

 

Dear Folks,

I'm happy to announce that with your great help the first release is there. Please check new website (www.ax64.com). We also created a neat video demo. Thanks to everyone for your support!
As I mentioned all betatesters are eligible for free licenses - just send me a PM. Also 25% discount is available for all Wilders members - please PM for it as well.

Changelist:


- Restore to empty disk overhaul
- Popup in Backup Browser replaced with watermark
- Display Settings wizard if make Backup is clicked while no drives were selected
- Disable "Restore MBR" checkbox while restore is in progress
- Fix for browser displaying thumbnails only for files with lowercase extensions
- Fix for intermittently erased backup files on some NAS
- Disabled GPT disk support for now
- Fixed a problem with Unmount button sometimes not appearing after first mount
- Fixed crashing browser when Win 7 backups are browsed from an XP machine



Isso