Looking for an ISR for testing programs

I've read some threads here about virtualization, ISR, imaging back up.

I'm looking for an Instant System Recovery program to test installation sofwares that require a boot system.

A good, safely and quick recovery program.

What do you suggest ?

 

Hello,

you can try Rollback Rx or EAZ-Fix (the same product, other distributor).
There is also First Defense ISR Rescue, but this product allows you to create only baseline and one snapshot.

 

Thanks Creer for your quickly reply,

Both Rollback Rx or EAZ-Fix are heavy programs, I think. I prefer ligher software concerning memory and CPU consumption.

What do you mean by "baseline" ?

 

I used Eaz-Fix for some time and it wasn't heavy for resources.
These days on the market there is also ShadowUser Pro (unfortunatelly not developed anymore).
Also you can read, interesting article BlueZannetti about virtualization here on Wilders:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=230459

Baseline is a first/primary/main 'snapshot'. Next snapshots are created to this baseline (it's looks like tree schema) which is default creates after installation process of Rollback Rx/Eaz-Fix.

HTH,

 

Actually, the RAM/CPU overhead for EF/RB is quite low, but they do 'stretch-out' your startup time - averaging about 15 additional seconds in my experience.

Also on the plus-side, snapshots are much faster and much smaller compared to any other ISR.

 

Curious to know what are the normal snapshot sizes with Eaz-Fix? For some reason mine tend to run high in comparison to some screenshots I've seen for other users. I've talked with the EF support and they agree that mine are high but they claim that something is changing/written on my drive causing them to be high. They suggested using Beyond Compare, mount a snapshot and compare the diffrence of the two. I've done so many times and can never find more than a few megs different but my snapshot sizes run in the 400mb plus range. I can take a snapshot, wait about 15 minutes take another and the second snapshot will be on average 80mb.

 

Shadow User Pro don't work with Vista. Yesterday, I received an email from their support explained that they don't plan to release a SUP for Vista version.

About, Rollback, I heard from this forum user's so many troubles with this program. I don't think so, it's for me...for instant.

About, Eaz-fix seems to be the best as they aren't not troubles or issues.

Ay Recovery seems to be an alternative also, according to their support team.

Anybody has tried AR ?


Thanks Creer and Aaron for your sharings !

 

You are welcome

AR is a earlier version of Rollback Rx (v6)
Rollback Rx and Eaz-Fix are the same softwares other distributor and price.

 

Are you running Vista? ...if so, make sure you turn-off the automatic defrag!!! In any case, using a disk-defragger (other than the snapshot defragger in EF) will subsequently result in large snapshots!

Are you protecting disk-partitions other than C:? ...if so, I would suggest protecting just C:

My snapshots can be as small as 50MB, but are typically 100 - 400 MB. However, they can get > 1GB after a major update of Windows, IE, or MS Office!

 

No other backup and system restore is disabled.

No Vista but I do run some Vista apps which have been ported for XP. One in particular is the Vista Sidebar and I have suspected it at times as maybe having something to do with it, not for sure though.

No partitions only C: 60 gig HD but I do have an external which shouldn't be a problem since it can't protect it.

OK, this sounds encouraging. I only take manual snapshots and no auto. I went to install something yesterday, it had been two days since my last snap and the one yesterday was 478 MB. I use no defrag other than Eaz-Fix and I have to do that manually. In my eventlogs, Eaz-Fix is constantly reporting that it's defragging(auto background) with it showing that it never completes when started automatically. If I do it manually it reports the snaps, current, installation etc.. as having defragged. The auto background defrag never reports as having finished.

 

So I'm half way with the free one year AyR license that was offered at the end of December. Since I tend to try a lot of Apps or are to quick with the mouse or just plain stupid (I am 61 and way behind this learning curve) Ay has already saved my butt numerous times. Most recently, the massive Windows updates a few weeks ago included one for IE8. I'd installed it on both this desktop and my laptop when it was first offered without issue, however, the update really screwed up my laptop. Ay to the rescue...again! In December I'm going to purchase one of them since I now cannot live without!

 

Sorry to take this thread off topic. Mods delete or move as necessary.

@ Greg S, my snapshot sizes were from 0MB to 2600MB while using online armor full.Maybe you have a program conflicting with eaz fix.
hope this helps

 

Since starting over without OA .

 

Thanks for all this info !

I think Shadow Defender can do it also. You can keep the Shadow Mode after reboot, so that we can test softwares.

 

Nope, unfortunatelly SD doesn't keep Shadow Mode after reboot so you can test on it only softwares which don't require reboot after installation.

 

Enter Shadow Defender snapshot:


http://www.imagebam.com/image/e833d340947586

 

ISR vendors know already for a long time that some users request a mode to stay in shadow after reboot without losing changes.
I guess its technically very difficult to implement that in software.

 

I think it is possible but the vendors are unwilling to do it.Cant vendors improve shadow users or comodo disk shield beta??

 

Storagecraft's ShadowUser Pro has this particular feature to carry through a shadow session over reboots (they call it persistent mode). Even though they still sell ShadowUser, they don't seem to care to update it for Vista. I personally don't think it is an essential feature as I have rarely used it with my XP machine, but I'll have to agree that some people would love to have this possibility.

 

Do you mean that my system will returned to my preshadow configurations, next time, I exit the Shadow Mode ?

 

I think so too, and from a marketing point of view it doesn't make any sense (or maybe it does for them). On the other hand, considering all the many and various attempts in this forum to revive the very successful First Defense ISR (the original version), it seems that marketing and support issues play a much bigger role in the end to keep a software on sale.

Let's face it, the majority of users don't know and don't want to know about these applications, let alone pay for them.

 

Shadow Defender gives you 2 options when you enter shadow mode: 1) on the next reboot your OS will reboot normally losing everything that was on the previous shadow session 2) the system will reboot in shadow mode starting a new session. There is no way to reboot a shadow session keeping the previous one in memory.