Here is what the site says about version 7. "With a new Backup Engine, the new version of Macrium Reflect for our home users is up to 60 times faster" Is this true? Is this for a full image?
Not happening... and DON'T EVER PAY ATTENTION to a statement like "up to 60 times faster." If you do lots of Incrementals between System reStarts, the new CBT feature can speed up short time Incrementals by about 40-50% under optimum conditions... but leave the "60-times faster" at the Marketing trough. FULLS... the same, DIFFs... basically the same.
Marketing gimmicks like this suck and stink all the way up to the sky. Compare Macrium's bull **** with Terabyte's IFL/IFW v3 release notes. The fact is, due to the full use of multiple CPU Cores during backup/restore, IFL/IFW v3 could be as much as 2-3 times faster than v2 on a multi-core CPU, even for a full disk image. Yet, they did not boast it like Macrium does. That's a common phenomenon: when a company gets large, ******** such as "up to 60 times faster" happens all the time, even though what they released (the new v7) was full of bugs that was barely usable.
Yes, me too. I'm still with and still loving v6, but the "up to 60 times faster" text was probably authored by the same person who managed the v7 rollout. Have there been management changes at Macrium?
Of course you've had no problems... and yes, there have been many others just like you. I can say exactly the same thing about AX64's Time Machine/Flashback... but I sure wouldn't consider that a successful effort at all. If you look both here in the Wilder's Forums and in the Macrium Forums, you will see a massive difference in the release of v6 circa late February 2015 and v7 circa February 2017. v7 clearly had a myriad of issues affecting many, many users and still does to this date... that was not the case with v6 at all. The v7 issues mostly seem to be configuration dependent so of course there will be many happy users (with "compatible" configurations) and others not so happy. Pete's question above kinda says it all for me as well. Mine was not a happy vs unhappy decision... it was purely a VALUE decision based on the two releases. The only additional features v7 brought to the table (and it was a PAID release) were viBOOT (for those would would like to check their images in a more positive way then just doing verify operations) and CBT (for those who take many short term Incrementals between System restarts)... other than that, NADA. I just didn't see the value at the time of v7's release. On top of that, v6 had been a solid release at the time of v7, and the v7 release, through the Forums, was clearly not. Anyway... at this point in time, I've made the right decision for my use.
...and I need to add the following comment to this discussion. Macrium missed a wonderful opportunity in not allowing a post-BETA (during BETA?) test of the v7 release here on the Wilders Forums. There was a 7-week period where v6 BETA got loose here in the wild (on purpose, I believe) at the beginning of January 2015. What that period provided to Macrium was massive exposure to different System configurations out here in the wild, something you can never do within a Corporate environment. That "unofishul" testing here in the wild exposed many, many issues with the upcoming v6 release. These issues were investigated and fixed prior to v6's release. The result... a very successful, reasonably trouble-free release. There's just no easy way to properly BETA test a sophisticated software release within the confines of a fairly structured Company... it's very expensive (to try and replicate every System in the wild) and time consuming. In "structured" companies, acquisitions are made of 100s to 1000s of exactly the same computer model (variations in storage and RAM, of course)... how can those Systems replicate the outside world? Sure, you can try and build (software-wise) various BOOTing configs (MBR, hybrid-UEFI <UEFI-MBR>, UEFI-GPT, from XP to W10 Creator's Update, etc) but it's a horrendous process. An easy way to deal with this is through a controlled Outside BETA Program... containing a Lead Developer, a digital Project Mgmt. System to allow for communication between the testers and the Lead Dev, as well as a way to report & track, in real time, the state of the outstanding problems reported as well as the BETA application itself. This way you have tight control on the process as well as a good general exposure to many System types. Heck, this Wilders group probably has one of everything among its collections of Systems The same "unofishul" BETA testing was offered by me (for the Wilders users) to the Macrium Devs in advance of the v7 release... they politely turned it down saying it wasn't needed due to the extensive in-house testing that the new product had been going through for some time. Well... we can see how that worked out for them. This was not a defense of Wilders users being the see all and do all of System testing... it was a genuine offer to Macrium to assist them with their development process, knowing that we had a lot of imaging users here within the Forums. I still love the Company in spite of this product release "wrinkle" recently experienced... I just wish they would consider our minor alternate testing method the next time they try and go through this. I guess what I'm really asking is if they've learned anything now that they've gone though such a trying release with the v7 product.
Even though I purchased v7, I have decided to remain on v6 until I hear that it is stable. Frankly, I have lost much respect for this company after their BS as to the improvements in V7. I still think their v6 is the best out there, and I use CBT constantly with it.
For me the question, what will I get with upgrading to v.7 vs. the price I will have to pay, wasn't that important - since I was eligible to free upgrade. I decided to upgrade to v.7 to extend support for software. Version 6 won't get updates much longer and sooner or later system update might break compatibility with older version. So for me it was a logical decision to upgrade.
Something happened after the release of v6. After chatting with their Marketing people, with the release of v6 they were heading into a new Marketing model which would allow them to develop a Major Release upgrade yearly. The upgrades would include lots of new useful features as well as valuable upgrades, which, of course, would attract not only new PAID users but also PAID upgrades due to the newer feature set. This is a great idea but requires lots of creative thinking as well as creative doing, especially on a YEARLY basis. CBT is a great idea (especially for their Corporate server customers) and the advertised "Continuous Incrementals" (which was going to appear SHORTLY after the initial v7 release) has a real use among a certain group of customers (not necessarily the general home user). The only other feature that has appeared since v6 is viBOOT. I'm sure some users think its a cool thing to do (check out the BOOTability of taken images), but other than that, I don't see a compelling use in the real user world. The something that happened was that CBT wasn't even ready to come out of the Macrium house until 18-mo after the v6 release... probably a little later than they expected, and vi BOOT was being played with also during that time frame. Then the official product was released almost 7-mo after that. Those (2) feature upgrades just were not compelling enough to make a license move, but the yearly upgrade cycle had been extended pretty far beyond their Marketing model. What to do... they have to release to start that income/Marketing cycle running? Well, they released it, with GREAT MARKETING HYPE as @silver0066 said, to start that income flow. The real problem... it just wasn't ready, a big mistake on their part. As I mentioned earlier, I truly hope they've learned from this release. From the sound of a lot of customers on their Forums, it's not just @silver0066 who lost a lot of cred with Macrium, many others have followed suit. That's a shame to see as Macrium, prior to the release of v7, has always been a user oriented Company. They have a great Support structure and are very helpful to their dedicated users. I sincerely hope this has not been a back breaking event for them. Edit: Yea, I guess I just talk too much
For many, many companies, mostly large ones, the biggest problem with their marketing teams is that they treat their potential/current customers as idiots. These marketing people expect customers to believe whatever kind of BS they come out. In the old times when the Internet was not so common, customers may turn to marketing materials for information. But nowadays when all sorts of inside information/customer reviewers are freely available online, marketing people are mostly worthless POS, especially when they try to insult people's intelligence which they do all the time. I personally never believed in anything based on a company's marketing brochure, because I don't like the kind of hype that's always get built-in.
Yep, Macrium succumbed as did Malwarebytes. But I am still a Macrium supporter based the product. I am waiting on v7 to see what it offers me. So far I am afraid not much.
Well, one thing that they could have tested was the upgrade from V6 to V7 License! It failed for many days and Macrium had to get your info V6 to V7 Keys in a private email you had to send them!
When starting Reflect... "Windows Cannot Find C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect\Reflect.exe" This issue just popped up recently and is caused by the "AVG PC Tune Up" tool inserting a reDirect into the Windows REGISTRY for the application "Reflect.exe" (unbelievable that another program can do this to you). If this happens to anyone, please remove the following REGISTRY key... Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current\Version\Image File Execution Options\reflect.exe As if this Company doesn't have enough of its own probs at the moment...
It failed for way more than just a few days ... people with 4-System licenses were still trying to get things straightened out after 3-4 weeks. License Upgrade was one of the major failings of the v7 release.
Now that's funny... I was just passing on info from elsewhere (this problem just cropped up, apparently). I've always used AIF (Artificial Intelligence-based FrogCare)... it's never failed me
