I don’t mind paying money for software that is indeed excellent, but 50 dollars a year seems to be a bit steep.
No, but they are the general consensus of the average person that is or potentially will be their customer base so those comments do matter. I hope their marketing department realizes that.
An e-mail I wrote to Macrium: "I wasted significant time yesterday investigating the “v8 license key qualifies for an upgrade to vX” popup you showed in my v8 server version of Reflect, which turned out to be deceptive. Something like your saying that your customers have told you that they prefer paying you in perpetuity rather than just once. What a mess you guys have made for yourselves. A brand-new CEO. I wonder if that’s just a coincidence. So, you think this will make you more money. Well, either that, or your company will fade into irrelevance once other providers get the attention they deserve with your help. I think people whose opinions are valued will start recommending against your product which will likely show up in Google searches. People are already talking about TeraByte as a strong alternative. Incidentally, people are already reporting what they think are bugs in your version X. Reports of bugs in imaging software is really bad for business, as if a perpetual payment scheme isn’t bad enough."
You wrote that whole email and didn’t even bother to explain why you felt that the upgrade offer was deceptive? And who are the “people” talking about bugs? The PERSON here who has posted two screenshots without much additional useful context? And generally speaking, people reporting “what they think” are bugs is basically a permanent condition. Some people are quick to claim a bug when it turns out that the behavior was expected and intended under their conditions or was caused by some error or other issue on their side. Not sure that the information available right now supports a conclusion that VX is a bad release. Even if the restore issue reported here does turn out to be a bug that escaped the beta testers (sorry!), we don’t know what causes it and therefore how widespread it might be. Bugs are also hardly unique in the software world, even for applications that perform critical functions. It’s now relatively common for a single Windows monthly update to have fixes for over 100 security vulnerabilities, never mind other issues. Incidentally, what did you hope to accomplish with that email? There’s nothing in there that remotely resembles constructive feedback. Did you just feel the need to rant at someone and then get high fives for it here?
This was posted in Macrium's form (8 October 2024 8:15 PM by GrizzlyAK): "... Macrium claims that X is up to 2x faster than V8, but that is only if you are using NVME drives, and it's marginally 2x based upon their own calculator. If you are using HDD or NAS for backup storage, as I do, then there is zero advantage in speed. Also, in their upgrade offer, the trade-in of your perpetual license for subscription-only is REALLY easy to miss, and almost (seemingly) intentionally hidden. ..."
The trade-in is “REALLY easy to miss” and “(seemingly) intentionally hidden”? It’s mentioned in the single-sentence summary of the offer, directly below the button to select it. Is that too much text to expect someone to read nowadays, and/or considered hidden? Does everything someone is expected to read have to be presented in a different color, in bold, underlined, and flashing? Because that’s the type of design language that leads people to just tune everything out. Remember how obnoxious popup ads were in the 2000s?
"... didn't ... explain why you felt that the upgrade offer was deceptive" 1) I was given the upgrade from v7 to v8 at no cost, and I would have had to pay for this upgrade. 2) Macrium would have known that a perpetual customer would assume an upgrade offer to be for a perpetual license rather than a less desirable subscription. "people ... PERSON" I am not trying to prove how many people reported possible bugs. "what did you hope to accomplish" To have Macrium offer a perpetual license option. "nothing in there that remotely resembles constructive feedback." If it ever so slightly gave Macrium a reason to offer a perpetual license option, that would "remotely resemble constructive feedback." "Did you just feel the need to rant at someone and then get high fives for it here?" Doesn't merit a response.
Sorry it took you “significant time” to discover that the upgrade wasn’t free and entailed a subscription. Not sure HOW it took you that much time, but I also don’t know how you considered prominent and succinct mention of a trade-in to be hidden. Everyone consumes information differently, I guess. Also not sure how you could have reasonably expected that after getting a free upgrade from V7 to V8, presumably by purchasing V7 within 90 days of V8’s launch, that you would then get another free upgrade to VX. And even if a perpetual user would assume that an upgrade would also be perpetual, Macrium clearly indicates on the upgrade page that it won’t be. Is anything that doesn’t align with a user’s initial assumptions before they click on something to learn more considered “deceptive” now?? You say you hoped your email would cause Macrium to consider offering a perpetual license. And yet you didn’t actually say anything along those lines. Your sole reference to perpetual licensing was in the context of criticism/skepticism of their claim about customer preferences.
"purchasing V7 within 90 days of V8’s launch" No, I was one of a group of 11 wilderssecurity users in 2015 who were given free server licenses and free updates for many years thereafter. "... yet you didn’t actually say anything along those lines. Your sole reference to perpetual licensing was in the context of criticism/skepticism of their claim about customer preferences." Factually wrong. At the end I wrote "... really bad for business, as if a perpetual payment scheme isn’t bad enough." "people ... PERSON" I came across one of the other reports I read about possible bugs: Macrium's forum (8 October 2024 10:47 PM by adrian lantenbach): 'Installed the macrium reflect X on my computer and all I got when trying to use it was a hanging system. As was said before "Not Happy Jane"' This is enough of what has deteriorated into a pointless spitting match, I think. I'll give you the last word and leave it at that.
On that note let us move on now to discussing the program only instead of making personal remarks to each other . Otherwise posts will be removed.
Correct. It is one of my most important and reliable software programs, and I have no problem whatsoever with their new subscription model. Happy camper here!
I have a set of Macrium v8 backups full1.mrimg diff1.mrimg incr1.mrimg If I now create incr2 backup in .mrimgx format, the format of the “old” backups will not change? With Macrium v10, will I be able to perform a restore from both .mrimg and .mrimgx?
No it won't restore old v8 images. The image format completely changed. I tried restoring and old v8 when I discovered that the X image I just made wouldn't restore.
I will be corrected by JP, if necessary , BUT, if you use Reflect X to add to a given chain, it will add using the older imaging format. The new format will not begin until a new FULL has been created (regardless of the image extension).
Whoa! Am I understanding this correctly? If I try to restore an older backup with the new program, IT WILL NOT WORK?!?! Acadia
Thanks, Froggie, that's good to know. But I just realized, if I restored an old backup, the new Macrium would be gone and would have to be reinstalled. Acadia
My hypothesis: The new subscription licensing was Macrium’s/Paramount’s (I don’t know who is telling whom what to do) response to a situation where Reflect had been an excellent product and been giving the vast majority of its users everything they wanted for many versions now. There was little opportunity to give its customers any reason to pay for newer versions. Consequently, they thought, we will have to carefully get our customers into a situation where they will have to choose between perpetually paying us more money, or stop using software they like very much. Alternatively, the company is now being controlled by some venture capitalist outfit that saw an opportunity to exploit a large loyal customer base. I think if everybody just said “No thank you.” and their revenue suddenly disappeared, the perpetual licensing would return quite quickly. I obviously am going to continue using v8 and will have nothing to do with any subscription license. Ron
Sheesh, what's up with this? I was finally getting around to installing the new X that I purchased four licenses several days ago. All four licenses have vanished from my Macrium account?!?!?!? I went ahead and contacted support. Macrium, this isn't good. A customer unable to install a product that he paid good money for. Acadia
If the existing backup set uses the MRIMG format, Reflect X will automatically create new backups in that set in the old MRIMG format, so the entire set will remain compatible with previous versions. The new MRIMGX format is only used when the set was created by Reflect X.
No, that isn’t correct at all. Reflect X still supports the now-legacy format. Think of it like the introduction of MS Office 2007 If you remember that. MS introduced the new file formats of docx, xlsx, pptx to replace the doc, xls, and ppt formats that had been used prior to that time. New documents by default were created in the new format, but Office 2007 could still read and work with the old format.
