Trial Version AI Home 2009 -- Really?

I looked for an answer, but did not see one, so I hope I am not covering already available material.

Just downloaded AI Home 2009 Trial. About page says 15 days left. The splash screen says the software is fully functional for the 15 days, but that does not appear to be the case. I have already seen some messages about needing to buy prior to getting full functionally.

My question is, am I having problems because the software is not actually fully functional, or because of something else? It appears backups work fine, but the restore process is totally inoperable. After I select a restore file, the system reboots and starts all over. If I select partitioning changes, I get a message about needing to purchase first.

I am a little confused to say the least!

Thanks.

 

If you start the Restore process from within Windows, the system goes through a reboot. After the computer reboots, the Restore should continue. Does it not do this?

 

I am using the restore boot media and trying to restore my system to a clean hard drive. I can get to the "choose which backup to use" but nothing about which drive or partition to restore to (source, but no target). There is no "NEXT" button on the bottom of the page as shown in the user's manual. When I select the backup and select restore by right clicking, the thing just reboots and goes back to the splash screen where I have a Acronis or Windows option. Things that look strange are the mouse doesn't work correctly in the splash screen, and there is no Windows partition available but the Windows option is still available.

My main desire is to be able to restore my system in case of a hard drive failure. I used the Windows 7 backup image and restore which worked fine. I don't have Vista Ultimate, so I don't have that utility.

It just appears this is not really a trial version. I can't buy the software until I see if it will do what I want, and so far it won't.

If the software is not designed to what I want, that's fine, just let me know. If the install is bad, I suppose I could backup and try downloading and installing again in case I got a bad download.

Thanks

 

Well, I have come to the conclusion that the program is fully functional except for the boot media produced. Since once that is burned there is no way for Acronis to control the time limit on the trial, they probably make it restriced in functionality.

It looks like for me to test what I want to test, I will have to pay first... Regrettable, but understandable for it to work this way.

If someone could confirm this situation, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

 

Regarding the trial version:

If the restore is not working, there may be other problems. You may need to contact Acronis Support (try Live Chat) and see if they have an ISO you can try that will work better on your computer.

You may also want to try using the quiet acpi=off noapic option detailed in Section II of the PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST thread.

When you boot to the TI trial CD, if it can properly see your drives and successfully restore (I don't know if validation will work), then it should also be able to do a backup (from a driver standpoint). However, if you want to test doing a backup from the CD, you would need to purchase the program.

 

Since deciding I could not test for the restore capability I tested other utilities. Trying to clone a drive resulted in a non-booting version, which might have been fixable, but I did not try. When I try to restore a partition while in Windows, the program errors out and shuts itself down. The only thing it does seem to be able to do is creat a backup, which I can't check to see if will even restore if needed.

I think I will wait until another version comes out that might work better with Vista.

 

Well, I went ahead and purchased the product. It still won't restore a Vista image in my current system, just like the trial version. Every time I select a backup, and ask it to restore, it reboots and starts all over. This is, once again, using the boot media so I will have to assume for the time being, the backups are not useable, even though they check when verified.

I did a fresh, unactivated, install of Vista and tried to restore that and it worked. Over the next few days, I will add software so as to make this new install the same as the permanent install (except for the activation) to see if I can find out what is causing the problem. I tried turning off Zone Alarm prior to backing up and it did not seem to make a difference, since selecting that backup also led to an instant restart when restore selected. If anyone has any suggestions as to what might be causing the problem, please advise.

I did install and remove Vista SP2 so that is something else I need to check, but I was trying the trial restore prior to that.

 

I believe I found the answer. The trial version does support restores during the trial period. In my case, it appears something on my Vista install was corrupt and not allowing TI Home 2009 to access the backups without a crash. I could verify and mount the archives, which made the problem a little harder to find, but whenever I chose the archive and clicked "restore" the application crashed.

I believe the cause of my problem was an install and removal of the Vista SP2 Beta. I tried everything I could find to correct the problem, but in the end I installed the SP2 RC and the problem went away. Since I still can not access the specific backup made during the problem period, it must be something in that and all other files made during that time.