True Image 9 indivual folders\files back up

From the true Image 9 page:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

I'm using True Image 8 (937) at the moment, but the quoted feature of TI9 has got me wondering...

Could this be used to back up say, a game installation?

Of course, the game is indivual folders\files etc. But with the addition of registry changes etc.

So would true Image 9 be able to do it?

It would be very handy if you tried out mods\patches etc for games, and wanted to revert back to the default installation with a quick TI restore rather than a re installation.

So would it work like this?

Thx

 

It's not going to get the registry changes as well. Just the files and folders.

Think of it like doing a copy and paste of a particular file and folder (not program) to another location, then copying it back if need be.

Now imaging WOULD do what you want as it would get the registry as well.

 

Yes, but with imaging [TI 8] my only options are a) full back up of partitions or hard drives or b) choose an existing file for appending changes incremenatally.

It would be over the top, if say, you patched your game to the latest verion only for it to cause problems, and the only way within TI8 to get it back was to fully restore the entire partition\drive which could be 10s\100's of GB in size when all you want is 1 GB of restore.

If it definetly wouldnt work, I'll probably continue this in the wish list thread

thx anyway

 

Yes understood and agree that it would be a BIG plus. However, the semantics in doing such a task would be huge. You'd have to know exactly what registry entries were added/changed for a given program as well as exactly what files were added/changed. Some games put files all over the place (C:\Windows ... C:\Windows\System ... C:\Windows\System32 ... etc etc).

Now there ARE programs out there that actually "track" a programs installation. I believe they are referred to as "Uninstallers". Some of them (I've heard) do a pretty good job of taking a snapshot of your PC before and after an installation. Then, if you needed/wanted to, you could COMPLETELY uninstall a particular program. Never used one myself but I know they exist. Maybe that's what you could use. BUT ... you'd actually end up having to reinstall the game after uninstalling it. Some of those games, I know, are HUGE and take a long time to install.

The biggest problem I see with what you are wanting TI (or any other backup software) to do is grab the registry. The registry is an extremely dynamic (ever-changing) file in Windows. It's also a file you don't want to monkey around with too much. Either by direct editing or by trying to copy a previous version over an existing one. One slip-up and POW .. you're relying on an image backup or reionstalling EVERYTHING.