• Acronis TrueImage2018 – unwanted extras

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    #174503

    I just discovered that installing TrueImage2018 now comes with Apple Inc’s “Bonjour”, as I found after a failed installation of Acronis was deleted, but Bonjour was not.

    Despite it’s source program not being installed, it was trying to get through my firewall, to shake hands to Apple’s servers… I was not happy!

    On the first search of Acronis +Bonjour, this came up on the Acronis forum:
    “Bonjour” and Immorality

    I’ve been using the WD free version of Acronis for several years (since it came with a WD ext drive), but was limited by the lack of file/folder backup (whole drive only option), so was going to try their full version. I think I’ve changed my mind now, thanks!

    The other thing that really upset me, was the lack of choice as to installation directory. It was where they wanted it to go, or nothing. Using targetdir= parameters were ignored.

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    • #174544

      Kirsty,

      I used Acronis True Image as my backup program for many years.  I’ve purchased eight versions of it over the years, from 6.0 to 2016.  It used to be the best in its category, IMO, but sadly, I no longer think it is, and I don’t use it anymore.

      True Image has gotten more and more buggy over the years, and the company has shown a proclivity for ignoring its customers and pushing its own agenda lately (which seems to be a disease lately in the software industry).  One thing it has become well-known for is the inability to uninstall itself cleanly; this has been an ongoing problem for years, and it sounds like it hasn’t gotten any better.  Acronis makes a cleanup utility that is supposed to remove any remnants left behind by the regular uninstaller… perhaps this will help.

      Other bugs I have encountered in True Image include networking issues, where it demands a username and password for open Windows network shares, and it won’t accept it when I put nothing in.  There’s an Acronis KB article dealing with this phenomenon, but the advice it gives (specify the username and domain, where the domain is the name of the remote host) didn’t work either.

      I will add that once True Image actually got the image made, I was always able to count on it being usable to create a working and valid copy of whatever it was I had backed up, meaning that the bugs never extended to corrupting the image itself.  That doesn’t mean that actually restoring the image was always easy, as the rescue USB drive it created often had the same issue connecting to network shares as the program itself did; I have had to, on more than one occasion, connect to the share containing the backup image (.tib) and copy it to an external hard drive, then restore from that.  It was an extra step that should not have been necessary, and that never has been when using Aomei Backupper or Macrium Reflect.

      Acronis has also been tone deaf with user feedback.  Many users like me had registered (paid for, non trial) versions of True Image 2016, yet we were still hit with ads for Acronis cloud services and other Acronis products from time to time.  Despite the complaints, Acronis kept pushing the ads for quite a while, then only went so far as to include a “don’t show this again” checkbox on the ads rather than eliminating them completely, as most of us thought should be the standard configuration on a paid product.

      Not only that, but starting with 2016, each time True Image was started, it hit the user with an obnoxious sign-in screen.  Acronis has offered cloud services for a while, and signing in has always been necessary to use them, but if you’re doing a local backup or restore, there’s no need for it.  The sign-in screen on earlier versions only appeared if you selected the sign in option or tried to access the cloud storage, which was appropriate.  In 2016, the user was hit with the sign in each time they ran True Image, and they had to cancel out of it to start using the product (again, that had been paid for).  Users complained all over the place, but Acronis said nothing in the forums… new version after new version was released, and each time the users would try it out and discover that Acronis had again left the sign-in nag screen in, despite near universal user feedback indicating that it had to go.

      True Image customers had paid for a program only to see that it was more interested in serving Acronis’ agenda of selling cloud services (the sign in was itself a clumsy reminder that Acronis has cloud services, and there was some data slurp associated, with the online servers being aware of what had been backed up and when even though such backups had been done locally).  Sound familar?  Microsoft would have been proud.

      When 2017 came around, I evaluated the trial edition.  The rescue media it created worked more reliably with my network, but the obnoxious sign in screen was still there, despite dozens of complaints about it in their forum.

      That was the last time I tried True Image.  It was no longer the fastest, or the most reliable, or the easiest to use.  It sinks its tentacles deep in the system; it installs deeply invasive bits of itself like nonstop backup even if you have no intention of using those features.  None of this was optional in the versions I used; it installed the whole shot or it installed nothing.  It was a heavyweight program, and when I’ve done driver verification to try to root out intermittent problems in Windows, its own drivers often caused blue screens even while True Image was ostensibly idle (in other words, I hadn’t told it to do anything).

      My current suggestion for backup software is for Aomei Backupper (which has a clumsy name, but works well regardless) or Macrium Reflect.  I use Aomei myself… it’s lightweight and feature-rich even in its free version, with options like incremental backups and encryption being available (those are only in the paid version of Reflect, and it’s not cheap).  Mounting the backup images for browsing is quick and easy; in True Image, it would often sit there grinding for a couple of minutes, doing who knows what, every time I would try to mount an image.  In addition, it has shown superb reliability as far as working with my network shares… whether I am using the online version from Windows or the WinPE-based rescue media, it always sees my network shares and connects to them flawlessly as a guest user, which is something True Image often would not do.

      Backupper is also the unquestioned speed champion when it comes to creating images with encryption enabled.  Lots of programs are quick with encryption off, but they fall on their face when you turn it on.  I’ve tried all of the Windows backup programs I can, and none has even come close to the speed I see with Backupper with encryption on.  I can’t say how Reflect would do, as its encryption is a paid feature, and I haven’t tested it wit their trial version (not the same as the free version) since even if it was fast, I can’t afford $140 to cover my main two PCs.

      After Backupper, True Image was the fastest in creating an image with encryption on, but even it ended up taking about twice as long to back up the same volumes compared to Backupper.

      Backupper is not perfect… it has a few issues that I have reported to its devs, and they’ve promised to look into them.  Still, they’re not hard to work around.  One of them I encountered recently was that the option to create a rescue USB didn’t work properly; after it said it was done, I tried to boot the USB flash drive, and it didn’t work.  The workaround was to select the option to write the rescue media (I used the WinPE version) to an .iso file, then I used Rufus to write that .iso to the USB drive.  It worked perfectly, restoring my Windows and Linux partitions without any issues.

      Backupper is slower than True Image when it comes to restoring, but I don’t hold that against it… restoring is relatively rare, so going slow here is not a huge time waster.  It backs up quickly, and I spend far more time making backups than restoring.

      Overall, Backupper gets my recommendation for a Windows backup program.  Reflect is an excellent product too, but in addition to the cost of the full-featured version,it has an interface that is a lot more complicated than other backup programs, and while the experienced user should have no issues with it, a beginner might.  Backupper has a relatively simple UI despite having a full set of features, and while it has a few /facepalm issues (like how the overview screen shows all of the known backup images listed not with the date of the most recent backup for a given backup task, but of the date of creation of that backup task, which is far less important than knowing how far you will roll back if you end up restoring that image), it’s still easier to grasp, I think, than Reflect.

      True Image, Reflect, and Backupper are all capable of backing up and restoring Linux partitions as well as Windows ones, FWIW.  If you don’t use Linux, this will (of course) be of no concern, but for those who do use Linux, it increases the choices one has for backing up their Linux data.

      Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
      XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
      Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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      • #174557

        Overall, Backupper gets my recommendation for a Windows backup program.

        Very glad to hear that! I had already found PCWorld’s review (below) and proceeded from there.


        @photm
        recommended Paragon a few months ago, but with the reduction in functionality in their latest version (v.16?), that quickly became a non-starter.

        I noticed with AOMEI that you can get WinPE and Partition Manager either separately, or as a combined download. I’ve installed BackUpper for now, and will look at getting the others loaded as soon as I have time.

        Thks v much @ascaris (glad I left this in Rants, going by the length of reply you contributed!) 🙂


        Aomei Backupper Standard 4 review: A versatile free backup program

        Backupper is powerful and free, though its folder backups are a bit slow.

        By Jon L. Jacobi | July 18, 2017

         
        Conclusion
        It’s a heck of a thing when a program vies both for best value, and best overall. But that’s Backupper Standard for you. Give it a whirl before you plop down your hard-earned cash on something else.

        The full review can be read here

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        • #174606

          It’s kind of funny that the PCWorld review says this:

          With faster backups and a glitch-free interface, this free imaging and backup program would’ve garnered another half-star.

          It’s already the fastest backup program I’ve ever used for the type of imaging I do, which makes it kind of hilarious to me that they characterize it as slow…

          The reviewer commented that it’s fast with images and slow with file backups, but somehow this translates to “slow backups” to them. Like a cost/benefit analysis that only looks at the cost!

          I didn’t even know it did file backups… I don’t consider that function very useful.  I want everything backed up!  I’ve much more frequently had things happen that prevent Windows (or less often, Linux) from booting or working correctly… the kinds of things that a full system image fixes, but file backups (as they are performed most often) don’t.

          The last restore I did was on my main laptop (same one I am using now).  Something happened the other day; Waterfox on both of my PCs started crashing every time it started a new content process, but only in Windows.  Linux Waterfox was fine, but Windows Waterfox, which had been working perfectly, started crashing all over the place on two completely separate PCs.

          Somehow, I managed to get it fixed on my desktop PC.  I reinstalled Waterfox; that didn’t help.  I tried a brand new profile; didn’t help.  I updated Malwarebytes free (which is my go-to on demand scanner… for realtime protection I use Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit and Windows Defender in 8.1) and scanned for malware… nothing.  Checked for disk errors… none found.

          At some point I realized that it hadn’t crashed in 10 minutes, so I went back to my regular, fully-loaded user profile, and it now worked perfectly.  I don’t think I actually did anything!

          On the laptop, I soon discovered it was doing the same crashing, and since I have no idea what fixed it on the desktop, I couldn’t apply the same to the laptop.  I tried all the same things, reinstalling Waterfox and what not, only it wouldn’t stop crashing as it had on the desktop.

          So I restored from a system image from about a week ago.  After the restore, Waterfox worked flawlessly again, and it was the same version (still the newest version as I write, 56.0.4.1) that had been crashing before the restore.

          I am still at a loss as to what happened, but it works now.

          Restoring from a system image like that is often the simplest way of getting things working again. I can usually fix things without restoring, as I’ve done so many times over the years, but it depends on whether I am in the mood for a brain-teaser or if I just want things to work.

          The time before that where I restored from backup was when I performed the January update for Windows 8.1 (rollup), and it replaced two of the files I’d patched to enable my custom theme.  Strangely, replacing my theme with the Microsoft-signed Aero theme didn’t work, and I didn’t have modified versions of the files that Windows had replaced yet, so I couldn’t swap them in from the WinRE command prompt.  I tried using DISM to /revertpendingactions to back out the patch that had replaced the files, but it didn’t work.  It said it was reverting it, but after another boot into WinRE, it still showed the same update as pending.

          When the last thing I was going to try (deleting updates.xml or something similar) only made it start bluescreening on boot, it was time for a restore once again.  Having the backup there gave me the confidence to try something drastic like deleting that file; I knew that if it made things worse, I could always go back. Which it did, of course.

          That, too, was another time that a full system image would work, but file backups would not.

          That’s been the pattern for as long as I can remember.  Nearly every restore I’ve done has been to get things working again with the minimum effort, not to bring back an important data file that had been deleted or lost.  That kind of data loss has happened, like when my laptop was stolen years and years ago and my main concern was the personal data I had lost, but for every one of those incidents, there are several more incidents like the ones I described, the kinds of things that call for a system image.   And, of course, full system images work just as well as file backups for protecting those personal or important files too.

          Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
          XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
          Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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          • #174616

            I do system image backups once or twice a month, and data backups in between. That way, if I have to restore a system image, I can get back the work from the time since it was taken – best of both worlds, for my way of working and the needs of my work.

            I can also use the backup software to copy external data drives, which aren’t necessarily appropriate to add to a system backup.

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            • #174636

              I do system images every few days, typically.  When you do incrementals, they’re pretty small if not much has changed.

              Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
              XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
              Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

              1 user thanked author for this post.
    • #174546

      Excellent information, Ascaris!

      Group "L" (Linux Mint)
      with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server
      1 user thanked author for this post.
    • #174642

      Well, I have to add my 2 cents worth here. I have used Acronis for years. But I never install it. I do my backups and restores from the boot disk. I have always figured that is was better not to have the system in use during backup. And I have never had problems backing up/restoring to a USB connected external drive or a NAS drive.

      One thing I like is that I have been able to restore to new drives of different sizes. If I got a new, larger drive, I could designate partition sizes as I restored. So the OS partition was not restricted to the original size and could be expanded to a larger size without problem. I was not limited to a “clone.”

      And I do not have a problem with Bonjour as a communications protocol, particularly since my network is a mixture of Macs and PCs. Some NAS drives require it for communication as well. I do not look at it as malware.

      My old standby, Karen’s Replicator, doesn’t work on Win10 (at least I haven’t found the successful finagle). One thing that excluded Macrium for me was the lack of file/folder backup in the free version. All you get is image backup. Recently I have tried EaseUS Todo Free. It’s fast and it seems to work well. I will have to look at Backupper.

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      • #174758

        I never install it. I do my backups and restores from the boot disk.

        Interesting – what version are you running, and how do you do it?

        I do not have a problem with Bonjour as a communications protocol

        I had a problem with it trying to do a job that was no longer even on my computer… if it arrives with software that is installed, it needs to be removed (along with its registry entries) when you uninstall that same originating software, by my way of thinking!
        🙂

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        • #174765

          Interesting – what version are you running, and how do you do it?

          I think I started with 6 many years ago. Then 10, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2017. I boot off the disk, it loads Acronis into RAM, and runs the linux-based software from there. (Like a WinPE loads Windows.)

          As far as Bonjour is concerned, it is a necessary communications protocol, like any other communications protocol. If you uninstall it, some things don’t work. It is not malware. IE communicates with MS (not talking about the browser part) – is it malware?

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          • #174768

            Thks.

            As far as Bonjour is concerned, it is a necessary communications protocol, like any other communications protocol. If you uninstall it, some things don’t work

            Ok, I didn’t need this before installing Acronis yesterday, so I figure it isn’t “necessary” for communictaions in my system. If it was, I would have had it before Acronis installed it. I fail to see what possible reason it has for needing to remain in my system after Acronis is uninstalled, in these circumstances (while acknowledging that in other settings, it is necessary – just not here at this point).

            • #174775

              FYI It is also installed with iTunes on a Win PC. If you are using an iPhone, iPad, iPod and doing music through iTunes, you will also need Bonjour.

            • #174776

              There’s no way I’ve allowed iTunes on any of my computers in probably a decade! 😉
              Even my iDevices don’t use iTunes…

            • #174777

              I don’t use iTunes as a music source either (or videos or movies, etc). But I do use it to play my music on my Macs (like Win Media Player), backup my iPhone and iPad, and to update the i-devices so it doesn’t overload my devices by downloading the installer, expanding the installer, and performing the update. And Bonjour is one of the communication protocols on my mixed network.

              Speaking of Win Media Player, guess who it communicates with!

            • #174784

              Speaking of Win Media Player, guess who it communicates with!

              Yeah, wouldn’t you know it – that’s disabled too! 😉

    • #174785

      Thanks to this discussion, I am making changes to my “upper” Windows backups.

      When I found Karen’s Replicator didn’t work on Win10, I settled on EaseUS Todo Backup because the free version allowed file/folder back. The problem I had with it was the backup was an image. You can access the files from any computer running the software, but you couldn’t just skip over to the backup from anywhere and copy a single file you needed without the software installed. I COULD do this with Karen’s Replicator b/c it stored the files in their original format.

      AOMEI Backupper allows what they call a “File Sync” – backup folders by file sync, no image file, and support Real-time sync. You can access the files from anywhere without the software. I am in the process of trying this now for my working C:\Users\<ID> folder that I do on a frequent basis.

      I also now have some PowerShell commands (thanks to @Microfix) that may give me a chance to get Karen’s Replicator working. That will be my FIRST CHOICE because of it’s flexibility and my familiarity with it.

      Thanks @Microfix !!!!

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