Groups > alt.comp.os.windows-11 > #17136

Re: Convinced me, going to backup first.

From	Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
Newsgroups	alt.comp.os.windows-11, alt.comp.os.windows-10
Subject	Re: Convinced me, going to backup first.
Date	2025-02-16 19:51 -0500
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<vou167$r2ve$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	<23vvqjhl2mi34qvo5cfsucuhhn67608dcn@4ax.com> <slrnvr487b.r2.eternal@esware.naleco.com>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On Sun, 2/16/2025 12:31 PM, Juancho wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2025 22:27:20 -0500, micky wrote:
>> Okay, even though I still don't think I have a lot to lose if something
>> goes wrong, Newyana's tactful urging and Paul's nagging have convinced
>> me to backup first. 
>>
>> Macrium Reflect Free is no longer free, even if you have the last free
> 
> I use "Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows FREE", and it is battle tested and
> easy to use, not to mention FREE.
> 
> https://www.veeam.com/products/free/microsoft-windows.html
> 
> Any particular reason to prefer Macrium over Veeam Agent?
> 

Use whatever you have *personally* tested and verified.

It's a lot of work to build confidence in one of these products.

To give an example, I was interested in one tool, I did
a Google, and there was a report that someone tried to
clone a FAT32 partition with it and the operation failed.
The most likely explanation when things like that happen,
is the partition likely needed to have a CHKDSK run on it
first. Some products do a degree of verification before the
operation begins And that avoids wasting your time, by getting
half way through an operation, and bombing out.

A certain brand, I've tried their "trial" version for a
couple of things. There's "always a tiny problem". Now,
do I want to hitch my horse to that wagon ? No thanks.
Backup software should not feel like an experiment.

There are a number of free ones, but they're not all the
same, and some seem to have a distinct lack of in-house testing.

Macrium isn't perfect. It can be a new feature that malfunctions.
Something not associated with the core functions of backup/restore/clone.
And, it gets fixed. For example, on the Rescue CD, they added a
screen capture function, so you could take a picture of the screen
when booted from the CD. That didn't work on my copy, but not a problem,
because that's not part of making a backup. That's a toy.

Similarly, Macrium has a couple generations of Rescue CD. The
first generation, was a 20MB Linux method, fairly compact and
didn't require "prep". The second generation is based on WADK
and WinPE, and there is a download and a preparation procedure
to make the ISO for the media. The third generation, uses WinRE
(Reagent thing that Windows itself uses for emergency boot
and is in the System Reserved partition). When that feature was
introduced, my copy grabbed the wrong WinRE file (x32 versus x64 issue),
and while that wasted my time, it wasn't a big deal. But today,
for least trouble, I'd be telling people to use the second
generation WinPE method, because that seems to work, and that
has never let me down. I have six or seven Rescue CDs, made
at various times.

The Macrium product has a PDF manual for each version. It's
around 150 pages perhaps. Some other backup product tried to
top that, with a 500 page PDF manual, but I don't award points
personally, for turning products into "an Iron Man Event". So
while a 500 page manual shows attention to detail, it is unlikely
that every customer reads that from end to end.

Macrium has a learning curve. Noobs don't particularly like it.
It took me a while to "absorb the ambience". For the longest while,
I missed the button that promises to back up the whole computer.
The interface is fairly busy looking, but the materials presented
have their value, and it takes some getting used to.

I liked a certain Acronis product, one where they had just finished
revamping their story board, and the flow was very logical and not
a lot of clicks. But when Acronis decided to make a "suite" out
of their crap, and make a rental AV product out of their
backup software, I stopped suggesting that to people as an option.
That's just too silly for words. Acronis TrueImage would have been
good enough for most people, buy once and use, no need for
any sort of rental thang.

   Paul

Thread

Convinced me, going to backup first.  micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-14 22:27 -0500
  Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-15 03:06 -0500
  Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. "Allan Higdon" <allanh@vivaldi.net> - 2025-02-15 04:51 -0600
    Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-15 08:42 -0500
      Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. "Allan Higdon" <allanh@vivaldi.net> - 2025-02-15 10:58 -0600
        Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-15 23:34 -0500
          Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ  <winstonmvp@gmail.com> - 2025-02-15 23:46 -0700
          Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-16 09:21 -0500
            Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-04-01 18:08 -0400
  Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-02-15 09:14 -0500
    Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-02-16 11:21 +0000
      Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-16 13:45 -0500
        Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ  <winstonmvp@gmail.com> - 2025-02-16 13:14 -0700
          Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-02-16 17:53 -0600
            Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ  <winstonmvp@gmail.com> - 2025-02-17 00:49 -0700
            Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-03-10 10:33 -0400
              Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-10 13:24 -0500
          Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-03-10 10:38 -0400
        Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-02-18 20:54 +1100
          Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-18 11:53 -0500
            Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-02-20 20:04 +1100
              Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-20 09:07 -0500
                Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-02-21 18:25 +1100
                Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-21 09:21 -0500
                Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-02-21 18:06 +0000
                Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-21 16:16 -0500
  Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. eternal@notreally.com (Juancho) - 2025-02-16 18:31 +0100
    Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-16 19:51 -0500
    Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-17 06:48 -0500
      Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-02-17 15:06 +0000
        Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-17 10:58 -0500
          Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2025-02-17 16:38 +0000
      Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ  <winstonmvp@gmail.com> - 2025-02-17 12:49 -0700
        Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> - 2025-02-17 22:05 -0500
  Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-05-28 00:16 +1000
    Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. "Allan Higdon" <allanh@vivaldi.net> - 2025-05-27 10:34 -0500
    Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-05-27 14:31 -0400
      Re: Convinced me, going to backup first. Daniel70 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2025-05-28 20:12 +1000

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