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CNET Editors' review
Regular, thorough backups prevent PC pain, period. Acronis True Image Home 2010 not only backs up your PC, operating system, and data easily, automatically, and regularly but also performs a variety of security, privacy, and maintenance duties that can prevent problems before they appear. We've used True Image before and found it not only flexible enough for highly targeted backups--for example, your work folder, on a removable drive, on your bowling night--but also easy enough for novices, with clear explanations, plenty of undo opportunities, and a user-friendly interface. The Home 2010 edition shows improvements in every category, especially in scheduling, protection, and support for the latest Windows features.
As (bad) luck would have it, a recent update gone wild in one of our Windows 7 PCs let us test Acronis True Image Home 2010 in a "real-world" situation. We quickly selected the appropriate backup file on our dedicated external drive and ran the restoration. A reboot later and the patient was rolled back to its previously healthy state. Although the problem was a simple software conflict, we've used Acronis to recover from devastating system crashes, too. Scheduling was always easy with Acronis True Image, but now it's not only easier but also more flexible. This is a powerful suite of system maintenance tools, not just a backup utility, and the Home 2010 edition sports improvements across the board. We especially like the new selective validation feature, which saves lots of time over the previous all-or-nothing archive validation. The Nonstop Backup addition looks like a potential bacon saver, whereas the One-Click Backup wizard right on the desktop makes backups so easy that it's practically an Excuse Eraser utility. The new Try & Decide feature, Windows VHD support, and the ability to boot directly from a True Image file also win our enthusiastic approval.
Fixing even small PC problems can be a long and tedious process requiring multiple reboots. Protecting your system is a simple and inexpensive detail that's easily checked off, thanks to Acronis True Image Home 2010.
Editors' note: This is a review of the full version of Acronis True Image Home 2010. The trial version is limited to 30 days.
Publisher's Description
From Acronis:
Acronis True Image Home 2012 provides home users with reliable backup, recovery, and file synchronization. You can easily define where and how often to backup a PC. Create copies of your hard drive in just a few quick steps while continuing to work. You can also synchronize your files between friends and family, folders, PCs, and online. Start a backup to multiple destinations including Secure Zone with just a few clicks. Acronis Nonstop Backup provides additional protection that thoroughly prevents data loss. Try&Decide lets you create an isolated environment, where you can safely test new applications or browse websites.
What's new in this version: Version 2012 adds File Synchronization, NAS backup, 2TB hard drive support.
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All versions:
3.1 starsout of 640 votes
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Current version:
2.0 starsout of 22 votes
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My rating:
Write review
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"Fight a War w/ a Crippled Soldier?"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
Nice interface. As bad as it is, it's STILL better than Norton Ghost....
Cons
Want to burn a backup to DVD or Double-Layer DVD? Don't even think about it! "Hangs" during archive verification, will NOT mount the image, and will NOT allow you to access the archive. Thus, it burns "glorified coasters." Ghost is worse, in that it won't even successfully burn a disc. (Yes, all latest drivers, firmware, quality media, tried different brands, etc.) All= FAIL! Don't make the mistake I did and waste HOURS of your time and expensive media! I've tried multiple versions of most imaging software, and they're all a waste of money for those who want to be able to store backups offsite on disc (the best way).
Summary
Try Paragon, Shadow Protect, etc.? Be cautious!
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"Serious bugs, critical failures & only paid support"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
30 day money back guarantee.
The best feature of Acronis has always been the complete disk backup with bootable rescue media, and the calendar functions that allow quick access to backups.
However, as the latest version (True Image 2012) is full of critical bugs, slow and unreliable - I would say this program is defective and a dangerous backup tool and should not be used until Acronis has addressed the serious software defects that makes the program regularly fail. Earlier versions (at least 2010 and earlier) seem to work fine and I think it is still possible to purchase these versions.Cons
Acronis have given True Image 2012 a face-lift however the core of the program has somehow been destroyed. Networking functionality is exceptionally poor, it crashes regularly with very complex error messages that are now supported, backups cannot be recovered (seriously!) and it is exceptionally slow. For example, I changed the network address on our network drive and this caused Acronis to crash (one example of dozens).
WARNING: All support after the initial 30 day "try before you buy" period must be paid for - and considering how the program is full of bugs and crashes on a regular basis and error messages are not supported - I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMMEND AVOIDING ACRONIS 2012 - as you will receive no help from Acronis unless you swipe your card a second time...
By the way - they seem to have off shored support - if you do get help (e-mail) it will be from a robot who thinks your a complete and utter idiot and tell you everything except for what you asked for.Summary
I have been using Acronis True Image now for over 10 years and have always admired this product, however the latest version is a complete an utter disappointment in every sense.
Put simply - Acronis True Image 2012 does not work. It is slow, buggy and unreliable with regular critical failures.
It seems the company direction has substantially changed the recent years and their strategy appears to focus on increasing revenue by charging for support on a program that is defective. I personally do not see this as a good business model, and sorry Acronis, however you have just lost a loyal customer. -
"Serious bugs, critical failures"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
Besides basic disk image backup and restore, this program has some automated management of backup tasks and management of backup files. However, these core functions are criticlaly hampered with serious program bugs.
Cons
SErious bugs make use unwarranted for some, dangerous for others. It isntalls hardware drivers that aren't removed with uninstall, which can result in blue-screens or corrupted hardisk.
Summary
Promising program but bugs are too serious to warrant its use. These bugs have persisted through several versions.
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"Use a your own RIKS! OR Say hello to my little friend"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
Only thing positive is that I still have an OLDER version of Acronis True Image Home.
Cons
Too many to list with only 1,000 characters. The biggest problem is not that it's buggy, but that it will leave behind a little friend that you'll absolutely hate.
But to list them:
1) Buggy install... sometimes it installs sometimes it doesn't. I installed this version on 3 computers, and only 1 accomplished without an error, but more scary, all 3 programs ran (not sure if solid) after they were rebooted.
2) Does not uninstall everything. And I'm not talking about bloat, but leaves behind critical components that are damaging to your computer and software.
3) The New User interface is horrible and child-like in design.
4) Disabled my Maxtor OneTouch backup external drive (even after True Image was uninstalled).
5) What happened with this company? These warm fuzzies I had for years (at least 5) about this company has been replaced by a dank dark caldron of despair... ok, so I exaggerate, but fuzzies have left the building.Summary
If you're still reading, you're probably not thinking this is just a rant and now trying to find solutions to your screwed up computer. I'll start you in the right direction without further ado. BTW, I didn't try this on my Win 7 machines, only my XP computers, but I suspect you'll find the same thing with WIN7... if not, reply and let me know that my suspicions were wrong. If you installed the trial or even the paid upgrade (like I did) and you "think" it is uninstalled, then say Hello to your new Little Friend. He is:
vsflt61.sys
And if you haven't yet crossed the bridge to download their "cleanup" program, he has a buddy called "fltsrv.sys". So how do you know if your computer has adopted these friends? Do the following...
1) Go to my computer and select one of your hard drives... drive C: will be a good start. Right click and select Properties.
2) Then select the tab that says, "Hardware." There you will find a list of all your hard drives, CDs and maybe Floppy if you have one installed.
3) Highlight the first drive and click on the "button" that says "Properties."
4) There you will see another window with tabs. Select the tab that says, "Driver"
5) If you followed the above closely, you will have yet another button to click. Click on "Driver Details..."
6) There you will find your new little friend, vsflt61.sys and maybe his buddy as well, fltsrv.sys. Highlight it so you can see it's an Acronis file. BTW, you only need two Microsoft drivers here.
So what, you say, if vsflt61.sys is left behind? Even their special clean-up program doesn't remove this little hard disk driver. Well, here's what NOT to do... DON'T go to your system32 directory, then the driver folder and delete vsflt61.sys. Why? Guess what happens? On the next start you go into a endless loop of start then restart, then start. After it does this about 10 times and you've wiped the tears away, it's simply a matter of going into safe mode and putting the file back, right? WRONG. It will simply reboot and you will never get to the safe mode. Oh, and BTW, you can't have it restore the last good configuration either... it ain't gonna work.
Obviously I know a lot about the above scenario and would like to tell you that is was one of my foolish friends that did this, but nope, it was me... the guy that wrote programs for 8 years and now repairs computers for living while in partial retirement did this to his own personal computer. So I had to jerk the hard drive out of my computer, install the Acronis True Image Home 2012 on another XP computer, take the vsflt61.sys file off and copy it to the system32 directory on my hard drive.
Then and only then did I get it to boot normally again. However, that simply left me where I started. And to my dismay, it quit reading my Maxtor 500GB external drive. In fact it wouldn't even recognize it. And more interesting is that once I plugged in my USB to Maxtor cable, it disabled all other USB flash drives that I subsequently stuck in, UNTIL I rebooted my computer. That's right, say goodbye to my SanDisk Cruzer, even if I removed the Maxtor external drive, none of the USB ports would recognize a flash drive. More puzzling is that my 1 TB Western Digital external drive didn't create the same problem as the Maxtor. The WD worked fine with the vsflt61.sys driver installed. I never had an issue with the Maxtor on any computer, but it's one of the older (first) external OneTouch.
I tracked the problem down to the vsflt61.sys file and various pointers in the registry. I will not go into the details since it was pretty involved fiddling with the registry, but you can manually remove registry items to make it work. Do a search for the file name vsflt61.sys and the words, "device class filter".
Once the registry items were removed, actually vidsflt61 (not the same as vsflt61.sys), I was able to remove the vsflt61.sys. The Maxtor begin to work like a charm as it has on all my other computers and numerous other customer computers.
All seriousness aside, I am most sad that Acronis has lost direction. I'm not going to blame the programmers because in my experience is generally is a marketing department with too much power. If sales is the driving force ahead of quality, you'll have good companies like Acronis go belly up. The high pressure marketing fools are long gone while the programmers try to clean up the mess to keep the company afloat. This company was desperate with their marketing campaign right before Christmas and I was inundated with sales emails over and over again. I suspect this problem was due to a too hard of push to get new product out the door before it was ready. This isn't a beta, as it is more serious than that... iow, you can't back up and redesign. This entire software needs to be scrapped, then started over with good documentation every step of the way and beta tested until it's a dead horse. This type of software is too critical to be sloppily rushed to market. What comes to mind is, "First... do no harm."
BTW, read around and you'll find there are many more and more serious issues than an old Maxtor external drive not working. And although I am not in a very good mood to say anything nice at this point about Acronis, I will say, Microsoft had their boondoggles and tripped all over themselves a number of times and still came out on top, so for now, I'm not counting Acronis out, but I will find another backup/clone solution before they get their act together. -
"They reinvented the wheel but now it's FLAT!"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
The ONLY pro that I can think of, is that I can go back to an older version.
Cons
This version is a TOTAL disaster and a flop. I'm very disappointed. Not only do I feel like I was screwed by paying the upgrade price (before using the trial), I'm now on a search to find a stable company that I can trust not do make boneheaded moves like this upgrade.
I can't trust a company that makes such major changed in the GUI and behavior on critical software. It makes me feel no adult is in charge and there may be other problems behind the scenes to let such a product out the door.
If you already have one of their older versions, don't buy this one until you try it... better yet, wait for the 2013 version to see if this company is still around.Summary
One of the tell tale signs is their upgrade serial number that you use to activate the product. Imagine this, 71 alpha numeric characters. Now that is absolutely silly. This SN could be used to identify every birth ever recorded up to today and a trillion years after today. Obviously the tail is wagging the dog at this company or they sent their programming offshore and communication is a big problem with them.
If your idea is to back up your most critical data with an interface that has the look and feel of a stripped down website with three images of a leaf-curl page as icons to accomplish the task, this is your version. It really gives you the feel that you are going to a "home page" instead running a software application.
In fact one of the only 3 icons you can click on says, "What is Sync?" and when you click on it, it takes you to a slide show trying to get you to sign up for some sort of cloud computing Acronis way. Don't know if there is a charge or not, but they certainly want you to sign up. Hey, I wanted software to clone my disk image, not an online storage solution. Gee, but I guess it's not about what I WANT, but what I NEED as determined by Acornis.
Sorry folks, I just feel blindsided and fear this company must have encountered major problems to use a new "version" as a radically different design in software. This smells like Vista, the New Coke, DOS 4, Zune, Bing, etc., so I'm in search of new backup software app and will come back if and when they get their head out of their rear end. For now, I'll be using version 11. -
"Uneven, chose version, do updates + manual back-ups"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
It worked better than MS Office 2003 to make back-up of Outlook Express onto an external drive. I hope it works as well as C-Net editor's review said it should.
Cons
May have deleted $1700 worth of recovered data, according to http://www.acronis.com/support/updates/# [snip] :
Release notes for Acronis True Image Home 2010
Release date: February 4, 2011
Fixed issues [selected last one that's most relevant to my usage!]
Full backup with the Overwrite the existing archive option enabled does not work: archive location is empty, because a new full backup is not created, and the previous full backup is deleted.
So it may have deleted a back-up of a crashed drive that had cost me $1700 to recover.Summary
I will be sure to update my 2010 version using the above link, check that it does indeed work, avoid buying later versions, and consider manual back-ups as well.
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"When it worked, it was great"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
Easy to use. When it worked it was flawless.
Cons
It stopped using and even support could not help me get it working again. They wanted to charge me as I was outside the 30 days but they did eventually agree to try and help. They reinstalled my programme as it would not let me do it - used the clean up tool and I was happy until I tried to back up. I had to reinstall all my mass storage devices and then I got errors and could not use the programme. I decided regrettably to try something else as I did not want to pay for support if I opened the chat support again. Even uninstalling leaves a lot of debris behind and I am unable to run a Windows Image - I was about to use the cleanup tool that Acronis has available on their site until I saw that it could corrupt my system. I am sure that they will work on this programme and it will be better, BUT I would not ever install a programme that I can not cleanly uninstall
Summary
I have grave misgivings for 2012 version I am afraid and from my experience, I could not recommend it.
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"I would have paid twice as much."
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
Simple interface and flawless operation.
Fast, powerful, and reliable.Cons
None that I'm aware of.
Summary
I checked the reviews here at the end of a long process of trying many backup programs and was shocked to find so many negative comments. I have devoted hours and hours to finding a backup solution even slightly less buggy than the Windows machine I'm trying to backup. Acronis TIH is THE ONLY ONE I trust. The GUI may be unconventional, but it is far from challenging. Besides, in the life of this software how much time will you spend with the GUI? Set it and forget it. The bottom line is, in a field of extremely flawed products, this one stands out as a professional solution.
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"WORST EVER!"
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
You are alive and well!
Cons
This is the worst program Acronis could roll out.
It is so buggy that you wish to have a crash.
A computer crash is way much better than this.
ATIHE12 stays there...hanging...and does nothing.
Online storage is so unpredictable that you do not even know if you can rely on it.
Right now the server is out for god knows what reason.Summary
Stay away from it. really!
It is worse than a virus. -
"I've had better experiences with virus infections."
Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012
Pros
Mom said you can always find SOMETHING nice to say about anyone. But I'm at a complete loss.
Cons
Horrific GUI! They should have released as a new/separate product. I think it is safe to say most TIH users would assume upgrading from a prior version will be an extension/improvement of the previous version. TIH 2012 steps into a parallel universe sharing only the name with prior versions.
I've earned my living in IT for many years and am a longtime TIH user. For the life of me I can't figure out the "intent" of the GUI designers. The best I can come up with is they decided to take away as much of the user choice as possible and for good measure, make sure experienced users remain baffled at all times.
That's just the GUI. Did I mention the program doesn't work?Summary
You really need to install this product to understand how bad it is.
I've worked this version over several systems. My experiences combined with comments from others lead me to conclude the few positive reviews are planted on behalf of Acronis.
There's no grey area here folks, it not likely for TIH 2012 to sabotage so many systems and work "Great" for a few others.
Finally, I feel cheated. Acronis was one of the few products I REALLY liked and felt I could depend on.
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