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Acronis charging customers for bug fixes

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mwang:
I bought Acronis TrueImage Home 10 two months ago to go with my new Vista machine, and run into several bugs immediately. Soon I found their official support forum and realized some of the bugs were there long ago. I filed two additional bug reports and assisted in locating the source of one of them. I even found and reported (to the company and on the forum) a workaround for it. They thanked me and said they'll be fixed.

From time to time I checked their web site for updates, but one never came. The latest build stays at 4942, released in March. Then today there's finally a new version -- TrueImage Home 11 and it costs $30 for upgrade! (Some on the forum said people who bought version 10 less than 30 days will be offered a free upgrade via email, but some who did said it's not true. Doesn't matter here since I don't qualify anyway.)

Come to think of it, we aren't even sure if those nasty bugs were fixed. They tout new features but say nothing about bugs fixed. (Have to admit I didn't look hard since I was so upset.)

Just to vent my frustration with Acronis, a company well praised here, on Wikipedia, and almost everywhere I know.  >:(

Armando:
Although I've never had problems, I think that Zaine too went through serious annoyances... He started to recommend BootIt NG instead -- if I remember correctly...

mwb1100:
I agree that Acronis' upgrade policy can be less than desirable.  I try to counter that myself by staying a rev or 2 back and getting the software from discounters who sell remainders.  As long as you aren't cutting edge on the OS you can often get away with it.

Darwin:
AFAICT, there hasn't been much added in since version 9 that's going to be compelling/absolutely necessary to anyone running XP. I use both 9 Home and 9.1 Workstation on my various computers and have had no problems whatsoever with either version. Version 11 *might* bring more to the table, but I don't feel that there's any urgency about upgrading. For most people, version 9 or even 8 is just fine. If you're running Vista this might not be the case, I dunno...

mwang:
Although I've never had problems, I think that Zaine too went through serious annoyances... He started to recommend BootIt NG instead -- if I remember correctly...
-Armando (September 26, 2007, 05:31 PM)
--- End quote ---
I've used BootIt NG (BING) for years. It's a great tool. Only shortcomings: can't do imaging in Windows and no incremental backup. But it's always been perfectly reliable, and it's also (I should say it's mainly) a multi-boot manager.

I ran into troubles when going Vista (whether that's wise is another story), however, and desperately needed a workable replacement for I'm in the habit of taking snapshots of the system partition every few steps when setting up a new system.

I did a quick research (too quick, in hindsight, for I didn't dig deep enough on the wildsecurity forum) and heard many good praise of Acronis TI. I downloaded the trial version but soon learned one of the its main functions I needed (can't remember which one, probably something related to operations from the rescue media) was only available to registered users, so I registered.

It's a mistake.

Turned out the problem I had with BING was related to Vista's new partition and disc signature rules (see http://www.multibooters.co.uk/ for detail). What BING can't do, TI can't either.

Besides, TI has other Vista related issues, as said in my original post.

After I registered an official complaint on their tactics (forcing customers to upgrade for bug fixes), they offered me to try a beta version of TI Home 10 (not offered on the website yet). The new build is better, but most of the above issues remain. I've just reported my findings back to them. We'll see how it goes.

This raises serious doubt, however, on whether they've really solved the major Vista compatibility issues with the brand new ver. 11. They claimed ver. 10 to be Vista ready; it wasn't. Now they're saying the same thing about ver. 11, but I really doubt it.

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