Summary of Features Removed in ATI2015
I installed the software for all users on the laptop.
Just received reply from Acronis Support who have confirmed this feature has been removed because "most of the customers were not using this feature and that is why this feature is removed."
I have sought a full refund.
C ya Acronis.
I installed the software for all users on the laptop.
Just received reply from Acronis Support who have confirmed this feature has been removed because "most of the customers were not using this feature and that is why this feature is removed."
I have sought a full refund.
C ya Acronis.
Which of the many missing features was the killer for you?
The ability to run backups with the Admin credentials did it for me.
I just uninstalled 2015 and reinstalled 2014 which works well. In my opinion 2015 is a loser. I find it hard to work with Sometimes when I am testing something and need to restore a backup I am used to doing so while in windows. The only way I could get 2015 to restore was to use the boot disk. Poorly designed interface. Not user friendly. I requested a refund.
What to do about the nagging notice now that there is a new upgrade. May consider another alternative.
Sad because I have been using Acronis since 2010.
I just uninstalled 2015 and reinstalled 2014 which works well. In my opinion 2015 is a loser. I find it hard to work with Sometimes when I am testing something and need to restore a backup I am used to doing so while in windows. The only way I could get 2015 to restore was to use the boot disk. Poorly designed interface. Not user friendly. I requested a refund.
What to do about the nagging notice now that there is a new upgrade. May consider another alternative.
Sad because I have been using Acronis since 2010.
Keep me posted on what other product you go with as I am in same situation.
Will be reinstalling 2012 version tonite.
Very disappointing. Apart from the lost features, the new interface is the biggest downside. I don't want a simplified (dumbed-down) interface. I REALLY don't want anything that reminds me of the disaster that is Windows 8. Just like I haven't switched to Win8 I won't be buying the 2015 version of True Image. I have purchased licenses starting with 2009. This will be the first year I'm skipping.
This giant step backward has actually prompted me to investigate other other backup solutions and from what I'm reading, there are some good ones out there. I'll spend some time and see if any are better than True Image 2014 (my current backup solution of choice).
Acronis, just like Microsoft, you need to listen to your customers and correct this misstep. This was a move in the wrong direction.
I'll spend some time and see if any are better than True Image 2014 (my current backup solution of choice).
I am trialling NovaBackup Professional (http://www.novastor.com/en/software/windows-backup) currently. It is very good and importantly has the features I want that Acronis have chosen to remove.
Yes I am amazed to see what has happened. I used to rely on being able to browse the backup chains and manually delete the oldest ones when running out of backup space. Not sure what to do now. I will have to have smaller backups and only keep the last 1 or 2 backup chains. Really poor Cleverbridge
Thanks Jon. I will have a look at that for the future
Funnily enough, I moved from NovaBackup to Acronis some years back because I found NovaBackup to be awkward to use. But NovaBackup kept me going for several years. I first bought it around 2000.
Remind me, though, does it still use a proprietary file format that you can't get into with, for example, Windows Explorer?
It must have moved on a lot since I used it, but as we have seen from this saga not all changes are real progress.
I just uninstalled 2015 and reinstalled 2014 which works well. As another poster, in my opinion 2015 is a loser, with a lot of 2014 features missing. Even the logs are not available to check for proper backup.....
So back to 2014 and try to test AX64....
We fully agree to the list of missing features. If Acronis are not going to re-implement them we will change to a different solution for our company as well as for customers as soon as an upgrade from TI 2014 becomes necessary.
During testing we also stumbled over the user interface, which complicates matters unnecessarily if one doesn't accept "Standard" backup/recovery methods. Additionally the system load under a powerful windows 8.1 machine was much heavier than under TI 2014. Sometimes a restore from the same from a perfectly valid backup image on a perfectly fine external harddisk taken with TI 2014 crashed, sometimes it worked.
I was (mostly) okay with the missing features - I really use the product for automatic nightly backups, and the 2015 version is okay for that. HOWEVER, the universal restore program seemed to never work for me. And the thing that totally killed 2015 for me was that when I attempted to restore some files from the previous night's backup, 2015 consistently crashed. Each and every time. I tried to do a full machine restore. Crash. Disaster. Back to 2014. It's fine to back stuff up. But if you can't use the backups, what's the point???
TI 2015's inability to image encrypted partitions (e.g., bitlocker) without doing a sector-by-sector backup killed it for me. Every prior version of TI has been able to handle this without issue. Refund requested and received -- and have downgraded to TI 2014.
Hello EdAdk,
Logs are available in system report or when you enable email notifications.
And "Automatically check for updates at startup" switcher can be found in Help - About Acronis True Image menu.
Scott, to mount an image you now need to right-click the image file that you want to mount in Windows Explorer, and then click Mount image.
Thank you.
...good infos... MOUNTING IMAGES is a MUST feature....
...much more flexible and usable than simple "file exploring"....
Mounting images as "actual" disks provides FULL availability of content files in ANY application and or file manager..... thus, ESSENTIAL feature...!!!
Without it, ATI would not be the great program it is any longer..... so KEEP IT THERE...............
THANKS.
how to mount a backup WITHOUT write protection? i can't find the switch anymore...
They will listen, you just have to wait for the 2016 version. Seems to be their way of doing business.
how to mount a backup WITHOUT write protection? i can't find the switch anymore...
I'm not in front of my PC now, so I can't check that at the moment.... but I REALLY hope that specific feature is STILL at its place....
...C'mon people at Acronis.... don't be that fool..........
In my opinion, Acronis TrueImage 2010 (v13) was the best version ever, both for the interface and features, the natural and improved evolution of previous ones...
I think the company shuld have sticked to that and put their efforts in trying to improve it, not gradually/radically change the whole thing.
Indeed, after getting alienated when version 2012 came, both 'cause of the new ugly childish interface an the new hussle-for-legitimate-customers-only (..yep...) introduced with shameful ACTVATION system, I stopped upgrading...
...until new 2015 version... At first, it seemed the new gui could recall (somehow...) the glorious straightforward 2010's one.... but persistence of bugs (still can't save customized Network settings in Rescue Media mode...!) and massive taking features away are quite hard to accept...
I think those who call it a Downgrade have some good reasons, in the end.....
Give us ol' good TrueImage back......... please.........
Regards.
Yes I am amazed to see what has happened. I used to rely on being able to browse the backup chains and manually delete the oldest ones when running out of backup space. Not sure what to do now. I will have to have smaller backups and only keep the last 1 or 2 backup chains. Really poor Cleverbridge
My backup disk is nearly full, and that has always been my trigger to manually consolidate or delete my older backups. I should have known better, but I took it for granted that such essential features would be there. Now, long after my 30 days is up, I came to the forum and read this thread.
I am livid. As I said, I should have known better; but this is only the second time in my long history that I've been screwed over this badly. I took my business elsewhere the last time, and that's what I'm going to do now. It infuriates me that I'll have to buy a new drive and new software to start over, and keep TI and the old drive installed in case I need to retrieve a file from my old backups.
They will listen, you just have to wait for the 2016 version. Seems to be their way of doing business.
What do you think they heard the last time around that persuaded Acronis to release a bug ridden package without features that many people loved?
I have had so many problems with the new version, even with the assistance of Acronis support staff, that I have uninstalled it and gone back to 2014. After installing, uninstalling and reinstalling 2015 several times, having to recreate backup jobs four or five times now, and a host of various issues with the backups including the Acronis Cloud backup I have given up! 2015 was a "not ready for prime time" edition.
Acronis.. I hope you're listening to your customers. True Image 2015 is a disaster from the interface on down. There are many other backup options out there as I've recently discovered. I still like my Acronis 2014 and I don't find it lacking any important features so I'll stick with it for now but 2016 (or maybe a reworked 2015?) needs to be much closer to 2014. Until then Acronis 2015 = Windows 8... most people are skipping it.
Hi,
Been using various versions of TI since 2005 and although it's always been a rather quirky product, it's always been possible to work around the oddities to find a basically good product in the background.
Installed TI2015 on my new PC a couple of weeks ago, with high hopes, which have rapidly been dashed.
A few of the items on the problem list:
I think the new UI is horrible - very difficult to work out how to do various things.
I find that most of the backups I attempt come back as corrupt when I try to validate them. There's certainly no problem with the drive itself as it works fine with everything else I try and checks out clean.
I find that, when I select an existing backup from the list, the clicked backup is hightlighted in the list, as expected, but sometimes the name shown at the top of the right-hand panel is of a different backup entirely. So which backup am I actually working with?
I did an entirely fresh backup early yesterday evening. It was slow to create and even slower to validate. In fact, by bedtime, it had still not completed the validation but, when I looked in the folder in Windows Explorer, there were 3 new backup files present! No idea why there should be 3 files but I left it validating overnight to see how things turned out. By this morning, the new file count had increased to 7 (occupying much more disk space than the original partition) and, as I woke up the PC, another backup was just beginning. I stopped it. Then I discovered that it had changed the status of the only successfully validated backup of the system drive that I had. Why did it do that?
When I tried to remove one of my existing file backups from the list, the backup name stayed on the list but the path was deleted. Not only that but the paths of several other file backups were also deleted at the same time, rendering them inaccessible.
A few teething troubles I can accept but this software is so dreadful, it would be just a bad joke, had I not paid money for it. I just sent off my request for a refund to Cleverbridge and I'm now trialling one of the many alternatives out there, which is cheaper than Acronis has a much more intuitive, friendly UI and, so far, has worked without any hint of a problem.
It looks like it's goodbye Acronis from me too!
For those still interested in purchasing an AX64 license (I know marcmale was waiting for the next sale): currently there is a sale on their website (ax64.com/uncategorized/ax64-time-machine-sale-ends-november-2014/) which lasts until November 10. And no, I do not get a commision nor am I affiliated with AX64. I only post this here because I knew marcmale had shown interest before and there might be others as well.
Has anyone tried performing a bare metal recovery with ax64?
In the test I performed with the trial, a bare metal recovery on a UEFI GPT PC doesn't produce a bootable system. AX64 doesn't backup all of the necessary hidden system partitions. While viewing the disk from diskpart, I found that AX64 left free space where the MSR and EFI system partitions should have been. I had to use the command line to build those partitions to make the system bootable. This is not something the average home user is going to know how to do. I went to the AX64 support page and found others were having the same issue.
http://ax64.uservoice.com/forums/206143-general/suggestions/6579916-bar…
I see no value in a disk imaging program that can't produce a bootable system on a new uninitialized disk when your hard disk fails.
I have to say that I quite like the 2015 interface; I find it much more responsive and snappier. The clunky, slow old interface of previous versions was always a turn-off for me, and I'm happy that it's been improved. But it makes no sense to remove features just because they "were rarely used." In particular, with no ability to consolidate my backup files I feel completely stuck on what I should do. I have terabytes of old backups sitting there and I was set to consolidate them when I made the choice to "upgrade" to 2015 first, in hoping that they've improved the process. Instead they've removed it. Now what am I supposed to do with all these old backups? I have a giagantic mess of backup sets right now spread across multiple disks and I was really counting on ATI to help me clean it up.
So this is very disappointing. Even if I move on to a new product, which I will probably do, it doesn't resolve my problem of what to do with all these files.
Does anyone have a solution?
This new product is extremely disappointing. I'll be seeking another product. I have used ATI since the 2009 version, including 2010, 2011 & 2014.
Finding the proper guidance/assistance on the website took over a day. Although the support website seems clear, pulling the installation code from another computer, finding an activation code to put on the ATI Activation form, and negotiating between web pages, ATI program records, and computer files, has been a waste of time, since the program is only good for one computer. Previous versions covered my network with one program.
I do not continue a program's use if it requires too much of my time to administer its quirks and changes, year over year.
I wonder if any of you can help me out...I was using True Image 2014 without a problem, and then took the bait in upgrading to 2015. I was dissatisfied with the upgrade as well, so I uninstalled it, then re-installed 2014. However, True Image 2014 can no longer see my Disks or Partitions when I attempt to use that backup mode and I look for them as a backup source.
File backups can see my disks without a problem. The error is only for Disk/Partition backups, and just started after the reinstallation. My OS is Windows 7.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Carl
Sounds as though SNAPAPI wasn't rolled back. You could try running a repair install of 2014 and if that doesn't work, download the Acronis Cleaner, run that, reboot and then install 2014.
The Cleaner will remove all TI components but will also disable any other Acronis products you have installed, so they will need to be reinstalled as well.
I don't have the link to the Cleaner on this PC, but you'll find a link under Grover's guides on the left hand margin of this page.
Thank you VERY much, Colin. The repair install was something I had already tried (and neglected to mention), but the Cleanup tool did the trick.
Thanks so much, I've got a Full backup rolling right now, and I'm already feeling better about things....
Carl
I upgraded to 2015 and it is a disaster. I've contacted support for a refund and no answer. I bought three licenses and I want to
have three for 2014. I have one, but I am retiring that PC and there is no way to take off the activation - so what, I'll have to buy another one?
Hey Acronis, 2015 sucks. Won't even recognize my 3.0 USB external drive that 2014 recognized during a restore. Pitiful. At least in 2014 you finally got auto cleanup working.
Please refund me the 2015 and give back my 2014 license for another PC I am replacing old one with, and sell me two more copies of 2014.
I work managing software development and your products and service are utterly abysmal.
If True Image thinks you have too many activations, you get the chance to delete them and start activating again upto the licence limit you have.
TI 2015's inability to image encrypted partitions (e.g., bitlocker) without doing a sector-by-sector backup killed it for me. Every prior version of TI has been able to handle this without issue. Refund requested and received -- and have downgraded to TI 2014.
This seems odd.
What feature in 2015 was removed existed in 2014 because my understanding you always either created an entire image of the HDD or just certain files even with 2014 if you were using a system disk that was encrypted
I had no problem mounting an image (context menu item)
On the other hand, not being able to sort the backups by date is absolutely a problem.
This is a killer -- I have spent several hours tunneling around in the new 2015 and its update looking for a way to see the calendar or dated list of backups so that I could delete selected old ones that are just filling up the partition -- the new backups keep piling up without ANY way to go back and choose which ones I wish to delete -- from reading here, it appears that this is no longer possible in 2015??? This does not make sense that there is NO WAY to selectively go back and delete backups that are no longer needed as the Acronis Secure Zone fills up to capacity, otherwise, the only solution is to allow it to fill up, delete it and create a new Acronis Secure Zone partition. IMHO, this makes the 2015 version totally worthless -- it should have been placed inside the "Manage Acronis Secure Zone."
(BTW -- the new UI sucks)
Somebody please verify that what I have stated is correct (if so, I will go back to Acronis 2014 or switch to a different backup system. THANKS
Mike
ATI2015 is awful and nowhere near as full featured or granular as previous versions. I use ATI2010 even though I own licenses for ATI2014. ATI2010 won't run on Windows 8.1, but I'm running Windows 7. Until I'm forced to upgrade to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, ATI2010 is my go-to version.
I dropped AU$25 to buy a 3 machine licence of TI 2015. I bought it too far back to request a refund but I won't install 2015. I'll just call it a learning experience which I won't need to repeat. I'll be looking for alternative solutions.
I wish to thank everyone for their experience and comments here.
It's reinforced my conviction that I won't be upgrading this year.
I had a bad experience with 2014 last year and enough problems with that version forced me back to the ever-reliable and cleaner 2010 which remains my robust option, with one old test machine holding 2014.
I'll skip this year and wait to see what 2016 holds.
I sure wish I had seen this thread earlier. Too late for me to get a refund, and feel really ripped off having paid for an upgrade that is really a feature cut (huge downgrade). I'll roll back to 2014, and shop for a new product when it doesn't work for me anymore. I'm not sure what acronis could do to fix this for me. This is a trust issue, and we are talking about backup software. Trust and integrity is non-negotiable here.
2014 on a Surface Pro3 (I7 -512GB) under windows 8.1. I backup to a network drive and all works fine. However I have been accustom to using the explorer to retrieve a file in the backup archive and it doesn't seem to function. I was able to mount a backup and extract a file but like the convenience of using the explorer.I have tested the 2015 version which seems to be a featureless backup package. It functions properly creating backup images, can read 2014 images and I can use the explorer to retrieve files without mounting the image. However when I backup the "Entire PC" only the "C" drive is backed up (note I have a C and D drive both in NTFS format). I have to use Disks and Partitions to select both drives manually for a complete backup.
I would appreciate any other experience on the Surface Pro 3
Richard, my use case is very similar to yours - i7-256, Win 8.1, the SSD partitioned into C & D and just wanted to image-backup my C: (OS). I've used True Image till 2013, and was about to upgrade to 2014 until I saw this 2015 released.
One question, Richard - are your SSD drives protected with BitLocker? How does Acronis works with restoring a backed-up Bitlocker drive/partition?
Do we still have the option to upgrade to v2014 (I'm still using v2013) or we only have 2015 as upgrade option? :(
Mounting a file is no problem, but I miss the read/write check box! We have used this frequently and it is a NoGo if this option is missed!
We use Acronius now over a lot of years since 2006 for the backup of our world wide installed machines. A benefit was, that you could still read (mount) the oldest backups with the actual software. The user interface was frequently changed, but it was much better in the older versions. Clear and easy to use, all options available.
I know that the user interface should get simpler, because users getting stupid, but for our purpose we like to have full control over things we do (and could do).
We have totally some TeraByte of backups and I would like to use the backups also in a few years again, because the lifetime of our machines is 20 years+. The backups are from Win98SE second edition PC's up to Windows 7 today. To change to an incompatible system is nearly impossible, because all of the backups has to be restored and then stored with a new system again.
This is time consuming, data crashing (even with Acronis you have had to wait for the first SP of every new version), inefficient!
Could I use the actual serial code with an older version (down grading?) Then I would buy 2015 licenses (our distributer is not able to deliver 2014) down grad them and use 2014 for the next years.
Dear Acronis Head, support team and developers
I find it unacceptable that Acronis is using the CEP (Customer Experience Program) telemetry to decide which features are not commonly used and thus to remove them. It was said publicly that some of the removed features have been removed because they were rarely used.
While I do not personally suffer from the removal of features, I find it unacceptable by principle, because TI 2015 was not even cheaper even though it got streamlined!
I never thought that Acronis could take the same way as Microsoft concluding argueable decisions on basis of the CEP telemetry, just like Microsoft did with the removal of the Start Menu in Windows 8, which was also removed based on such telemetry, ironically will be reintroduced in Windows 10.
Acronis should keep the technology leader position and not care about how to streamline their products.
The buyer reviews on Amazon Germany tells the story. People are really angry about these decisions, just as I am.
While also the new UI is argueable and seems to be optimized for touch users, I am fine with it, while I needed some time to get used to it.
However TI 2015 proven was the most rocky release since I use TrueImage for more than 6 years now. I found more than 10 bugs in just one week of usage. This is a shameful display and does not meet the reputation Acronis has earned over the years, most of all it is inacceptable for a security related software, as a backup / imaging software is by design.
yours sincerely,
Karl
Like many of the loyal users here, I've upgraded to every new version that has been released for as long as I can remember. I also upgraded to 2015 without knowing certain features had been removed (Acronis, you kept that quiet in the nagging popups and emails). Today I tried to use the convert to VHD feature, something I've used many times in the past. Like others, I was surprised to see it had been removed. Who did Acronis ask about these features ? How did you decide that no-one wanted them ? What was the rationale behind the decision ?
If this has been decided on the basis of CEP, you're pretty much way off the mark. I decided not to participate in the program when I've installed previous versions, like I presume many others, so you only have a subset of data to base a decision on. A more useful approach would have been to email us all a link to a survey.
Like others, I've now removed 2015 and re-installed 2014 to restore the missing features. But that means I've just wasted my cash as it's too late to request a refund.
I like Acronis software, but now I've been forced to look at alternatives. And there are plenty that do it was well as, or better than, Acronis. Removing features like this makes it easier for your users to compare with other products as you're removing some of your USPs. I will no longer recommend Acronis to my customers for disk imaging when there are alternatives, some lower cost or even free.
Have a rethink about this, and restore the missing features. Then maybe offer a free update to the 2015 users. And when you think about removing features, why not ask your loyal users what they think ? You might be surprised at how many people use a feature you regard as unnecessary.
Why did I buy such a shit?
"If this has been decided on the basis of CEP, you're pretty much way off the mark. I decided not to participate in the program when I've installed previous versions, like I presume many others, so you only have a subset of data to base a decision on. A more useful approach would have been to email us all a link to a survey. "
THIS! Thanks for joining the discussion and fielding a very rational idea Mr. Kirkwood.
2015 sucks. It works OK for my wife because she only keeps one backup at a time, on an external drive. On my own laptop, I back up one partition to another, and then keep multiple reserve copies on an external drive. Every week I copy those to a second external drive. (Two drive failures in one year taught me well.) I don't even know if I can revert to 2014 because that was an upgrade from 2013, which was an upgrade from.... and so on.
What would keep me happy?
1. The ability to delete individual reserve backup versions.
2. The ability to create shortcuts so that I can run ATI in a batch file once again.
Unless someone comes to their senses, this will be my last version of ATI.
Bah, humbug.
Look into Symantec system recovery 2013 before spending money with this company. I have use Acronis for years and have had many problems of recent and tech support will not talk without money! System recovery ran perfectly out of the box first time for about the same amount of money.
Another alternative that has fans among Acronis refuseniks as EaseUs's alternatives. It may not have the shiniest interface going, but who cares about that when function is what matters?
All you need to do is remove 2015 and re-install 2014. Many have already done that. If you purchased in the last 30 days you can get a refund, otherwise you still own 2014, just re-install.