Remarks and complaints about True Image Home 2010

On June, 29th, I've sent a long message with remarks and complaints to Acronis Technical Support (and later on 2 additional messages). But I have not received any response so far.
Of course, I don't expect or need detailed answers on every issue.
But I want to know that my "evaluation report" is received and that all my remarks and complaints are clear.
But I would like to know if all issues are already known or that my observations or conclusions could be verified.
And I would like to know what can be expected of new releases in the near future. V2010 (build 7046) has many disadvantages compared to V2009 and no or hardly improvements (at least, when making or restoring image backups).

Message sent on June, 29th
I've updated now ATIH (Acronis True Image Home) v11 (build 8082 Dutch) to TrueImage2010.7046_s_nl.exe.
And as usual for me after installing/updating software, I have to start with sending remarks, complaints, etc.
Note. Operating system is Windows XP Pro SP3 (Dutch) and I've only run image backups.

#1. Location of installed files.
Remark sent at August, 19th 2008:
I've just installed the trial version of TrueImageHome and before rebooting and starting the program, I've already my first complaint !!!
My policy is and certainly was (due to using Norton Ghost V2002 without Incremental option) to keep my OS-partition as small as possible. That's why I install programs (if possible) not in the 'Program Files' folder, but at another location at another partition. So, I selected 'Custom' and changed the destination. The result is that there are only 12 files and 34.1 MB in that folder and that the folder Program Files\Common Files\Acronis contains 198 MB (208.532.575 bytes), 277 files and 9 folders !!!!
What a very negative start with your program. [end of quote]

ATIH v2010 is still installing a lot of program files at 2 sub folders of \Program Files. Fortunately, it's now "only" 80 MB plus 5 MB.

#2. After making my first image backup with v2010, I wanted to check a few things by mounting that image. I saw a ridiculous long list containing all my old backups (and even obsolete ones with "invalid" names)!!
After searching for the source of this list, I finally found archives.xml (at 'All users'). After renaming (or deleting), this list is fortunately cleared. And when this list gets again unwanted items, I know how to handle this (by editing or deleting that archive file).
Note. I think that the backup location selection list will contain unwanted items rather rapidly too. But for editing or clearing this list, I have to edit the Registry.

#3. 'Optional steps' of an image backup.
I don't like that the description is an optional step now. I always make a 'note' and it's strongly advisable to every user to do that too. With this new procedure sequence, there is a great risk to forget this description.
The other items are general options (too), so it's OK that you can skip them easily.
However, I saw that excluding files (the third line) was not enabled!! I've configured (of course) the general program options and I've added some items to the default excluding files list. I did expect that all general options would be applied by default for every backup job. In my opinion, that selection box should be marked by default.
Note. But I'm very glad that the excluding files (list) is working now for image backups too. Till now I had to add manually e.g. "pagefile.sys" every time when starting a backup job.
==> see also #6 and the 2 additional messages

#4. When screens have an 'Abort' button, I like that the Esc key is doing the same as clicking that button.

#5. When the checking for updates option is enabled (my preferred setting), starting ATIH takes about 110 seconds (i.s.o. less than 10) when there is no internet connection. Please show rather quickly an error message screen with 'Continue' and 'Skip' buttons.

#6. Excluding folders.
After some 'trial and error' work, I found that e.g. "C:\recycled\" or "D:\Windows\Temp\" is the right syntax for excluding (all files and subfolders in) that folder.
[= question =] But is it possible to exclude:
a. all e.g. 'Temp' or 'recycled' folders by using only one line (with a wildcard syntax)?
b. some files or type of files ONLY in a specific folder?

Note. At 'Bestanden uitsluiten' (File exclusions) the 'Add' button should be 'Toevoegen' (not 'Tovevoegen').

#7. The 'hype' of transparent bars (at the top) is not my preference or taste. But, generally speaking, I'm not a "follower of fashion" of Microsoft's renewal 'philosophy' (layout, menu's, etc.). This rather unimportant top bar is higher than the "old fashioned" bars and has smaller text and buttons.

#8. Creating an image backup and progression info during that job.
After starting my first image backup with v2010, I thought for at least 5 minutes that the program or system was crashed. But finally, the progression bar starts "running"; however, before 10% of that bar was green (after a few minutes), the backup was finished. But not the whole job: for about 15 minutes there was still a non planned task running (probably the verifying/validation).
Well, this first backup job was very confusing and nearly unacceptable if you are familiar with ATIH v11. That "old" version shows certainly more clear and better information during the processing and was doing the backup job much better.

However, after "some" troubleshooting and repeating the same backup job in exactly (?) the same way, it seems that the speed was somewhat better and maybe acceptable. Apart from the "frozen start" (an unacceptable situation), there is something very strange and probably wrong during a backup job. I've seen that a little before the green bar starts (becomes visible), the backup file was created (shows up in Explorer). A few minutes later, the finished message ("De bewerking is voltooid") pops up. But then the 'Non planned task' is still running and is only at 5 or 6% of the job. Before 100% is reached and the status switches to 'non active', takes more time than the time from start to the finished message. However, when I click at the 'OK' button nearly immediately after that message pops up (of course during another job), the non planned task is finished immediately too.
I have compared the logs of jobs with and without clicking at 'OK' and in both logs the validation time is rather short. So, you may try to find out what your program is doing all the time during that non planned task!!
Note. In the logs of full backups, the line that comes after the analyzing partition lines, shows "message="<bold>Incrementele back-up maken</bold"! (a differential log is OK)

So, slow speed is perhaps or probably no issue anymore, but screen distortion still is. When running a backup, the active window (ATIH) becomes sometimes a mess (a mixture of program window). I've nearly always 'Xplorer2' running and this distortion happens, when using the high priority setting (as I normally do) and then (try to) switch to the explorer window. With the 'Normal' setting, switching is OK (only a little delayed, as is understandable). But the priority setting (Normal i.s.o. High) influences also the situation of green bar, percentage and 'finished'. The green bar starts within one minute and I've seen a few times that during the first 50% the green bar seems to be correctly synchronized (then the job was 'finished', green bar stopped and percentage still increasing).
And only once till now, the whole job looked OK (green bar and percentage to 100% before 'finished').
Note. But even with the default priority setting, the representation of the processing is still unreliable.

#9. I don't like and will never use the "refresh" ('Bijwerken') option of 'Recent backups' at the Home screen. It's for "dummies" who don't care how the program handles this. I will, at least, add a description (and not a copy of the previous one).
Note. And after repeating the same backup, I've now twice the same name there. But I know now that deleting the tasks, clear that items at the Home screen.

#10. ATIH defaults an additional backup to 'Incremental', but I (nearly) always use 'Differential'.
[= request =] Can you make that user settable?
The main reasons are:
a. The file size of a Diff. backup is important/helpful for deciding when to start a new Full backup.
b. Afterwards it is possible to delete some of the (less important) Diff. backups.
c. It's easier for your program to handle that. :-)

#10. Aborting a backup job does not work correctly. At least very often when backing up a small (900 MB) partition, the processing continues.

#11. When I want to repeat the same backup using the same name or when I want to backup another partition to another location, setting up the job is much more "critical" than with v11.

Summary. I'm rather disappointed about all the "improvements" of the current v2010 (build 7046).

Additional message sent on July, 2nd

Two days ago I've sent you a very long message about TIH v2010.

I wrote at #3. 'Optional steps' of an image backup.
Note. But I'm very glad that the excluding files (list) is working now for image backups too. Till now I had to add manually e.g. "pagefile.sys" every time when starting a backup job. [End of quote]

However, I must conclude that excluding files does not work or not fully/correctly. Excluding folders still works (see #6), but e.g. pagefile.sys is included in the backups. I'm confused about that and I don't know at this moment why exclude does not work anymore. I will try to found out why (I'm sure that excluding the pagefile has worked). But I've already tried the way I had to use till now: adding pagefile.sys manually during the job setup (after deleting that exclusion at the default excluding list). Very unfortunately, this does not work too/anymore.

At #11 I wrote: setting up the job is much more "critical" than with v11.
I've now an example (but it's not the only situation). I made a differential backup and because the file size was rather large (due to pagefile), I want to make a replacement. Deleting (moving) the diff backup file is not enough to make it possible to make a new one with the same name (sequence number; this was easy with the old version). The saved backup task is preventing this and should be deleted first. This can be done at Task & Log /non planned tasks.
location
After these "new problems", I'm considering now to go back to the previous version. And depending on your debugging or real improvements, maybe I will ask my money back.

Additional message sent on July, 10th

Additional notes to item #6. (Excluding folders) sent on June, 29th.

I found the answer to question 6a: it's simply "Temp" or "recycled". This is very likely the first syntax I tried 2 weeks ago, but perhaps before I noticed that I have to enable the excluding files line when I start a backup job (see item #3).
For excluding files, the situation is opposite. A few days ago I found that "C:\temp*.*" or "temp*.dat" did exclude the files, but that syntaxes don't work (anymore).