True Image 2018 - What Happened To The Windows Account Option?
I'm trying to document the behavior of True Image 2018 as it relates to Pre/Post Commands. I have confirmed that launching a Windows 10 .CMD file as a Post Command launces the Windows 10 command processor with elevated privileges. In previous versions of True Image (I'm using 2013 and 2014) there was an option titled, "Windows account" in the setup for a new disk partition backup job. This allowed whoever was setting up the new backup job to determine which Windows account was used to run the backup job.
The "Windows account" option isn't available in True Image 2018. Given that I know for certain that Windows 10 .CMD files are executed with elevated privileges (I successfully used a .CMD file to launch the Service Control Manager to turn off the Acronis Active Protection service so I could copy each night's .TIB file to a secondary hard drive then turn the Acronis Active Protection service back on) I'd like to know which Windows account is being used by True Image 2018. Is it the Administrator account? The System account? Or the logged-in user account? Or some other Windows account?
Thanks For Your Help!


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Thanks, Enchantech, for the response. I did a little testing to see what would happen if there were multiple user accounts on my Windows 10 PC that were members of the Administrators group. I then logged in as a standard user and ran True Image 2018 to see what would happen. I was presented with the UAC prompt. Sure enough, the first user account that was listed was the user account that had installed True Image 2018. However, just below the password entry box for that account were the words "More Choices." When I clicked on this link all of the other accounts on the Windows 10 PC that have administrator rights were listed.
When I selected another user account from the list, True Image 2018 ran. However, it ran with the selected user's True Image 2018 settings. That explains why when True Image is launched you see the message "Applying user settings ..." Each user with administrator privileges has a separate True Image 2018 configuration. When that user is selected to run True Image 2018 their configuration is launched.
This answers my original question. The Windows account that is used to run True Image 2018 is the account that was either selected by a standard user or is the account of the logged-in user who has administrator privileges.
However, one question remains (which I failed to ask, originally - my apologies). What account is used to run True Image 2018 scheduled backups if no users are logged into the machine? I run scheduled partition backups every night. I have specifically tested to verify that no users are logged into the machine and the True Image 2018 backup job ran successfully.
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Bill, try this. When a scheduled backup is running while no user is logged on, then log on and run the Windows Task Manager. Go to the Details pane and make sure the User name column is selected. Maybe that will tell you.
Edit: Go to the Users tab and look there too.
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In reply to Bill, try this. When a… by truwrikodrorow…

Ah, great idea! I'll do that and let you know what I find out.
Thanks!
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I think you will find this to be the user account that was logged on when the task was created.
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@BrunoC, I tried what you suggested and it worked like a charm. The Windows account used by True Image 2018 to run scheduled backups when no one is logged into the computer is: SYSTEM. Here's what I did to find this on my Windows 10 machine:
- Logged in as user with admin rights.
- Created True Image 2018 test Full backup. Scheduled for once daily. Set start time for 15 minutes into the future.
- Logged every user out of the machine.
- Waited 30 seconds after scheduled backup job started to make sure the drive light was solid.
- Logged in as user with admin rights.
- Started Task Manager.
- On "Processes" tab, located the True Image 2018 process that was writing to the disk by checking the activity in the "Disk" column.
- Right-clicked the process named "Acronis True Image 2018 Service (32 bit)" and selected "Go to details."
- The "Details" tab opened and the file named "TrueImageHomeService.exe" is automatically highlighted.
- I read the corresponding "User name" of SYSTEM.
Thanks for the great idea to use Task Manager to find the account name!
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Glad it worked, Bill!
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