Backup List Logic is frustrating

Terry, you have raised several points in your topic post above.

The OEM versions of Acronis True Image are exactly that - they are not supported directly by Acronis as documented in KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products - these OEM products are often restricted in functionality, i.e. may be limited to working with a specific manufacturers disk drives, and are often older version / builds of the equivalent full retail Acronis product they represent.

Next, ATIH 2014 is not officially supported for use if installed on Windows 10, this is documented in KB 56196: Windows 10 support in Acronis products which states clearly that only ATIH 2015 or later is supported in this OS environment.

Now to the main subject of your topic post, that of Backup Lists - I am assuming from this subject that you are referring to the list of backup tasks that are shown in the main ATIH GUI panel, i.e. shown within the application when running within the active Windows OS.

Backup tasks shown in the ATIH GUI are stored in individual configuration files in the C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts folder in files with .TIS file extensions.  These tasks are also recorded in the Acronis Database files which stores details of the task backup history, files created, where stored and how named etc.

When restoring a backup image of a Windows OS partition / drive, then this should not be performed by starting such a restore / recovery from within the Windows ATIH GUI.  All such OS restores will always require that the computer is restarted due to the locks on OS files & programs, so this restore activity should only be performed by using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media, so that the restore is started completely outside of Windows.

When using the Acronis Rescue Media, this does not use either the task configuration .TIS files nor use the Acronis Database, so there is no need for the Backup Lists that you see in the Windows ATIH GUI - you would just select the backup image file from the location where it is stored on your external USB hard drive and carry on the restore from that point.

There should be no way in which you would 'lose' your backup image files stored on your external backup drive simply by not having these backups listed in the main ATIH GUI in Windows.

Thank you for the education ... what I hear you saying is: creating a usb bootable recovery for AC 2014 should allow me to recover any 2014 tib?

In the past, sorry don't recall the version of Acronis, all I would do is point to a tib file and if required, Acronis would create an auto boot scenario to automatically shut down and recover from startup  ... in this case, I have two 1 T SSD cards, one which is my primary drive with WIN7PRO64 running and AC 2014 OEM installed ... I backed up both my primary and secondary SSD's to a Passport External then attempted to load a previous (Month Old) primary image to my secondary SSD (This normally shouldn't require a shutdown as the secondary is NOT locked) ... because the tib was not in the list(for whatever reason(s)) , no recovery was possible from the GUI.

So ... Sorry! In my opinion, this List logic is Not Functioning Good (a polite way of saying NFG) ... regardless of Acronis not supporting OEM versions, this software is branded as Acronis and therefore reflects bad on their reputation if it doesn't work properly. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the Acronis brand ... just frustrating that something that used to be simple has now seemingly become overly complicated and in this case, in my opinion broken. 

Not sure if this is relevant but I neglected to mention I attempted to use MS's restore points prior to doing these recoveries ... being that MS restore is a real hit and miss adventure, it is conceivable that the Acronis list may have been affected by a MS Restore. In the case of MS W10 restore to W7, the restored W7 was totally unusable plus had no resemblance to the before W10 install ... this was not just my experience either

Terry, yes, using the USB Rescue Media should work fine with any .TIB file.

Acronis will still try to create an auto boot scenario even in the latest ATIH 2017 version - the issue with using this method is that many modern systems do not allow booting from the Linux environment that is used for this scenario, at least not if Secure Boot is enabled, and the key issue some users face is that Acronis modifies the Windows Boot Loader to do this and if anything goes wrong, the computer can be left unable to boot at all!  So using the USB boot media is far safer all round!

The Backup Lists only apply to the Acronis application when running in Windows, not to the USB media.  You would need to use the option to Add existing backup files if your backup file isn't already included by virtue of having the backup task that created it listed in the GUI.

Doing a MS Windows System Restore can result in causing problems if the restore points used include copies of files in the C:\ProgramData\Acronis file path as this is where this information is stored, so restoring to an earlier time may replace files that held information for a backup created after that point in time.

Rolling back from Windows 10 to Windows 7 can work provided you do this within the restricted time frame MS allows (was 30 days initially, but is now down to only 10 days IIRC).  I did do this for a neighbour who didn't like Windows 10 and all was OK but I also had a backup image to fall back on if it had been needed.