[RESOLVED] OMG Where are the Backup Comments?
Acronis...
This is completely ridiculous! Who is designing this new software?
WHERE are the "Backup Comments"? You would think this information should be center piece of the backup software! And no where, can I find where it shows my comments to old backups in my TIB files.
I should be able to right click on my TIB file and it should allow me somehow to view the backup comments. But no, Acronis has to make this impossibly difficult.
I heard that there should be a way to get into "Backup Explorer" However, again, I can't even find that in Acronis True Image 2013.
Because of this poor design, I've already wasted 3 hours looking for it on the forum, in the manual, ...etc.
Waist of time!
Where are the "Backup Comments" I want to SEE what my comments are for a TIB. True Image is going backwards.
In Norton Ghost, the comments were easy to view. And in prior versions of True Image, it was MUCH easier than it is now.
Jason
Issue resolved here.
Anna, when I follow your instructions and click Recover in True Image 2013 on the "Backup and Recovery" tab, the Backup Explorer does NOT open. It does list backups to recover, but the comments are nowhere to be found.
But if I click on the "More Features" button (two gears) at the top of the "Backup and Recovery" tab, I get the option to "Explore All Backups". After clicking on that option, it indeed opens the Backup Explorer window and shows comments. However, if I have more than one backup image listed on the "Backup and Recovery" tab, and when I click "Explore All Backups", it always shows the same image. I can never switch to my other image, or at least I don't know how to switch to other images.
Can you please explain how to see the comments (open the Backup Explorer) on each of my backup images? I have to agree with Jason. This is a big nuisance, and I've wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to show/edit my comments on my images.
I've attached a picture showing that I can open "my-main-pc" image and show its comment by doing what I described above, but I don't know how to Explore or switch to the "office" image.
Thanks for your help!
I can not find the backup comments for the archives I've made with ATI2016. In previous editions they were in the list of archives. I can't seem to find them at all in the 2116 version.
If i change the title of a file in ATI2016 ethe file name in windows Explorer is NOT changed!?
chasrome, you can see backup comments in the recovery wizard under bootable media. The issue with comments not visible in desktop application is known to the development team.
Regards
Hello! I have a possible -although not the best- answer as far as Acronis True Image 2019 is concerned. Furthermore, since the design of Acronis True Image 2018 is similar to its 2019 counterpart, I think that the answer equally applies thereto, though I cannot guarantee it.
When Acronis True Image is running under the emergency boot loader, the comments are easily visible in the recovery process. I presume that everybody knows that, because it is fairly simple -though not instantly and certainly not straightforward- and it has been visible since some of the earliest versions of True Image.
On the other hand, it is when Acronis runs under Windows, where the visibility poses quite the problem. The comments are supposed to be found in a separate window of Acronis called, "Backup Information." And the Backup Information window should be able to be called from, amongst other places (like the program itself), Windows Explorer when right clicking on the full backup archive file -irrespective of where it is- and then selecting "Details," or something similar. I only mention, "Details," because I am using the French version of Windows and the choice appears under the French word, "Détails," with the accent aigu. Unfortunately, such option no longer appears in the 2018 and 2019 versions of Acronis True Image, which is clearly a design error and which Acronis design engineers still have not fixed as of the product updates available as of April 2020. However, when the backup is stored in the Acronis Secure Zone, the option in Windows Explorer is indeed there. If your Acronis True Image backup archive is located in the Acronis Secure Zone, locate it and right-click on it. Three options appear on my French computer screen: Ouvrir (Open), Explorer (Explore) and Détails (Details or some other equivalent function word). The latter option will bring up the Backup Information window where the comments are clearly visible.
I concede that it is a time-consuming pain in the neck to create the Acronis Secure Zone if you have not already done so and then to put your archive files in it. However, look at it this way: the Acronis Secure Zone is a doubly secure way to keep a backup copy of your archive files and a faster method of creating backups if the secure zone and the data being backed up are on the same media. If you do not want to move your backups from your original locations to the Acronis Secure Zone, just make copies of them and instruct Acronis to move such copies over there.
Aside from locating the backup comments under the Acronis loader environment and in the Acronis Secure Zone environment, I am afraid that I have not found any other way to locate the comments of a backup file archive. I remember there being such an option within the Acronis True Image program in one of its earlier versions between 2010 and 2015, but the option is no longer there. Acronis is a pretty good program technical-wise, but, design-wise and literary-wise, it leaves much, nay a hell of a lot, to be desired. Ekaterina is proof that it is all a bunch of Russian speakers over there.
Neal Bangia
I did some more checking and my determination paid off.
First of all, the Windows process that is associated with the Backup Information window is called: "TrueImageTools.exe." The file path thereto is: %programfiles(x86)%\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageTools.exe." In other versions of Acronis True Image, the file may have been called, "ti_tools.exe." It looks like it is an internal program, because the user cannot call it independently. I only mention this tidbit of information in the hopes that somebody out there may know how to run this executable file on its own, without the need of going through the Acronis Secure Zone to call it.
Second of all and more practically, in the Acronis True Image main window, if you right-click on the backup archive name in the left column and select the option, "Clean up versions...," it will bring up a window in which the comments are visible on the far right column of such window and only to the extent of the dimensions of the window. However, if you hover your mouse pointer over the comment text, the pop-up balloon will give you an expanded, if not full, text.
I hope that this helps.
Neal Bangia
Guess what? I found another possible solution, which is better than the others that I have suggested, but it is still not perfect, because Acronis designers still have to restore the former easy access to the "Backup Information" window in the Acronis True Image main window, which not only reveals the comments of the backup files, but will also divulge the size of the backed-up partition and the date of the backup.
The alternative solution that I lastly found is to make an attempt (without necessarily going all the way with it) to convert the backup to a virtual hard disk. When selecting such option, a secondary window will open and will summarize the backup as a means of letting the user ascertain what he or she wants to convert. Such summary indicates the date of the backup and comments associated with it. Since there are only two columns in the window (for the date and for the comments), long comments are more easily legible and this workaround is better than the previous one I suggested, to wit: the suggestion of using the option called, "Clean up versions..."
Again, I hope that this helps.
Neal Bangia
Slava wrote:chasrome, you can see backup comments in the recovery wizard under bootable media. The issue with comments not visible in desktop application is known to the development team.
Regards
Slava,
If the issue with the comments' not being visible in the desktop application is known to the development team and has been so since at least Fri, 03/11/2016 - 15:15, which is the date and time of your last post on this issue, why has it not yet been fixed more than three years later, specifically as of today, Saturday April 26, 2020? And, why, for crying out loud, has it not been fixed in Acronis True Image versions 2017, 2018 and 2019 that were released subsequently to your post? Don't you think that, before your development team releases a new version, it should stop and make sure that there are no problems with it and that, at the very least, it should make sure to have resolved all past problems, especially those that were brought to its attention? Seriously!
Acronis has, in my opinion, an obligation to immediately release a fix for all affected versions, which, in my opinion, is very easy to do, since the only real problem is the missing command to the Backup Information window. The Backup Information window has the functionality that we all seek, but, as I mentioned in one of my past posts, the command, particularly the right-click command in Windows Explorer, is missing (except when the backup file is stored in Acronis Secure Zone). This is clearly an error in design (similar to a clerical error, not a technical one).
Moreover, in compensation for all this wasted time trying to find the comments to our backup files, I think that Acronis should grant a free upgrade to Acronis True Image 2020, for multiple reasons (such as frustration and wasted time and money), not the least of which is that I, as is the case for many people (I am sure), am weary to spend another red cent on an upgrade only to find out that it has not corrected past deficiencies or that, if, by some miracle, it did so, it is too little, too late.
Neal Bangia
I've been using ATI for about 3 years now and this is the only issue I have, or backup comments in general.
Not only is there not an easy and central place to view backups with comments, but making comments on a backup is just not logical. The way to add a comment isn't even to a specific backup instance, but the backup scheme, it's then applies to all subsequent backup instances. Why does it work like this? Nobody would ever use backup instance comments like that.
Please make a proper backup browser that shows comments and allows for the editing of them
The bootable recovery tool manages to do the former perfectly, it's just the Windows software that does not.
(On a side note, why is this text editor overriding the right-click context menu just for copy and paste? Don't override the browser's context menu!)
Also please mark this as NOT resolved, because it isnt.
Hello John,
thank you for taking the time to share your feedback on this feature! I've added your comment as a vote for the change request TI-207484 Allow to comment separate backup versions (not the archive as a whole).