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Installation and software issue

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Yesterday, June 30, 2011, I purchased Acronis Backup and Recovery 11 Workstation under the "Buy two, get one free" offer which included the Acronis Universal Restore app free.

So far, I've spent most of the day trying to get one copy of the software installed and it keeps crashing about 30 seconds into the install on a Windows 7 64bit machine. Part of the day was spent trying to find out how to get my copy of Acronis Universal Restore.

I am attaching a transcript of my discussion with your "Customer Service" reps in India. That was a total waste of my time.

Obviously, these people were of no help whatsoever. I called your telephone number and after bouncing around your voice mail for a while, left a message with your sales department for someone to call me as that was the only choice I had.

I need some help, both with the installation failure and with determining how to get the free Acronis Universal Restore I was promised. What does it take to get some help?

Douglas McArthur

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tech_support_07012011.txt 3.65 KB
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Douglas,

Your licence number (if the correct one) should automatically activate the UR component, it is not a separate download. The 1G2B size of the download file contains all versions of ABR11 and it is the serial number that activates the different features.

When you say the install crashes could you be a bit more specific, do you get an error message or does the W7 application error box appear or is just a case everything hangs?

Have you had any previous versions of ABR or TI Home installed?

If the installation starts and then fails at what component does it fail at?

It might be worth extracting the install files from the 3rd option on the Acronis installer splash menu and try installing from the resulting MSI files in the following order.

1. Agent Core.
2. Agent.
3. ABR11 Console.

You will need the serial number to install Agent and you will need to copy and paste the serial number using crtl +c and then shift+ insert as right mouse button clicks don't work on MSI installers.

If the above is successful you will have a bare bones ABR11 installation, you should then be able to run the Acronis installer again and run a modify option and then include the missing components that you want.

Check that your Firewall isn't preventing the installer from running correctly.

1) I got Acronis to install on the Windows7 machine by removing Acronis WD Edition. I've made a backup with it and it seems to work okay on that machine but...

2) When I tried to install AcronisUniversalRestore.msi it requested a license key. I entered the same key I used on the rest of the components and it refused to install saying I had an incorrect license number. IT OBVIOUSLY REQUIRES ITS OWN LICENSE NUMBER!

3) I removed Acronis WD Edition from an XP machine and attempted to install the seven components. When I tried to run AcronisBootableComponentsMediaBuilder.msi I got a message saying the installation process was interrupted before it could complete. I tried again several times with the same result. I skipped that component and installed the rest of the components but when I got to the AcronisUniversalRestore.msi it also requested a license key. I entered the same key I used on the rest of the components on the XP machine and it refused to install saying I had an incorrect license number as it did on the Win7 machine.

I bought my first computer thirty-nine years ago and this has to be the worst software to install that I've ever seen. Where the heck are the license keys to install AcronisUniversalRestore.msi and why didn't I get them when I got the other keys. Why won't AcronisBootableComponentsMediaBuilder.msi install without aborting out.

My patience is getting thin.

Douglas,

My copy of ABR11 has the one serial number which activates ABR11, Deduplication and UR. I would have thought that the only time you get an extra serial number is if you purchase UR as an add on at a later stage not at the same time as the original purchase, but I could be wrong.

Jumping to your point #3, I think there might be some components of Acronis WD still lurking in registry, if you didn't uninstall WD before installing ABR11 some problems are likely to have occurred. Just for information, the corporate products will not install if TIH home products are present. You might have been able to attempt it because Western Digital will have made changes to the installer and engine provided to them by Acronis.

Media Builder uses the same key as the agent, it will or should only ask you for the key if you are installing via the MSI installers, if installing from the Acronis installer it should only ask the once unless you have elected the manual installation approach. With the Acronis installer don't forget you need to tick the UR box as well.

Make sure that your Windows temp folder is empty in W7 that lives at c:\users\your user name\AppData\Local\Temp, in XP you'll find it at c:\documents and settings\your user name\local\temp

When the installation fails do you get the message box offering to show you the install log? If you do, open and save it, if you don't, it will be lurking in the temp folder. Look for an error code of 3 especially around 'MSIGEN: context' messages, these may show what registry entry needs to be deleted.

After removing your personal details and serial number if they appear in the log, you could post it here to see if anyone can spot the problem.

As you have purchased a corporate product you automatically get 12 months support, so if your last case number isn't closed, you could ask to if your problem could be shifted to a higher authority or open a new case number and then post it here where one of the moderators will be able to look into it if they read this thread.