Acronis & Windows 11 & Cyber Protect – Only need Acronis backup
I would like to upgrade to Windows 11 and continue with Acronis backup. Unfortunately, this may not be possible given the following:
I don’t need the Acronis cyber protection software at all. I use a Virus / Cyber Protection suite that is very customizable and effective that I will not and should not have to give up. I also see online that there is no option in Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office to NOT install the Acronis Virus/Cyber protection. I think that was a very bad, and frankly troubling move on the part of Acronis marketing and or management.
I see online, conversations stating that when Acronis Cyber Protection is disabled, it still runs things in the background, potentially conflicting with your other A/V software and probably slowing down the computer. I even saw a suggestion by Acronis that to avoid conflicts with Acronis software, other A/V software should be un-installed. Again, for people with other A/V software they own, Acronis should AT LEAST give its customers the option to not install the Acronis Cyber Protection.
I also see online where ATI 2021 and earlier may not work with Windows 11. -- “Acronis True Image 2021 and the earlier versions are not going to have official support of Windows 11, even though we have not heard of any significant compatibility issue. You may use Acronis True Image of any version on Windows 11 at your own risk.” Apparently by design, only Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office will actually work with Windows 11. What the heck???
So, apparently even if I bought the annual subscription to Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (which I was willing to do), I can’t reasonably have my own A/V software running. So I’m stuck with Windows 10 for now, that is until I find another backup software. That’s unfortunate because I really liked Acronis backup.
PS my latest Acronis TI is ATI 2020


- Log in to post comments

Completely agrees with OP here, the forced inclusion of the Cyber Protect nonsense is the main reason to ditch Acronis alltogheter. That said, it seems you can disable it somewhat both during installation and when it still installs itself, but why should you even have to?
- Log in to post comments

Patrik Johansson wrote:Completely agrees with OP here, the forced inclusion of the Cyber Protect nonsense is the main reason to ditch Acronis alltogheter. That said, it seems you can disable it somewhat both during installation and when it still installs itself, but why should you even have to?
Hello Patrik,
Thank you for your feedback. We understand your concerns and have forwarded your message to our team. We are constantly working on improving our product and hope to implement changes in the future based on user feedback.
It's worth noting that the security/anti-virus features were highly requested by many other users, and the majority of them find these features useful. However, we acknowledge that this may not be the case for everyone.
We appreciate your feedback and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Best regards,
- Log in to post comments

Steve Smith: Thanks for your quick reply.
I'm getting conflicting information. When I read in Acronis Knowledge Base "69259: Windows 11 support in Acronis products", it clearly states "You may use Acronis True Image of any version on Windows 11 at your own risk." To me, that's not a guarantee of the product under Windows 11, unless I'm missing something here. It goes on to say "The functioning of older Acronis products on Windows 11 is not guaranteed, as they have not been tested." and "This article will be updated when support for Windows 11 is planned or implemented in other Acronis products."
So, what you are saying is ATI works with Windows 11 but is not guaranteed. Use at your own risk. If you want a guarantee you must buy the annual subscription to ACPHO.
Glad to see ACPHO allows install without the A/V from Acronis. Sucks that if you want a guarantee from Acronis your forced to buy the annual subscription. I already pay an annual subscription for my A/V software. Sounds like many people like the ACPHO (backup with A/V suite), but why force those who want only backup to either pay up annually, or say goodbye? Apparently it's all about the annual payment even for just the backup.
I would suggest the Knowledge Base be cleaned up to reflect the above information. Also, have older ATI's been tested under Windows 11? If so, update the FAQ. You say they work but are not "supported" ie no guarantee when things go wrong. Is that correct? Fine, update the FAQ to reflect that information.
Sorry about getting somewhat irritated, but I tend to agree with Patrik. Do you really think Acronis is NOT losing loyal customers over this issue?? Acronis should offer a backup standalone single fee guaranteed under current Windows versions.
Bottom line is I'll stay with ATI 2020 and take the risk, until there's a change at Acronis or I find a better backup software.
- Log in to post comments

I would suggest the Knowledge Base be cleaned up to reflect the above information. Also, have older ATI's been tested under Windows 11? If so, update the FAQ. You say they work but are not "supported" ie no guarantee when things go wrong. Is that correct? Fine, update the FAQ to reflect that information.
Steve, any updates to the KB has to be done by Acronis - the MVP's are just experienced users with no additional access to making such changes.
Acronis have never tested older product versions with new releases of Windows (or MaC OS) that come after those older products have gone out of mainstream support, plus they do not normally release any further fixes or new builds for those older products with the single exception of where security is the issue, i.e. they released new builds for ATI 2017 through 2021 to bring in support for TLS 2.x required to access Acronis servers.
I have personally run tests of ATI 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021 on my own Win 11 machines, and continue to run some Win 11 systems today with 2018, 2019 & 2021 along with ACPHO which I only run on my Hyper-V Win 10 & Win 11 VM's.
In terms of Acronis support, only ACPHO is 'in support' unless users elect to use the Acronis 'Pay per incident' support service! The normal answer to new issues from Acronis Support is to install ACPHO and show that the issue occurs on that product, if it does not, then it is fixed by upgrading to ACPHO!!!
Sounds like many people like the ACPHO (backup with A/V suite), but why force those who want only backup to either pay up annually, or say goodbye? Apparently it's all about the annual payment even for just the backup.
Acronis keeps telling us of all these people who wanted them to include Cyber Protection in their products but I have yet to meet anyone in these forums and was never asked about this for myself as an MVP. I personally see no reason to pay an annual subscription for ACPHO when having no intention of using the Cyber Protection feature and not installing it!
- Log in to post comments

Jose Pedro Magalhaes wrote:Patrik Johansson wrote:Completely agrees with OP here, the forced inclusion of the Cyber Protect nonsense is the main reason to ditch Acronis alltogheter. That said, it seems you can disable it somewhat both during installation and when it still installs itself, but why should you even have to?
Hello Patrik,
Thank you for your feedback. We understand your concerns and have forwarded your message to our team. We are constantly working on improving our product and hope to implement changes in the future based on user feedback.
It's worth noting that the security/anti-virus features were highly requested by many other users, and the majority of them find these features useful. However, we acknowledge that this may not be the case for everyone.
We appreciate your feedback and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Best regards,
Multiple users said they wanted a backup software with virus scanners, website scanners etc? Or just that they wanted Acronis to offer this?
- Log in to post comments

Steve Smith:
You've been very helpful with info here and many times in the past with Acronis issues I've had. I did not know you are not working for Acronis. Thanks again for your help.
- Log in to post comments

Patrik J wrote:Jose Pedro Magalhaes wrote:Patrik Johansson wrote:Completely agrees with OP here, the forced inclusion of the Cyber Protect nonsense is the main reason to ditch Acronis alltogheter. That said, it seems you can disable it somewhat both during installation and when it still installs itself, but why should you even have to?
Hello Patrik,
Thank you for your feedback. We understand your concerns and have forwarded your message to our team. We are constantly working on improving our product and hope to implement changes in the future based on user feedback.
It's worth noting that the security/anti-virus features were highly requested by many other users, and the majority of them find these features useful. However, we acknowledge that this may not be the case for everyone.
We appreciate your feedback and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Best regards,
Multiple users said they wanted a backup software with virus scanners, website scanners etc? Or just that they wanted Acronis to offer this?
Hello Patrik,
I understand your concerns about the services offered. However, I would like to let you know that you have the option to choose which services to use during the installation process. The following link provides information on how to select/unselect services during installation: https://kb.acronis.com/content/69387 . You are not forced to use them.
I hope this information helps. Let me know if you have any further questions.
Thank you!
- Log in to post comments

Steve Smith wrote:I would suggest the Knowledge Base be cleaned up to reflect the above information. Also, have older ATI's been tested under Windows 11? If so, update the FAQ. You say they work but are not "supported" ie no guarantee when things go wrong. Is that correct? Fine, update the FAQ to reflect that information.
Steve, any updates to the KB has to be done by Acronis - the MVP's are just experienced users with no additional access to making such changes.
Acronis have never tested older product versions with new releases of Windows (or MaC OS) that come after those older products have gone out of mainstream support, plus they do not normally release any further fixes or new builds for those older products with the single exception of where security is the issue, i.e. they released new builds for ATI 2017 through 2021 to bring in support for TLS 2.x required to access Acronis servers.
I have personally run tests of ATI 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021 on my own Win 11 machines, and continue to run some Win 11 systems today with 2018, 2019 & 2021 along with ACPHO which I only run on my Hyper-V Win 10 & Win 11 VM's.
In terms of Acronis support, only ACPHO is 'in support' unless users elect to use the Acronis 'Pay per incident' support service! The normal answer to new issues from Acronis Support is to install ACPHO and show that the issue occurs on that product, if it does not, then it is fixed by upgrading to ACPHO!!!
Sounds like many people like the ACPHO (backup with A/V suite), but why force those who want only backup to either pay up annually, or say goodbye? Apparently it's all about the annual payment even for just the backup.
Acronis keeps telling us of all these people who wanted them to include Cyber Protection in their products but I have yet to meet anyone in these forums and was never asked about this for myself as an MVP. I personally see no reason to pay an annual subscription for ACPHO when having no intention of using the Cyber Protection feature and not installing it!
Hello Steve,
Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate your input and will make sure to pass it along to our team.
Thank you in advance for your contribution to our product development.
Best regards,
José Pedro Magalhães
- Log in to post comments

Steve Sanford wrote:Sorry about getting somewhat irritated, but I tend to agree with Patrik. Do you really think Acronis is NOT losing loyal customers over this issue?? Acronis should offer a backup standalone single fee guaranteed under current Windows versions.
Hi Steve, I've been reading this post with interest and cannot agree more with your paragraph in (BOLD) above . I planned to buy Acronis True Image about 3 years ago, only to discover the product had changed significantly and now also included an antivirus solution and cyber protection suite, both of which I didn't want or need. I decided not to buy that product for that exact reason. I have revisited the Acronis website several times since then in the hope the product would have improved but sadly not.
More recently my own backup solution was failing to work under Windows 11 and not having had any experience with other backup solutions other than a free trial of Acronis True Image a few years back I decided to take the plunge and go with 'Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office'. Having now spent a couple of months using this product I can tell you I just don't like it! Granted the backup feature is as I expected and works very well, albeit I haven't done a restore yet, but as for the other features, it just feels so wrong that I've paid good money for a product which isn't fully functional
The antivirus that ships with this product is trialware and is limited to just 30 days, unless of course you pay big bucks for the fully fledged suite. No good for people like me who only use one computer and have no need for multiple licenses. I was shocked and quite angered that the antivirus was trialware, talk about mean and penny pinching! Granted, I didn't want it but when I've paid good money for a 12 month license I expect the entire product to work for that same duration. Like you say, Acronis IS losing customers over these decisions, I certainly won't be renewing when so many other good solutions are available.
- Log in to post comments