From DD-10 to DD-11: A Very Unhappy "Upgrade"
As a loyal and generally happy user for several years now, since abandoning Norton Ghost and others, I have faithfully followed the evolution of True Image and Disk Director since the time of their early predecessors (OS Selector, Partition Expert, etc.) and have come to rely on both Acronis products as my "refuge of last resort" when things go drastically wrong. In that context, I am very unhappy with what I preceive as a disturbing trend in their current development path.
Like others in this forum, I have noted several features (disk editor, etc.) missing from DD-11 that were included in DD-10. But most frustrating of all is the fact that DD-11 simply does NOT work at all in my preinstallation environments (PEs like LiveXP, VistaPE, etc.) where reliablity in emergencies is most critical. Furthermore, the Acronis developers of PE plugins for TI and DD appear to be living in two entirely separate global environments of their own.
I have carefully "translated" the acronis.inf file included with DD-11 for use with my PE set-ups. Those PEs include several other emergency tools and ALL of them (including both TI-2010 and DD-10) work perfectly with both LiveXP and VistaPE. But, no matter what I try, the PE files included in the DD-11 (build 216) package won't work at all with either of those preinstallation environments. Absolutely nothing happens when I attempt to start ANY of the DD-11 executables (ManagementConsole.exe, TrueImage_starter.exe, or RecoveryExpert.exe). No functionality and no error message of any kind -- nothing.
Fortunately, both TI-2010 and DD-10 continue to work normally as PE utilities. So I guess I can continue to rely on them. But these circumstances have made my DD-11 "upgrade" a complete waste of time and money since it won't work when it's most badly needed.
A VERY BAD JOKE, Acronis! And we are NOT amused!
I can relate with your frustrations. I had to resort to a Linux-based bootable USB with a faux GUI to get what appears to be a minimalist amount of functionality out of DD11 (216) in a pre-OS environment (which is where all serious partition and recovery work should be done anyway...).
This version of Disk Director is a disgrace and a total waste of code.
I did get a Win PE boot running DD11 working. It took some digesting and reorganization. One thing I noticed is that it appears to fail but after waiting a significant amount of time it did start up. As noted elsewhere I as in using the Linux Boot download iso of DD11, the cloning operation failed.
For those that want to work with this at a higher level I recommend this freeware utility Image Burn from http://www.imgburn.com/ . It allows burning an .iso easily to CD or DVD and doing a reverse process to an HD folder of your choice. This especially was useful for trying out the Win PE environment and adding a custom utility to it once I downloaded the information from Microsoft's knowledgbase and Tech.Net.
Yes, there are "workarounds" that can be employed to get DD11 working as a PE plugin. As I said in the boot-land forum (linked above) however, the fundamental problem is DD11's inability to handle component paths using Windows environment variables. In my no-so-humble opinion, that's a pretty dumb retrograde "upgrade" for an application most likely to be needed and used in a preinstallation envionment. If i may be forgiven for quoting myself, here's what i said about it elsewhere:
DD11 doesn't mind using REG_EXPAND_SZ (0x2) registry entries as such. It just can't handle any environment variables contained therein. The system drive and/or program drive letters must be specified explicitly. So it's back to the old RegAddBoot approach for all of its PE builds I guess.
SHEESH! I wonder what "improvements" Acronis will come up with for their next "upgrade".
Anyhow, there is a PE script available at the above-linked boot-land.net location for anyone who needs it, along with my own instructions for using RegAddBoot to overcome the need for a particular drive letter specification. Hope it helps -- and perhaps the Acronis developers will take this very broad hint about necessary PE capabilities in future releases.
FWIW I was able to boot into my cloned drive by using an XP Emergency Floppy. Assigned drive letters remained intact meaning to me registry values were preserved.
All I did was in Win format a floppy and copy boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and ntldr to it from my active 'C' partition. Booting from this made the clone accessible even though the partitions and volumes had been moved to new boundaries (padding added) possibly for the new minimum sector or cluster size rule to take effect in future Win versions and HD construction in 2011.
I think we're actually talking about two entirely different situations, but that's okay. The "emergency floppy" certainly isn't entirely dead for those who still have one.
My original comment, however, was about integrating DD11 into a real Windows PE (preinstallation environment) set-up where it is just one of multiple utility applications that can be used to deal with a crashed unbootable system. In such an environment, which may also include other tools like TrueImage, a disk editor, an anti-malware app, etc., the capability for each of the applications to locate its component parts based on variables specified in REG_EXPAND_SZ (0x2) registry entries (e.g., %SystemDrive%) is highly desirable. In fact it's almost essential, although there are ways to handle a few dumb applications that can't.
I'm just disgusted that the DD11 "upgrade" is dumber than its Acronis predecessors in that respect, especially considering its other deficiencies that have also been mentioned and discussed in this forum. Hell, it can't even seem to find things in its same program folder without explicit instructions!
I have been able to solve my particualar problem as noted above. Nevertheless, I'm still going to "downgrade" back to DD10 for most of my own purposes. It's far superior in several respects, not just this one. And, considering certain Acronis (non-)responses to various issues, I'll certainly be looking at alternatives for the future as I expect other knowlegeable users probably will also.
It's sad. Acronis built itself a very good reputation for quite a while, but as someone else said here, the "marketeering geniuses" appear to be taking over the ship. It happens to a lot of companies as they grow and expand. That's how little guys, like Acronis was in the beginning, take over from the biggies like Symantec et al in the first place. On the other hand, I suppose it's a good confirmation that real marketplace competition based on user satisfaction does work as it should in the long run. The word does get around.
First it was a utility called 7-Zip that extracted the img. from an .iso. In the case of a Win PE .iso you can extract the files and folders, add what you want, make the image, and recreate the .iso. as I dimly recall.
It is a complex procedure and I have several printed pages from MS in front of me.
I am digressing so I drop this thread. Thanks for your interesting observations and thoughts.