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Acronis True Image 2019 Trial Version

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When I installed the True Image 2019 trial version, I wasn't told that it would overwrite my licensed 2018 version. Now that the trial is over, I cannot access my 2018 version. Technical support indicated that I would need to delete 2019 and reinstall 2018. That would be ok except this process wipes out all of my backup settings. Technical support pointed me to an article on how to save my backup settings; however, when I hit the True Image icon it displays a splash screen to purchase 2019 and no other targets to salvage my backup settings. Again back to Technical support who basically said sorry. Since I could not see on the Acronis website a warning of this loss of backup settings when I first downloaded the 2019, I suggested they provide a warning to prevent other customers from getting into the same predicament which seemed to fall on deaf ears. Has anyone found a way of recovering the backup setting before I reload 2018 and type in the time consuming information again?

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Frank, 

Not that I'm aware.  The settings import/export was only introduced in 2019.  Even then, if you have to reinstall Acronis (or install on a new system) and import them, that only provides the configurations for default settings (like the basic settings of a new backup using incremental and the cleanup rules).  You still have to import existing .tib backup files and configure other settings for each imported backup.

They should have recommended that you take a backup of the system first, knowing that you would need to restore that backup if need be.  Or, attempted to use Try&Decide (which I'm not familiar with, but is supposed to allow you to make changes to the OS and revert back). I just tested the import of a backup .tib using the "add existing" backup, and found I had to make a lot of setting tweaks manually still. 

If you do have a backup image to restore to, that would get it working again, but you'd lose all of the changes that occurred since the backup was taken (Windows OS updates, application patches, new data you created, etc.) That would also mean that newer backups created after the restore would be unknown to Acronis in Windows, but would still be usable with recovery media.  And you could recover data from it.  

Another possibility...

- Take a backup of what you have first!

- Completely remove 2019 and reboot.  Install 2018, license it and reboot. 

- Then log into the PC and open computer management / services.  Stop all Acronis services.

- Navigate with Windows file explorer to the hidden folder C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome

- Replace everything in that folder with the entire contents of recovered data from a previous backup that was last taken when 2018 was installed.  Reboot the system (to restart all the services).

- Launch Acronis and see how it goes. 

** Likewise, if it works, then any "newer backups" that were created after the point in time from the restored database would not be known to the system. You could still recover them with rescue media, but would basically be needing to create a newer backup as of that moment to capture changes. I'm not sure how this might impact a cloud backup if you have any of those either.