Backup and restore doesn't restore exact copy

I've had and used Acronis True Image products for over five years. I've had versions 2014, 2016, 2019, and now upgraded to 2021. Acronis True Image has far exceeded my needs and expectations as a backup utility. It's definitely better than Windows Backup.

Having said that, it hasn’t been without it’s issues. More recently I started having problems with my computer freezing up for a few seconds at a time and high resources (CPU 80-100%) being used while doing nothing more than watching a YouTube video. Thinking that the problem possibly had something to do with Acronis, I reached out to the forum and found that the Active Protection feature was conflicting with a few programs. I whitelisted those programs and the issue seemed to resolve. Not long after I started to have more serious problems with my PC and didn't know what to think, or what was the cause. I did a restore of an older backup but the problems soon returned after updates. I ended up doing a full reinstall, starting with a clean install of Windows and just adding one or two new programs that I use each day after the Windows clean install. Because I use ATI as my backup utility, I installed it last since I wanted to get everything else installed anyway before doing a new clean install backup of everything. I also kept my internet browsing and everything to a bare minimum (only used internet for updates and going to Firefox to download Firefox, Thunderbird to download it, etc.) to ensure that I didn't inadvertently install malware or anything onto my new clean install of everything before the backup.

As soon as I reinstalled my ATI 2019, I started to have issues again. I didn't want to blame ATI because I realize it could be a few different things, including the possibility of the old 2019 version conflicting with Webroot, the new Win H2 update, or a confliction between about a dozen other programs that I have.

Since I use ATI as a backup tool, I disabled ATI Active Protection to see if that would help, and I didn't notice any difference. I then updated to ATI 2021 to see if that would help, but it didn't. I have since uninstalled ATI and haven't had any issues. Again, don't want to blame it on ATI because I realize it may not be just ATI but possibly a confliction between ATI and something else I have but haven’t figured out.

Either way, since I only do occasional one-time full backups of my system, uninstalling works for me. Every 6-12 months I restore the last image I had, do updates of all my programs and make any minor adjustments I need to, create a new full image backup, and delete ATI after completing the backup. At least that's my plan going forward, and kind of what I’ve done with it to date (although to date I just wasn’t doing the uninstall of ATI). The incremental backups, and other features and what not aren't important to me because most of my files are all saved in a perpetually uploaded desktop cloud, so upon a restore of my old backup, all of my current files re-appear right back on my desktop within a few minutes.

Having said all this, My point is that I depend on Acronis True Image to be a backup and restore utility, which is what it was initially designed and marketed to be when I started using it several years ago.

Again, as a backup and restore utility it is much better than anything else I’ve used. There are still some areas for improvement regarding it as a backup/restore utility though. Some of the areas I say it can be improved upon include the backup and restoring of things like encrypted drives and acting as a “True Image” utility. Although I wouldn’t consider myself to be a computer expert by any means, I’ve seen a few things that lead me to believe that Acronis isn’t acting as a True Image utility. Maybe it’s legal thing that prevents Acronis from doing so, which I could understand entirely, but haven’t seen anything at least stating this by Acronis which should be at least disclosed.

For example, I’ve found that even when I create a full backup of my hard drive, without any exclusions, with the bit by bit option, free space included, and I do a full system restore shortly after (before there’s a chance for anything else to change unrelated to the hard drive such as firmware, BIOS updates, or anything else), some things aren’t retained when restored. Those things primarily include logins, like my Adobe products, or my VPN account information login among a few others. If I log into everything (Adobe software, bank accounts, VPN) and do a full backup of my system (with the backup options I mentioned previously), the restore, even if done the very next day, will make me log back into everything. This leads me to believe that Acronis is set up with some type of safeguard to either act as a way of preventing the copyrighting or bootlegging of programs, or as a security feature so someone has to log back into their stuff by knowing their passwords. While I can understand the reasoning for this, it should be disclosed to customers to give a better idea as to what is going on when they are doing their backups/restores. I should say that I don’t consider myself a computer expert by any means, but I’m making these assumptions because of the fact that I’m doing the restore to the exact same PC with all of the same hardware and hard drive with the bit by bit option, include free space option, and no exclusions.

Something else I don’t understand and has led me to believe ATI isn’t actually doing True Image backups with all software is that it still can’t backup a Bitlocker encrypted volume. I’ve asked about this previously, but the responses I got didn’t really make sense. I was told that ATI can’t necessarily read and therefore backup all of the characters in an encrypted volume. What doesn’t make sense to me about that is that Bitlocker uses AES encryption, but I can also use VeraCrypt, a free open source encryption utility, which gives me the option to use AES just as Bitlocker uses to encrypt my system partition. Unlike a Bitlocker encrypted drive, I can do a full backup/restore of a Veracrypt encrypted drive that uses AES. So while Acronis is capable of backing up bit by bit AES encrypted drive, it can’t do it if a proprietary software such as Bitlocker made it. Further leading me to believe ATI only selectively creates true image backups/restores.

I don’t want this to come across as a complaint, but rather constructive critism for a good product that can do more than most backup restore software offerings that I’ve found. If my assumptions are correct, I’d at least like to see Acronis offer a little more disclosure as to why their software isn’t actually making bit by bit images of certain things.

I’d also like to see better options upon install, including options to select which features customers want to install ie: check to install backup/restore utilities.. check to install Active Protection features… check to start backup utility at startup… etc.,

While Acronis is great at being able to chose what to backup, how to back it up, being able to split backups into various sizes, encrypting backups for safe keeping, etc., I’d like to see greater disclosure on how it’s operating and for users not being forced to install functions unrelated to the imaging functions that the product was founded on.