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Not quite so sorry..

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In early October I added very frustrated comments to the thread "I'm sorry I bought this dumb software".

Now I understand the 2012 version I have to say it works fine.

But having used Acronis for about five years it was annoying to have to relearn the user interface.  Only naturally, most software developers want to improve their products. But they are totally familiar with them. What may seem natural to them takes time to learn for someone who uses once a week. And I felt the available instructions were awful.

Julian

Santa Barbara California

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Yes, the interface of the last few versions has been controversial.

I don't know anyone that used prior versions of ati or any other backup software that actually likes the new interface. Undoubtedly there are devotees besides the designers at acronis but I haven't met them. It has some important advantages over prior versions -- e.g., showing more info on page that lists the tasks -- against that, it's not really a list of tasks at all but a list of some other kind of thing, some other paradigm of data-back-up-kind-of-things-je-ne-sais-quoi.
The items on the list are supposed to behave like something called "data sets." The central idea as it was explained to me by Acronis staff is that you, the user, define something you want to backup (a disk, a set of partitions, a group of files) and you create/associate rules for how that data set is to be treated by ati. However, the rules themselves are part of the thing so the notion of "Data Set" is a bit strained; it's more like a Data-Set –with-backup-rules. If you make different rules for the same disk, set of partitions, or group of files, you will have a different entity, a different Data-Set –with-backup-rules. In fact, if you edit the rules for one of these things, ATI will, at least sometimes, treat the subsequent backups as belonging to a separate Data-Set –with-backup-rules (see “orphaning” below).
So far so good, one can follow the program instructions for use of ati and it generally works. Where things become very confusing is when ati treats the same data with the same backup settings as two diff data sets -- what users have come to call "orphaned" tasks. As ati matures, hopefully orphaning will occur less often. Certainly ati2012 is better in this regard, ime, than ati2011.
Acronis believes the new interface makes the program easier to use for beginners. I think it believes it's only the veterans that have a problem with it. So to acronis the interface is valuable for expanding its customer base. Indeed, to anyone with experience making backups, it is not intuitive. I think it was best said, "One can learn how to use it but no one can understand it." That gives it a sort of mystical air, almost religious, and if you can't have faith in your backup program, what else can you? ;)

==> more like a Data-Set –with-backup-rules

OOP for backups... how origional :)

Brings me back the the days of pounding something new called C++ (that is dating me a bit).

==> if you can't have faith in your backup program, what else can you?

well, i (and many others) reverted to 2011 to perform SSD migrations... So faith in 2012?

Scott Hieber wrote:

The items on the list are supposed to behave like something called "data sets."

Perhaps that wouldn't be such a terrible idea IF Acronis used some kind of real data managment system. Any DBMS professional would be appalled by the current disjointed non-relational contrivance. In fact, the whole programming approach seems like a bunch of marginally adequate bits and pieces (Mickeysoft, freeware, etc.) cobbled together with bandaids and string -- plus a lot of questionable cosmetic adornments, of course.