Windows 10: Create System Image in Windows 10

Thanks. I might consider something like Macrium in the weeks to come. As long as I have a base image to revert back to then I know I can try different options and see what works.

One dark thought I have in all this is that because W10 changes so much with different builds and so on, one real concern is that 3rd party software may well work today and not tomorrow. Backup software is tailored to suit the OS concerned, and so if that changes, then there is no guarantee that the program will still work correctly. And W10 is constantly changing.

 

didnt realise this was possible from within windows, thought only the MAC could do this, been using acronis true image up till now....does the windows image backup do a verify ?

thanks

 

No it doesn't verify. Its very basic compared to Acronis, you just get offered which partitions or drives you want to back up and it goes ahead does it. There are no options at all. That said, it does seem to work well. I do want to explore it more though.

I've used Acronis pretty much daily from TI10 with Vista (still using that), TI2012 with W7 and TI2014 with W8.1. Last week I opted for TI2016 to use with W10 and it was a total disaster. Backups could not be added to the backup list for restore unless you deleted all the tasks first. Worse of all, once you had clicked thorough a few options it started to display an "Acronis is terminating procedures and your PC will shut down in 2 minutes" message every time you wanted to shut down. I had three attempts at installing it onto clean W10 images and all were the same. The Acronis forum is awash with complaints over TI2016 and so enough was enough, I'll be putting in for a refund.

 

I am using TI since 2003 and am now using TI15 on Windows 10 without a problem. I was thinking to upgrade to T!16 but shall now wait.

In the meantime I have tried the Windows 10 System Image App and there are still lots of problems there too that I reported on this Forum. Only yesterday I complained to MS that the Mail Tile wasn't working and four technicians hemmed and hawed about it but couldn't solve the problem. The fifth one asked me to reinstall Windows and from him I learnt that one could do so without losing the installed third party programs. The reinstallation corrected the Mail Tile problem and a few other problems as well.

 

I still have acronis 2014 and 2105 started using the new 2016 seems to backup ok, havnt tried a restore yet with 2016....maybe I should start using 2015 again...at least it will compress the backup and verify and does incremental backups.....done a few restores using 2015 so may stick with what I know works

thanks

 

The thing with backup programs is that its to late to find out if they work OK when you really need them. You have to fully test them first and be confident that they are going to do what you expect.

Acronis TI2016 seems very buggy with W10 but having said that, if the .tib file has been created then it is usually restorable, even if you have to use bootable media to do so. When it starts interfering with Windows itself is where I draw the line.

 

Not a concern with Macrium Refelct Free because you can create a bootable rescue disc. The bootable rescue disc will always work to restore the image, if for example a cumulative update breaks your installation.

 

That's a bit like Acronis, in that as long as the backup file is created, then its restorable one way or the other. I just like the convenience of running it all from Windows tbh. You can create a bootable recovery disc for W10's backup program, it asks you every time you create an image.

 

Why you guys are even thinking about using Windows backup which can be VERY un-stable sometimes is a mystery to me. Acronis is now bloatware and I have bought EVERY version for last 8 years now. Last version took up huge amount of hard drive space too, added all kinds of startup services. And, has bugs too boot.
What a lot of us DO use, and is VERY reliable is Macrium Reflect and its FREE. You can make your system image from the desktop or make a rescue disk from the Macrium Reflect main menu. This is a rock solid program for making image backups, uses very little hard drive space. no bloatware. Just works!!!
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

 

Thanks, I know Macrium is very highly thought of, and I may well go down that route.

 

If you have become used to Acronis you may not find Macrium all that good. Far better to create a System Image from the application available in Windows 10.

 

I am still using W10's own application and am finding it excellent up to now. My Windows partition is only around 21Gb in size including all my programs and data, and both making images and doing restores take only around 2 to 3 minutes.

And it all works with no overheads and background processes running. File History takes care of hour by hour (actually set to every 15 minutes) changes in my user files.

 

Yes Windows imaging utility is very good. Only that it doesn't compress the image enough. My C: Partition is 40.3 gigabytes. Acronis Image is 24.5 gigabytes and the Windows Image is 34.4 gigabytes. Also to restore Windows image the install media is required but not for Acronis.

 

Or you could create a Recovery Drive.

 

You don't need install media to recover a disk image, its handled via Windows, just the same as Acronis. A couple of clicks and its all underway.

I miss the ability to do incrementals as that meant a weeks backup chain of 7 images only took around 16Gb in total with standard compression. Acronis was buggy though, although if you put the effort in to learn and get around the problems it was manageable. Windows may be basic, but on the other hand its great to have something that seems to work faultlessly every time... not that Acronis would ever fail, it was just buggy. For example in TI2012 and W7 and TI2014 and W8.1 I often experienced problems when Acronis asked for a reboot to commence restore. It would often freeze on the reboot and you had to do a forced shutdown and begin again. Also finding the location of the data base in the program files (so that you could manually edit it) was the only way to start with a clean slate and get of all the previous tasks. Not doing that, and Acronis would create empty ghost folders in the backup locations.

All that is behind me (and so to the dreadful TI2016 offering).