Windows 10: Important Step In Preparing for Win10 on Main Machine

Macrium is Awesome. I cloned my Windows 7 Disk in 49 minutes. The last time I did that it took a couple of hours and had to be an external destination drive.*Thumbs Thanks again Cliff !

 

You are welcome Gary*Smile. Just remember to use it before any major changes or Windows updates(except Defenders of course), and every thing will be good.

 

What version, 5 or 6? Been using Macrium paid ver for a long time now - pity their price to go to ver 6 is on the steep side. Still cheap if you need its restore, though!!

 

Macrium, MiniTool Partition Wizard and SuperAntiSpyware are some of the standard 3rd party programs I install in my PCs.

 

Free version is quite enough for home use. It's best to use the latest one though, with all those UEFI thingies etc. There are updates almost every month.

 

Ver 6.0 build 567 $69.95. I got a single license for $55 and change cause I found one of those Macrium Promo Codes 20% off lying around "out there". It has saved my butt over and over. Can't imagine testing win10 without that tool! Got paid version cause I like the PE environment, very handy.

 

You don't actually need a paid version to have the pre-installlation environment. You just have to download the WAIK component and create the USB bootable rescue media in Macrium.
I have both 32 and 64 bit using Free Macrium version. But of course paid version have more features. *Smile

 

There is really no need for a paid imaging program. Between free Macrium, free AOMEI Backupper, Windows imaging and Wbadmin imaging you have all the bells and whistles you may need.

I have used all of those and they all work. With the Windows options you don't want to muck around with the images (move or rename them). The advantage of those is that you do not need a separate recovery medium and they are very simple to use.

 

By the PE environment, I was referring to the boot option without need for DVD. I like the convenience.

 

Paid for Macrium got me incrementals, file backup and disk management.

Been looking at aomei Backupper and EaseUS ToDo as well. Very comprehensive features for the price (free!).

But have learned to trust Macrium over the years.

 

The only thing is, one needs to remember to use it before Windows patches, driver updates, major software changes, and "trying" something out in the registry or else->*Eek.

 

Fair comment. You should always use the programs you trust. But I always make full images. I do not trust the incrementals. They can be too easily corrupted and are difficult to manage.

In my little systems where the C partition is 20GB max, I use Wbadmin. That is a simple command and I can recover with the Windows recovery environment (press Shift and do a Restart). No recovery disc needed nor do I have to install a program in my skimpy C partition..

 

I see. Mine is on USB which can be used on any PC.