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Suggestions on Backupper Standard Free 3.2:


Let's start to say that Aomei Backupper is an execellent product and I recommend it to everyone.


Little improvements to make it a tiny bit more user friendly than it already is:


Utilities->Explore Image->Selected a system backup that holds the C: drive but also a EFI system-partition and a Recovery partion. I did not select those two when making a backup, but anyway. When exploring the image these 3 drives are presented and checked. The system/recovery drives marked (*:) are useless to explore, so I would prefer that the drives marked with (*:) are not checked by default. Only the C: drive or other drives containing data should be checked by default.


After the images to explore are connected as a virtual disk, I would like a button in Aomei to open the Windows Explorer.exe starting with the first checked drive.

E.g. "Finish and Explore" next to the present "Finish" button. 


When selecting Utilities->Explore Image the second time, you see the previously connected virtual drives. I would prefer the checkboxes to be checked by default. Or at least a button "check all". But I see no reason why they are not checked by default. If I want to detach, needed before disconnecting the external drive, I have to detach them all anyway. 


My system disk holding the OS has also a lot of very big virtal disks from oracle VirtualBox. With every incremental backup they are backupped as well. For me that is not necessary. I would like an option to exclude some files or folders from a system or partition or incremental of differential backup. That would speed up the backup process.


Pagefile.sys and hibernate.sys two very large files useless to backup even for a system backup, I think they can be excluded by default. It would speed up extremely.


WinPE created on 64 bit machines only run on 64 bit machines, not on a 32 bit computer. Maybe you should warn for that when creating a WinPE bootCD on a 64 bit machine.


Keep up the good work!





Comments

  • edited January 2016

    Further: There is a service activated when Aomei is installed: AOMEI Backupper Scheduler Service. Personally I don't like services running in the background when they are not necessary. So I would suggest to stop this service and only run it automatic when a schedule is actually set up by the user.

  • Deletion of a backup is fast. Too fast. I would prefer an extra "Are you sure to delete the backup image on M:\aaaa\bbbbb?"

    As we can read in other topics, some people need more than 24 hours to make a system or disk backup. It would be terrible if they lost that by making a wrong click.

  • "Utilities->Explore Image->Selected a system backup that holds the C: drive but also a EFI system-partition and a Recovery partion. I did not select those two when making a backup, but anyway. When exploring the image these 3 drives are presented and checked. The system/recovery drives marked (*:) are useless to explore, so I would prefer that the drives marked with (*:) are not checked by default. Only the C: drive or other drives containing data should be checked by default."

    You can choose just explore the partition you want, not all.

    image


    "After the images to explore are connected as a virtual disk, I would like a button in Aomei to open the Windows Explorer.exe starting with the first checked drive.

    When selecting Utilities->Explore Image the second time, you see the previously connected virtual drives. I would prefer the checkboxes to be checked by default. Or at least a button "check all". But I see no reason why they are not checked by default. If I want to detach, needed before disconnecting the external drive, I have to detach them all anyway. 


    My system disk holding the OS has also a lot of very big virtal disks from oracle VirtualBox. With every incremental backup they are backupped as well. For me that is not necessary. I would like an option to exclude some files or folders from a system or partition or incremental of differential backup. That would speed up the backup process.


    Pagefile.sys and hibernate.sys two very large files useless to backup even for a system backup, I think they can be excluded by default. It would speed up extremely."

    We will improve them and fix the problem.Please wait.

    "WinPE created on 64 bit machines only run on 64 bit machines, not on a 32 bit computer. Maybe you should warn for that when creating a WinPE bootCD on a 64 bit machine."

    We are doing this change that inform this message when finish to create it.


    From above, your suggestions are useful for us. We really appreciate them.

  • Thanks Admin. I suggested when exploring images Not to check (*:) drives by default. Only lettered drives like C: and D:  Currently all drives are checked by default. 


    And when starting the menu Explore Image a second time (to detach), to check all drives by default, currently none is.


    With checked I mean selected.



  • OK, we got it.

    Thanks again for your suggestions.

  • edited January 2016

    I tested the schedule on usability for other people. It works fine. But...

    Suppose I want a monthly backup to an external USB drive. After the backup is completed I remove the USB drive and put it into a vault for safety. Next month the schedule becomes active and tries to backup. But the USB drive is not connected, it is still in the vault. OK, a little blue box is shown in the down right corner, but you only see that when on desktop and it only shows buttons Details and Quit. A percentage of 100% does not refer to an error. A layman would have no clue and click Quit. No backup is made.

    I would prefer a clearer warning, if possible on top of other windows: "Aomei backup failed. X: drive not connected. Please connect this drive and try again"  or something in that style.



  • Thanks for your suggestions again. We got the point you said.It will show the error code 4101 normally that is failing to create the file.

  • edited January 2016

    I have an Win8.1 laptop with UEFI. The harddisk is GPT style. I understand that UEFI+GPT is a couple and BIOS+MBR is a couple, they cannot be mixed to boot from. UEFI+MBR is not bootable and BIOS+GPT also not. But I found this out the hard way.


    I made a system backup from my laptops OS (remember UEFI+GPT). Then I tried to restore it on a new HDD which was "formatted" as MBR. Restore is only possible with WinPE EFI botable disk because the oldschool Linux CD won't start in UEFI. It took me an hour. But alas No bootable device found. Because UEFI en MBR don't mix.

    I converted the HDD to GPT, and again restored the backup. Another hour gone by.

    Now it does boot perfectly since now it is UEFI+GPT.


    I should have known that before, than I wouldn't have spent more than an hour to restore it to a MBR disk.

    So my question to you: Can't you make a warning when restoring an UEFI/GPT made system backup on an MBR disk or restoring a BIOS/MBR system backup on a GPT disk? You know beforehand it won't boot...





  • "But alas No bootable device found. Because UEFI en MBR don't mix." Actually, you can amend the boot mode to Legacy not UEFI directly, then you can reboot your system. There is no need to convert the MBR to GPT.

    "Can't you make a warning when restoring an UEFI/GPT made system backup on an MBR disk or restoring a BIOS/MBR system backup on a GPT disk? "

    We will add the warning in the next version. Thanks again for your feedback.

  • edited February 2016

    I bought a new (old) Test PC today.

    After installing Windows (7) I made a disk backup on an external usb disk on E:

    I removed the USB disk. E: was free again.

    I shrunk the C: partition and made 2 new partitions: E: and F: on the HDD and copied some stuff to E:

    Then I ran an incremental (disk) backup on the backup I made before.


    I was surprised that the incremental backup took about the same time as the full backup.

    Then I realized that E: had changed from external USB-HDD to internal HDD.


    The backup that was made, was again a full backup, not an incremental. The same folder structure (hierarchy) for the backup files was made on the fresh E: drive like on the external drive.

    I could explore that new backup and I noticed that the new partitions were not backupd.


    You can easily test that: backup a small partition to X:, move or delete the backup from X: and run an increm. or diff. backup. No warning. It even asks me if I want an incremental backup based on the full backup (which isn't there anymore).


    Questions/Suggestions:

    There should have been a warning that the prior full backup wasn't found on E:

    How can an incremental or differential backup been made without a full backup?

    And why are the new partitions not backupd?  (It was a disk backup after all)





  • "There should have been a warning that the prior full backup wasn't found on E:"

    Sorry for that.

    We will add this feature in the future.

    "How can an incremental or differential backup been made without a full backup?"

    Because the you change the path so that it cannot find the former backup image to compare. So it will create the full backup.

    "And why are the new partitions not backupd?  (It was a disk backup after all)"

    It cannot backup the changed partition even you do the disk backup, it just backup the data changed in the disk. The only way is to create the new backup task for the disk.

  • edited February 2016

    When I make a partition backup of the system disk it asks me if I want to make a System Backup instead. The buttons OK and Cancel are confusing, since Cancel is in fact Proceed.... (Proceed is literally the opposite of Cancel)

    The buttons should read Yes and No. 


    image

  • Thanks for your feedback. We noticed that adn we will pay attention to it.

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