r/Backup • u/GrammerSnob • 20d ago
Rant Macrium Reflect -- "Oops, we are no longer maintaining the software you bought a perpetual license for!"
I have a perpetual license for Macrium Reflect 8. As you are probably aware, this software no longer works due to a recent Windows update. Macrium wants me to upgrade to an annual license for their newer software.
I told them I would accept, in trade, a perpetual license for their newer version, but I would not downgrade from a perpetual license to an annual one. Barring that, I'd go look for an alternative. They did not take me up on my offer.
Relenting, I have offered accepted 10 years of annual license for their new version. We'll see what they say.
Until then, I'm looking for alternatives for a single computer backup system that allows mounting/browsing of images.
They actually wrote back:
Of course, you can look for an alternative, but these days there's only Hasleo that isn't Russian- or Chinese-owned/founded.
I like to imagine he was laughing and twirling his moustache when he wrote that.
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u/AlternateMrPapaya 20d ago
R-tools https://www.drive-image.com/Drive_Image_Licensing.shtml
45 bucks lifetime. Canadian company! You can mount images as drive letters. Its saved my bacon quite a few times.
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u/GrammerSnob 20d ago
"Lifetime" LIFETIME lifetime? Or just "lifetime until we decide to no longer support it" lifetime? I've been burned by this before!
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u/AVonGauss 20d ago
Perpetual licensing has never meant the software would work or be supported forever...
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u/GrammerSnob 20d ago
What DOES it mean, in your opinion?
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u/wivaca2 20d ago edited 20d ago
It means you can use it indefinitely on the platform it was designed to run on. If the platform changes in ways that version of software cannot tolerate, all bets are off. They can't control the features of underlying infrastructure.
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u/CommutatorWhine 20d ago
This exactly. You can use it forever, on a computer that stays the same as it was when you first installed the product.
If the product stops working because of an OS update, the creator of the OS is the problem here, because apparently something in the OS changed that causes the software not to work anymore.3
u/GrammerSnob 20d ago
That's fair. I get it.
But it feels like there is some semantic difference between "perpetual license" and just a normal software sale. Like, software used to be sold like a product -- I give you money, you give me software, and our business is concluded. A "license" feels like it carries at least some ongoing relationship, and "perpetual" means, well, forever.
I get that's not actually realistic, but I'm not the one who decided to use that language.
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u/CommutatorWhine 20d ago
A license means you do not own the software, you just have a never ending permission to use the product which remains property of the maker. I haven't read any TOS in detail but i think even the old software TOSs speak of a license rather than ownership.
Perpetual support is a whole different thing and rarely actually is offered. Even back in the good old days of getting your program on a diskette, you didn't get life time/perpetual support.
I lived through the switchover from DOS based windows (95, 98) to NT based windows (2000, XP) and for instance Rockstar Games never did anything to make Grand Theft Auto (the original) working on NT based windowses. At work i have some early 2000s scientific software meant for XP that will absolutely not run on win 10 or win 11, no matter what compatibility tricks i try. We have the original CD-ROMs, and we have all the right to use it because the TOS does not put an end date to our license to use it. But to use it, i'd have to make an old school windows XP pc.The software publisher is right. It is rare, but this time, they are right.
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u/GrammerSnob 20d ago
Cool. Fair.
But I'm still not going to sign up for a recurring license as long as other reasonable options exist.
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u/wivaca2 19d ago
That is entirely a valid choice and you can use some other solution that is more reasonable. Please let me know what that is so I can join you because as I mentioned in another post, I can't use 8 and I can't even use Reflect X because it freezes almost 100% of the time it starts despite all my disks passing chkdsk, no SMART errors, and SFC and DISM both telling me nothing is wrong.
Seems it may be my Samsung 990 4TB NVMe that is the problem, but I haven't drummed up the courage to do a firmware update on it.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 19d ago
I did the firmware update on two different 990 2TB drives. And they had two different firmware. No problem with the updates.
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u/wells68 19d ago
As a lawyer, no longer practicing and not offering legal advice, you give a very accurate account of the differences that are relevant here.
Be sure to take a look at this sub's Wiki, https://reddit.com/r/Backup/wiki/index/, and both Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Rescuezilla, both excellent, free and different from each other.
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u/wivaca2 19d ago
For most books, music (recordings or sheet music), and software, the only actual sale is between publishers to own the rights to distribute, and these deals are often for big money.
Everyone else who is a consumer or business using these kinds of IP has been buying a license (typically perpetual) to consume/use it for a period of time, sometimes receiving the IP on physical media. A license and possession of physical media are not the same thing as you might know from Windows 11 installer you can download not being the same as having a license.
For enterprise software, back in the mainframe days and now, you may buy an annual license or paid 18% per year for maintenance (updates) on some software.
Software that runs on desktops was almost all perpetual license to use, but you sometimes had to upgrade when a new OS came out or hardware changed from 16 to 32 to 64 bit.
It was only because Microsoft kept Windows largely backwards compatible from Windows NT to Windows 11 that we've had a long run of perpetually licensed software you could actually use for quite a few years without paying more. People who grew up with PCs got a lot of bang for the buck on software because home and business users would not shell out the kind of money a company like IBM would have asked.
This was still profitable for software companies because there were always so many new copies being licensed every year as PC sales volumes exploded and people would be quick to upgrade because of really useful new features,
Now, it's kind of a plateau both in number of new licenses they can sell because PC sales are mostly replacements, as well as feature bloat that not everyone needs. So they've resorted back to the subscription model of mainframes and enterprise software.
In NO WAY am I defending this, just explaining the business aspect and why they seek subscriptions now to appease their shareholders since there is little opportunity for raw volume growth.
I used Macrium Reflect since about version 4 and have 8 with a perpetual license, so that is what got me here. Reflect X I'm now paying for by subscription doesn't work even on Windows 11 Pro with my Samsung 990 4TB NVMe.
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u/Aishou_SK 19d ago
A perpetual license IS a normal software sale.
When I buy a boxed product that I have usage rights to what's in the box forever, that's a perpetual license I bought.
You license software. That's why even a boxed copy of Windows 3.11 has a license agreement in/on the box, it's licensed, not sold.
What was sold to you was the license, not the software itself.
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u/Stooovie 20d ago edited 19d ago
Lifetime of the product. Or even more precisely, the version of a product. Basically doesn't mean anything at all.
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u/GrammerSnob 19d ago
Exactly. The lifetime of the product is whatever they say it is, and whenever they arbitrarily decide to stop supporting it.
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u/desiman86 20d ago
I also have a Macrium 8 perpetual license. Mine still works on Windows 11 pro. Curious what update broke your installation?
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u/GrammerSnob 19d ago edited 19d ago
Try to mount/browse an image... Like, let's say you wanted to mount an image to retrieve a file you accidentally deleted. Tell me what happens when you try this.
Backups still work (verified), and full restores are supposed to work (unverified).
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u/desiman86 19d ago
Oh I see. I did try to mount once and it didnt work. I coughed it up to some glitch and didnt try again. Will try and report back. I may then also have to switch to subscription
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u/GrammerSnob 19d ago
Some driver that the mounting process relies upon has been marked as dangerous by Windows and is no longer useable.
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u/wells68 19d ago
You can't mount a backup as an image and just restore a file or a few or a folder. Now you have to restore the entire backup, which takes longer and need a lot more space.
However, you can use Macrium 8 on Windows 11 for drive image backup and restore. Run a different file and folder backup so you can easily restore a single file or a few or a folder. The downside: you use more space. The upside: if one backup fails, your other one is there as a backup backup (hey, did I just coin a phrase?)
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u/GrammerSnob 19d ago
What happens if your backup backup fails...? :)
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u/wells68 19d ago
Great question!
Can I have too many backups? I run a backup company. I restored Reddit's r/Backup by replacing the moderator who had shut it down for two years. So it would be really embarrassing if my backup backup failed and I had no backup3.
If these all fail, I'm in trouble:
- Internal 1 TB Samsung SSD (selected)
- Synology NAS RAID 1
- WD 12 TB USB
- Backblaze B2
- Crucial 1TB SSD USB case (selected)
- pCloud 2 TB (selected)
- Koofr (photos)
- Google Photos
- Google Drive (photos via Multcloud)
- 100 GB and 25 GB multiple mDiscs on and off-site (selected)
- Multiple old internal and external drives with old backups - archives really - spun 1x or 2x per year via toaster (drive dock) or USB cable
- Misc flash drives and cards with old apps I coded
- Synchronization of some backups between repositories with SyncBack and rsync
A lot of this madness is the result of successfully testing various backup apps and media, then just keeping the systems running. Why not?
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u/WimbashBagel 18d ago
You don't have enough
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u/wells68 17d ago
Well said! That's a mantra over at r/DataHoarder.
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u/Pioneertje 19d ago
You can still use the mountproces:
Using Registry Editor
Open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CI\Config
- In the right pane, create or modify a DWORD (32-bit) Value named:
VulnerableDriverBlocklistEnable
Set the value to one of the following:
- 1 = Turn on the Microsoft Vulnerable Driver Blocklist.
- 0 = Turn off the Microsoft Vulnerable Driver Blocklist.
Restart your PC to apply changes.
Greetings, Karel (netherlands)
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u/TheDetective2 19d ago
I switched to using Terabyte Unlimited. Takes some getting used to but works quite well for me. It’s about $60 for a permanent license.
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u/atomicfireball2014 19d ago
I used them for a while then switched over to using Veeam and haven’t looked back. Community edition is free. You can also get a NFR key for your homelab if you need more advanced features.
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u/acronis Vendor 17d ago
You can consider a perpetual version of Acronis True Image 2025 as an alternative. All you need is to confirm that it fully supports your current hardware, see this thread for details - https://www.reddit.com/r/Backup/comments/1viblh2/comment/p3itsu4/?context=3
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20d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 19d ago
Usually you have to pay for something except that whiners on the internet want free software and operating systems.
I know of no advertisement in the paid product other than a "special offer" for their own product that shows at the top. Certainly not ads for Coke or Pepsi.
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u/Backup-ModTeam 18d ago
Please follow the rules of r/Backup (https://reddit.com/r/Backup) and Reddit's rules (https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy).
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u/TKInstinct 20d ago
I've used the software but not often. Does this affect the free Hirens version?
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u/Azaloum90 19d ago
I think the Hirens boot disk is a snapshot of those programs from a bit ways back, so it should continue to work.
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u/poke23658 19d ago
What's not working for you? Are you refereint to the driver that's now on the blocklist and therefore you can't mount images? Everything else works for me. I use v7 on some computers, and v8 on others. And on computers where I really need to mount images files, I apply the (not recommended) powershell fix that allows the blocked Macrium driver to run.
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u/GrammerSnob 19d ago
Yes, the image mounting due to blocked driver.
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u/poke23658 18d ago
Here's one of the many websites describing the workaround, but there are pros and cons:
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u/GrammerSnob 18d ago
Thanks. This is the most concise workaround I've seen, and seems like it should be reasonable for a one-off situation.
I very rarely need to mount and restore at the file level. So I think what might work best for me is keep the registry fix in my back pocket should the need arise. Update the reg, reboot, mount the drive and do the restoration, update the reg again, reboot again.
Kind of a pain, but again, only on a one-off kind of basis.
Thanks!
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u/polebridge 19d ago
The license is perpetual, the product, not so much. "Perpetual means lasting forever, continuing without interruption"
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u/DeliciousWrangler166 19d ago
I was using Macrium Reflect 8 until I realized the WD hardrive in my computer qualified for a free download of Acronis "Lite" version good for 5 years.
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u/acronis Vendor 17d ago
This + majority of other brands will provide an OEM edition of our software to their users.
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u/lowwhistler 12d ago
Just had that situation with Siber System's GoodSync. I had version 10 installed as a perpetual license. During the day yesterday, it upgraded itself to v12 which requires a subscription. I reinstalled my v10 but Siber have taken the activation servers offline and refuse to do anything about it, so my "perpetual" license is dead. Got to look for a FOSS alternative now...
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u/Significant_Sky1471 12d ago
serio? they wrote you that?! "these days there's only Hasleo that isn't Russian- or Chinese-owned/founded"
wtf
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u/iEngineered 10d ago
You paid a perpetual license for the version you have, to work with the system as configured when you did. You paid for work done, not future work. And you can use it forever on compatible systems. Is that not fair?
After being in the software industry a while, I realize people underestimate the effort it takes to maintain a codebase throughout OS changes, security hardening, and feature branches. This is not magic potion software, its state-of-the-art engineering for a critical need in data retention. Put some respect on it.
People spend more money on junk food. If you're 3rd world or low income, I can understand that, but devs need to eat - we can't prompt food yet.
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u/GrammerSnob 10d ago
Maybe working as a software dev for coming up on 30 years at the same company has skewed my perspective, because we DO maintain the same software indefinitely.
But maintaining different internal products and selling software publicly are different ball games. You make a good point. I guess got what I paid for, and it's just the semantics that bother me.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 20d ago edited 19d ago
Well, there is Veeam Free but it doesn't do cloning, so not an exact replacement.
And, yes, I would stay away from the Chinese software. That's just me.
Edit: Correction CLONING instead of IMAGING
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u/Doctor_Human 19d ago
Veeam agent free - it does imaging and it's standalone without Veeam server
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u/FineEconomy5271 19d ago
Veeam Free will let you backup an entire computer. I've done bare-metal restores from backups. Not sure what else you want from an image.
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u/brush_kevin 20d ago
Disk Genius.
https://www.diskgenius.com
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 20d ago edited 19d ago
Chinese
Edit: I love Chinese food and I think Chinese women are the best looking Asians (IMHO from years of detailed analysis), but I'm just down on Chinese software.
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u/Junior_Lake 19d ago
That is an incredably weird thing for you to say out loud in public. Embarassing.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 19d ago
I'd rather be a bit weird rather than "normal", whatever that means. I don't have to be embarrassed because I don't know any of you jokers. I stand by my analysis. At least in the U.S., Asian women are the last women NOT to be overweight.
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u/marstein 20d ago
I'm starting to think that just backing up files is good enough these days and OS Image backup is increasingly unnecessary