Macrium Reflect Free Edition is being retired soon

Thanks Rick.

The current version of Macrium Free should continue working in Windows 10/11 or from the boot UFD for many years.

And if Macrium takes the frequent-upgrade route, it will be to add additional "features" not needed for basic imaging, the way Acronis has done.

arbee said:

I suppose the obvious question now is........ what's the best free alternative to Reflect?
I have always used it very successfully so never looked into anything else.

The Linux based version of the bootable Rescue Media ISO file of Acronis True Image 2021, which you can download from Acronis for free. In a number of ways, it's better than the paid version of Reflect. I use it with Ventoy so I can boot straight into the ISO file. There is no dependency on WinRE/WinPE. So you don't have to keep updating it each time when WinRE/WinPE has changed again after an update. Booting straight into such a small ISO file is fast with Ventoy. Unlike Reflect, True Image lets you choose to let your image file be written to the same partition as the one that is to be included in the image. As you can still copy your image file onto a backup storage medium later, this feature comes in especially handy in situations where there is not enough available free space anywhere else except on a partition that is to be included. Another handy feature is to, in a user-friendly way (that, unlike Reflect, doesn't involve fiddling with the Windows registry...) specify exclusions. My C: partition contains user files like temporary files and cached data so, being able to exclude those from image can tend to be a real lifesaver at times. The GUI of Acronis is noticeably more straightforward than Macrium. And you get incremental images without having to pay a single dime. But then, paying for crappy solutions seems to always be the norm around here........

Anibor said:

The current version of Macrium Free should continue working in Windows 10/11 or from the boot UFD for many years.

And if Macrium takes the frequent-upgrade route, it will be to add additional "features" not needed for basic imaging, the way Acronis has done.

Info from EOL post.

Can I continue to use Macrium Reflect Free?
Yes, you can continue to use the software in perpetuity, your license to use the software is unaffected.

So I decided to purchase a license for Macrium Reflect. All these years that I have been using the Free version, it has saved me at least a half a dozen times from misery. And it worked successfully, each time I had to do a restore.

And, The price was good. $34.97 for a lifetime license, and one year of included tech support, so I felt it was well worth it.


Ray

kitpzyxmsir said:

Just curious. It's a year away, but "Security patches will provided until Jan 2024". What is the significance of that?

It means there will be no updates to the free version after Jan 2024. It will still work but no updates.

Jim

dalchina said:

The licensed version adds Image Guardian, and restores should be faster (not that I've done one of those for years...), plus full access to the forum.

One deficiency I found: after applying the license, and then trying to enable Image Guardian, was that there was a warning (with tiny rectangular dismiss box that seemed distorted- I'd have expected an x, or cancel... saying the driver hadn't been loaded and I needed to restart. I did. Same thing.

The warning also said I might have to reinstall MR.

I tried 'modify' and 'repair' but the msi file required was nowhere on my PC, presumbay because I'd been accepting the patches.

I had to download Macrium R and install it over my existing installation.

Hi,

I had the same exact issue, I re downloaded Macrium Reflect, and was given the opportunity to place a check mark into something that said something to the effect of start "image guardian".

Went through the rest of the installation, rebooted, and everything was fixed and the image guardian was running.


THANKS for bringing that up, or I may have never noticed it !!

Ray

I've been using Macrium Free for quite a while and it's fantastic but I have recently thought about purchasing a license.

Does the paid version allow to make backups that omit certain folders? I want to backup my OS drive but omit the potentially very large games folder. They can always be redownloaded so are not critical.

On my current system I have the OS on a separate small partition but would rather have everything on one for my new build.