Solved Latest Macrium Reflect updates

Josey Wales · Mar 11, 2024

There is a New Update from MR v 8.1.7909

CountMike · Mar 11, 2024

Bree · Mar 11, 2024

Josey Wales said:
There is a New Update from MR v 8.1.7909

Thank you.

Post #1 updated.

Bree · Mar 11, 2024

It makes a pleasant change to get the new update the day before Patch Tuesday.
Too often it's been the day after, and all my images have to be updated

BrianInEngland · Mar 11, 2024

Bree said:
It makes a pleasant change to get the new update the day before Patch Tuesday.
Too often it's been the day after, and all my images have to be updated

Not an issue for me as I make daily image backups. Full on Sunday followed by an incremental every morning. I can always roll back to that day's image if I hit a problem. Sometimes I make additional ad-hoc backups as well.

Rita5 · Mar 11, 2024

I got the update now..

Started using the Macrium Rescue built into the "Winpe projects", I found it better and less intimidating, as it is similar to dealing with Macrium inside the Normal System, This works just as well as the custom rescue created by Macrium

But read somewhere here that there is a need to update the winpe version with each new version in order for it to work in order to restore backups that are created with the updated versions without problems. I also read that the ReDeploy feature must have the same version number in order for it to work correctly in the event of a need for it..... Is all this true?

Josey Wales · Mar 11, 2024

You do have to make new Rescue Media using the Rescue Media Tab and that probably updates the WinPE but a new Rescue Thumb Drive or CD needs to also be made.

Bree · Mar 11, 2024

Rita5 said:
....read somewhere here that there is a need to update the winpe version with each new version in order for it to work in order to restore backups that are created with the updated versions without problems.

It is always good practice to rebuild your rescue media, both the Boot menu and the Rescue USB, after a Reflect update. Occasionally Macrium specifically recommend you do so in the release notes, they say this whenever the update includes a fix for a serious known issue in the rescue media.

However, in practice almost any rescue USB can restore any image, no matter what build created that image. The format of the image file has remained static. In fact, I have often restored an image made by v8 with a v7 rescue USB (and vice versa).

As for ReDeploy I would expect the same to apply. To be honest though, I've never yet found a need to use it. Windows itself is very good at sorting out the right drivers to use when it finds itself unexpectedly booting up on new hardware. A case in point is my System One in My Computers below.

Bree said:
For my System One in my specs on Eleven Forum I used Macrium Reflect to make an image of the Windows 10 install on my old Intel-based legacy bios MBR laptop then restored it to a new UEFI/GPT AMD-based one, in preparation for upgrading to Windows 11.

To convert from an Legacy/MBR install to a UEFI/GPT one I first clean installed Windows 10 on the new machine, then restored just the C: partition from my system image to replace the C: partition created by the install. The Reflect rescue media has a 'Fix Windows boot problems' tool which I then ran to create the correct BCD entry.

On first boot up Windows spent a while sorting out new drivers, then rebooted to my desktop with all my files and installed programs intact and working.

how to get apps and settings to a new computer? - Windows 10 Help Forums - post #12

Rita5 · Mar 11, 2024

Josey Wales said:
You do have to make new Rescue Media using the Rescue Media Tab and that probably updates the WinPE but a new Rescue Thumb Drive or CD needs to also be made.

Bree said:
It is always good practice to rebuild your rescue media, both the Boot menu and the Rescue USB, after a Reflect update.

As for ReDeploy I would expect the same to apply. To be honest though, I've never yet found a need to use it. Windows itself is very good at sorting out the right drivers to use when it finds itself

I now using Windows PE projects, which contain a small, portable Windows system that contains some programs such as the Macrium

The problem.. Can't me update Macrium version, other than waiting for the creators of these portable systems to update and they don't seem to do that regularly

I really liked using Macrium within this portable system, I don't want to go back to using the Macrium rescue :tears:

Bree · Mar 11, 2024

Rita5 said:
I now using Windows PE projects, which contain a small, portable Windows system that contains some programs such as the Macrium

The problem.. Can't me update Macrium version, other than waiting for the creators of these portable systems to update and they don't seem to do that regularly

There's another problem with these portable PE systems, they will not have a licence to use Reflect Home, so the version of Reflect they contain will be Reflect Free. That has been retired now (see post #1). The last ever update for Reflect Free was v8.0.7783 - 1st December 2023. Boot your PE project and check the version of Reflect. If it's v8.0.7783 then the creators will never be able to update Reflect to a newer version - there won't be one.

Reflect Home is on v8.1.7909 by now. If you have bought Reflect Home it is well worth making the Reflect rescue media and using that in preference. Rapid Delta Restore is a Premium Feature and not enabled in Reflect Free, it can make your restores so much faster.

However, it is possible to build your own custom PE project though, then you could put whatever you want in it.

Win10XPE - Build Your Own Rescue Media [2] - Windows 10 Help Forums

As many here know, hosting has been a long running issue with Me and Pre-Made Rescue Media... https://www.tenforums.com/software-a...tml#post434481 So by limiting Pre-Made ISO's - It helped reduce the download demand on my free account(s).... Prior to Jan

www.tenforums.com

Rita5 · Mar 11, 2024

I use this one here, It seems to have the latest version of Macrium compared to others Winpe. The version here is 8.1 not 8.0 and it appears as a trial version and not free or activated as it appears in my system

Also discovered that the ReDeploy does not work and only works in Reflect rescue media which I created using Macrium, but Rapid Delta Restore works fine

Rita5 · Mar 11, 2024

I've looked at Win10XPE just now. I didn't know there was a project like this, but it seems like it requires a lot of knowledge and experience

cereberus · Mar 12, 2024

Rita5 said:
I use this one here, It seems to have the latest version of Macrium compared to others Winpe. The version here is 8.1 not 8.0 and it appears as a trial version and not free or activated as it appears in my system

Also discovered that the ReDeploy does not work and only works in Reflect rescue media which I created using Macrium, but Rapid Delta Restore works fine

Redeploy is considered to be a "super premium" feature so is excluded from trial version as it is a feature often only used once when transferring OS from one pc to another. People would just use the feature once if it was in trial then not pay for a licence.

However, as @Bree says, W10/W11 are so good at handling drivers, it is rare Redeploy is even needed.

When it is needed, it can be useful but it has limitations.

Redeploy still needs required key drivers to be added e.g. NVME IRST drivers. Moreover, it only handles a few key drivers enough to boot new pc. You still often have to sort out other drivers in Device Manager.

I use native windows deployment tool (dism) and basically do the following (key steps):

1) install Windows on new pc and export drivers

2) create custom install.wim of old pc.

3) inject drivers of new pc into custom install.wim

4) create usb installation drive with new install.wim.

Where this scores over Redeploy, is you inject virtually all the drivers needed for new pc, and you usually only have to update the odd driver afterwards.

Sounds complicated - well yes and no. There is a learning curve of course, but once done, you can easily setup a couple of batch files that pretty much does it all.

The longest part of the above is creating the custom install.wim which can take up to a hour or so for a 40 GB installation.

The rest only takes about 30 minutes.

All the steps above are on tenforum tutorials. I just followed the tutorials and foanybody who has a reasonable understanding of dos batch commands can do it without any great difficulty.

jimbo45 · Mar 12, 2024

cereberus said:
Redeploy is considered to be a "super premium" feature so is excluded from trial version as it is a feature often only used once when transferring OS from one pc to another. People would just use the feature once if it was in trial then not pay for a licence.

However, as @Bree says, W10/W11 are so good at handling drivers, it is rare Redeploy is even needed.

When it is needed, it can be useful but it has limitations.

Redeploy still needs required key drivers to be added e.g. NVME IRST drivers. Moreover, it only handles a few key drivers enough to boot new pc. You still often have to sort out other drivers in Device Manager.

I use native windows deployment tool (dism) and basically do the following (key steps):

1) install Windows on new pc and export drivers

2) create custom install.wim of old pc.

3) inject drivers of new pc into custom install.wim

4) create usb installation drive with new install.wim.

Where this scores over Redeploy, is you inject virtually all the drivers needed for new pc, and you usually only have to update the odd driver afterwards.

Sounds complicated - well yes and no. There is a learning curve of course, but once done, you can easily setup a couple of batch files that pretty much does it all.

The longest part of the above is creating the custom install.wim which can take up to a hour or so for a 40 GB installation.

The rest only takes about 30 minutes.

All the steps above are on tenforum tutorials. I just followed the tutorials and foanybody who has a reasonable understanding of dos batch commands can do it without any great difficulty.

I still think if you are experienced with VM's it's just as easy to restore VM image to new real hardware and via device manager etc just update the windows drivers -- simply in device manager just go down the list of unknown hardware and select update driver -> manually from this computer and point to the file where you've got the windows drivers you need.

But each to their own -- the advantage of a VM is that you can deploy to any machine without having to create a custom, install.wim for each machine -- I suppose you could do a sysprep from a winpe system for a universal install but that's also a bit of an effort too. (also you can create windowstogo systems and the VM can have the latest updates too so you know the Windows version will work properly BEFORE install).

Making a custom install.wim is great if it works but if the Windows fails to install it's a bit of a dogs dinner to determine whether it's a problem with the windows build itself or your custom install.

Still it's a good idea using bog standard windows tools so full marks awarded for that -- although I'll continue with the VM->physical method.

On an average system with nvme or decent ssd devices : Hyper-V or KVM/QEMU (similar times) and windows systems of around 50 - 60 GB ==always better to keep the OS small and have other stuff such as multimedia etc either on cloud, other disk, other partition, etc.

VM image ->approx 10 - 15 mins (You need to image if using Macrium rather than clone the disk otherwise you'll get a bit of a problem booting because of the VM's boot system being transferred to physical disk and cloning the virtual file system.

restore->physical disk -> approx 10 - 15 mins Use stand alone macrium rescue assuming you used macrium to image the disk.

booting and updating drivers -> approx 10 mins. Hint -- update the Video driver first otherwise you'll get the basic Ms default video driver which doesn't look very good on a 4K UHD large monitor. You don't need to re-boot -- the updated driver kicks in dynamically after it's been installed / updated.

Still YMMV

BTW the old Macrium Free is still currently working perfectly so far even though it's now no longer generally available.

cheers
jimbo

Bree · Mar 12, 2024

Rita5 said:
I use this one here, It seems to have the latest version of Macrium compared to others Winpe. The version here is 8.1 not 8.0 and it appears as a trial version and not free or activated as it appears in my system

They've used the Trial licence for the latest Reflect Home Trial v8.1 available at the time they built the WinPE, v8.1.7847. A trial licence expires 30 days after install. So that's likely to be 30 days after they built their WinPE. After a v8.1 trial expires it becomes a 'Restore Only' version.

Rita5 said:
Also discovered that the ReDeploy does not work and only works in Reflect rescue media which I created using Macrium, but Rapid Delta Restore works fine

As cereberus explained, ReDeploy is the one Premium Feature not included in the Trial version.

cereberus · Mar 12, 2024

jimbo45 said:
I still think if you are experienced with VM's it's just as easy to restore VM image to new real hardware and via device manager etc just update the windows drivers -- simply in device manager just go down the list of unknown hardware and select update driver -> manually from this computer and point to the file where you've got the windows drivers you need.

But each to their own -- the advantage of a VM is that you can deploy to any machine without having to create a custom, install.wim for each machine -- I suppose you could do a sysprep from a winpe system for a universal install but that's also a bit of an effort too. (also you can create windowstogo systems and the VM can have the latest updates too so you know the Windows version will work properly BEFORE install).

Making a custom install.wim is great if it works but if the Windows fails to install it's a bit of a dogs dinner to determine whether it's a problem with the windows build itself or your custom install.

Still it's a good idea using bog standard windows tools so full marks awarded for that -- although I'll continue with the VM->physical method.

On an average system with nvme or decent ssd devices : Hyper-V or KVM/QEMU (similar times) and windows systems of around 50 - 60 GB ==always better to keep the OS small and have other stuff such as multimedia etc either on cloud, other disk, other partition, etc.

VM image ->approx 10 - 15 mins (You need to image if using Macrium rather than clone the disk otherwise you'll get a bit of a problem booting because of the VM's boot system being transferred to physical disk and cloning the virtual file system.

restore->physical disk -> approx 10 - 15 mins Use stand alone macrium rescue assuming you used macrium to image the disk.

booting and updating drivers -> approx 10 mins. Hint -- update the Video driver first otherwise you'll get the basic Ms default video driver which doesn't look very good on a 4K UHD large monitor. You don't need to re-boot -- the updated driver kicks in dynamically after it's been installed / updated.

Still YMMV

BTW the old Macrium Free is still currently working perfectly so far even though it's now no longer generally available.

cheers
jimbo

Vms are not same as natively booting.

The custom iso method has NEVER failed me. Why not try it before you diss it!

jimbo45 · Mar 12, 2024

cereberus said:
Vms are not same as natively booting.

The custom iso method has NEVER failed me. Why not try it before you diss it!

I haven't dissed it --I just said I prefer alternate solutions. I'm quite amenable to trying things out !!! -- If something works even if complex why should I diss it -- especially when you said --using all Windows stuff -- not relying on any 3rd party options -- even if free.

Cheers
jimbo

Rita5 · Mar 13, 2024

cereberus said:
Redeploy is considered to be a "super premium"

You explained the ReDeploy well, thank you :clap:

The part about dism and Install.wim also requires some experience and knowledge so this will not be an option for me
However, it is a good idea to explain this topic, someone may benefit from it :wink:

Bree said:
They've used the Trial licence for the latest Reflect Home Trial v8.1 available at the time they built the WinPE

Thank you

Steve C · Mar 13, 2024

Rita5 said:
I use this one here, It seems to have the latest version of Macrium compared to others Winpe. The version here is 8.1 not 8.0 and it appears as a trial version and not free or activated as it appears in my system

Also discovered that the ReDeploy does not work and only works in Reflect rescue media which I created using Macrium, but Rapid Delta Restore works fine

Russian software?