Solved Latest Macrium Reflect X updates

Hi. I'm considering buying a 4 unit pack of Reflect X Licences and would appreciate some advice. I have a paid 4 Licence pack of Reflect v8 which I bought over 2 years ago, but need some more licences- mostly for family members. I want to keep my v8 Licences and account separate from a new purchase of Reflect X. As a new customer, Reflect X 4 Licence will cost £73.98 pa which includes a 50% discount. On renewal in 12 months time, I assume the renewal price may increase, but is the 50% discount still applied, or is it only for the first year? Also, if there is a Black Friday discounted price, would that revert to full price on renewal and for future years? There are no other options shown if you are a new customer, so I'm unclear whether to wait and see if there is a better offer in a couple of weeks. Thanks for your help.

Just like old A/V suppliers for domestic (home) computers --NOT corporates / office stuff this type of product is really addressing itself to a C20 problem.

If you use decent hardware and keep your OS small - have your data elsewhere then imaging the OS disk is simple and quick enough and who needs to bother about incremental type of backups -- even easier if you use physical vhdx files. On modern machines there's usually plenty of fast internal NVME (SSD type) storage and external storage -- even decent 7200 RPM spinners are fast enough and have masses of storage - quite cheap too.

If you have loads of data particularly things like photos / music / video etc then these don't change much so rather than backup you should consider this as archiving. So save the whole kybosh ONE TIME and then just save what's changed.

Linux has rsync (a nice front end GUI is grsync) and there are loads of other tools to do this -- and for small really important data -- e.g possibly some office type stuff just store it in the cloud - for small amounts of storage --negligable cost and for those subscribing to Office/365 there's quite a generous amount of cloud storage included with the subscription. The DD command is useful in Linux and typical partition managers can copy data partitions

I'm not anti paid software (although I HATE the subscription model) but a load of this type of software was absolutely OK in C20 -- for typical home users it's largely redundant now to have to pay that sort of money for functionality that one rarely needs and when there's good zero cost alternatives.

I really liked Macrium until it went subscription - but by that time I didn't really need it any more in any case. Same with Amti-Virus software -- Windows defender is about as good as it gets for domestic machines.

Cheers
jimbo

I run paid ver of 8.1, for what reason is the upgrade worth it to me if any ?

man00 said:

I run paid ver of 8.1, for what reason is the upgrade worth it to me if any ?

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It's not unless you get an ARM64 machine since 8.1 isn't ARM compatible.

Mitch said:

Hi. I'm considering buying a 4 unit pack of Reflect X Licences and would appreciate some advice. I have a paid 4 Licence pack of Reflect v8 which I bought over 2 years ago, but need some more licences- mostly for family members. I want to keep my v8 Licences and account separate from a new purchase of Reflect X. As a new customer, Reflect X 4 Licence will cost £73.98 pa which includes a 50% discount. On renewal in 12 months time, I assume the renewal price may increase, but is the 50% discount still applied, or is it only for the first year? Also, if there is a Black Friday discounted price, would that revert to full price on renewal and for future years? There are no other options shown if you are a new customer, so I'm unclear whether to wait and see if there is a better offer in a couple of weeks. Thanks for your help.

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I got a Macrium X sub last year for £19.99, this year's renewal was £18.49

I had a trial of X and used it to make a bootable USB SSD drive. This seems to keep working.

Thanks for the replies. My main reason for needing extra Macrium Licences is to put them on my kids machines. I'm afraid backups don't feature anywhere on their radar and when the inevitable happens, their PC's are usually pushed my way, although I am by no means an expert - far from it. I thought of transferring my v8 Licences to their machines and install Reflect X on mine. I just wasn't sure if the initial 50% discount for 4 Reflect X Licences was carried forward on renewal. I might wait and see if anything happens on Black Friday - if not I can decide then. Thanks again.

Mitch said:

Thanks for the replies. My main reason for needing extra Macrium Licences is to put them on my kids machines. I'm afraid backups don't feature anywhere on their radar and when the inevitable happens, their PC's are usually pushed my way, although I am by no means an expert - far from it. I thought of transferring my v8 Licences to their machines and install Reflect X on mine. I just wasn't sure if the initial 50% discount for 4 Reflect X Licences was carried forward on renewal. I might wait and see if anything happens on Black Friday - if not I can decide then. Thanks again.

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I've had my Macrium Reflect X long enough to have my first renewal. I have the 4 pack and opted for the $49 subscription. My renewal is still $49.

I use a laptop with a single C: drive and keep all my data and photos in my OneDrive folder. With X my images take only a little over 3 minutes to make, including all my data and photos. I like that.

Thanks @TraderGary I'll hold off until Black Friday and see if anything happens and then go ahead. TBH, they have probably got more data on their phones than their PC's. Thanks for your help.

Mitch said:

I just wasn't sure if the initial 50% discount for 4 Reflect X Licences was carried forward on renewal.

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If you are trading in the license you get 50% off Annual plans for life.

Mitch said:

My main reason for needing extra Macrium Licences is to put them on my kids machines. I'm afraid backups don't feature anywhere on their radar....

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I have 1x Reflect X subscription, 1x v8 licence, and a v8 4-pack of licences, but I have more machines than licences.

For the remainder of my machines I install Reflect v8.0 Free. That should be sufficient to protect the kids from themselves.

Despite being retired Reflect Free still works perfectly with the latest Windows 11 builds. Free includes Full and Differential imaging, as well as scheduling, and can still be installed direct from Macrium with the link at the bottom of Post #1 here:

Latest Macrium Reflect 8 updates

I'll give Reflect 8 free a go. It should be enough of a safety net. Now comes the tricky bit-getting them to run it. Thanks again. Mitch.

Bree said:

For the remainder of my machines I install Reflect v8.0 Free. That should be sufficient to protect the kids from themselves.

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What I wonder is when the secure boot 2011 cert is revoked in 2026 if Macrium will supply this update for 8 free.
Macrium want 8 free to be gone so no update for boot media would accomplish this.

KevTech said:

What I wonder is when the secure boot 2011 cert is revoked in 2026 if Macrium will supply this update for 8 free.
Macrium want 8 free to be gone so no update for boot media would accomplish this.

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It's not Reflect (any version) that needs a boot certificate. The Reflect rescue media is built on the WinRE recovery environment, so it's WinRE that needs an up to date certificate. After revocation you will just need to rebuild the rescue media, it will make use of the latest WinRE it can find on your system, and that should have the latest security certificate by then.

Mitch said:

I'll give Reflect 8 free a go. It should be enough of a safety net. Now comes the tricky bit-getting them to run it. Thanks again. Mitch.

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That's why I mentioned 'scheduling' as being available in Free.

Bree said:

It's not Reflect (any version) that needs a boot certificate. The Reflect rescue media is built on the WinRE recovery environment, so it's WinRE that needs an up to date certificate. After revocation you will just need to rebuild the rescue media, it will make use of the latest WinRE it can find on your system, and that should have the latest security certificate by then.

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I received the following response from MR support when I raised this issue with them -

"At present, Rescue Media created with Reflect relies on the Windows bootloader components from WinRE/WinPE, which are still signed using the older PCA 2011 certificate. If you update your firmware to revoke PCA 2011, the Rescue Media will not boot under Secure Boot, since the signature is no longer trusted. This is the same reason why current Windows 11 installation media also fails when PCA 2011 is revoked.

Macrium is aware of Microsoft’s transition to the new Windows UEFI CA 2023. Once Microsoft provides WinRE/WinPE builds signed with CA 2023, Reflect will be updated to allow Rescue Media creation with those newer binaries. At that point, you’ll be able to create Rescue Media that is fully compatible with the new certificate chain.

In the meantime, we recommend keeping PCA 2011 enabled if you need Secure Boot with your existing Rescue Media. If you choose to revoke it, you would need to either temporarily disable Secure Boot to run the Rescue Media or wait until updated CA 2023-signed environments are released. Our developers strongly recommend waiting for the new Reflect release, which should hopefully be available soon.

Please rest assured that guidance will be provided once CA 2023-compatible builds are available."

Dated 25 September 2025

But if you need to boot from a USB stick or HDD /SSD you can can always turn Secure Boot off in the BIOS.

I would pay whatever to have MR available for my children if I had any. A restore takes minutes and is far easier than trying to solve weird Windows issures. 99% of my stuff is online, so a restore does not lose anything significant.

I did this to get the Macrium recovery USB to boot after adding the revocation:

Mount the EFI partition to copy
Admin Command Prompt Type: mountvol s: /s
Copy the Boot Manger Files
Admin Command Prompt Type:
copy s:\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi c:\bootx64.efi
copy S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi c:\bootmgfw.efi


You should have the two files bootx64.efi and bootmgfw.efi in the root of the C drive
If you get an error copying the files "mountvol s: /s The directory is not empty"
Admin Command Prompt Type: mountvol s: /d
Try the copy command again
View the properties of the two files to verify the Digital Signatures
Click Properties of the File
Select the Digital Signature Tab
In the Signature list click Microsoft Windows and the click "Details" and then click "View Certificate"
The Certificate information should show
Issued by: Windows UEFI CA 2023 (if it shows Windows UEFI CA 2011 you have not updated the boot manager files correctly to the EFI/System partition)
The location of these two files in my Macrium Rescue flash drive (N) are
\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
I first replaced the existing "bootx64.efi" in the Rescue Flash drive directory with the extracted "bootx64.efi" file. I verified the certificate again because I'm paranoid.
I was able to boot the Macrium Rescue flash drive with Secure Boot enabled and without getting the Bios error ""Secure Boot Violation" The System found unauthorized changes on the Firmware, Operation System, or UEFI drivers"
Since I was able to boot the Rescue drive I did not need to also replace the "bootmgfw.efi" file.

This is from the Macrium forum.

Bastet said:

I did this to get the Macrium recovery USB to boot after adding the revocation:

Mount the EFI partition to copy
Admin Command Prompt Type: mountvol s: /s
Copy the Boot Manger Files
Admin Command Prompt Type:
copy s:\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi c:\bootx64.efi
copy S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi c:\bootmgfw.efi


You should have the two files bootx64.efi and bootmgfw.efi in the root of the C drive
If you get an error copying the files "mountvol s: /s The directory is not empty"
Admin Command Prompt Type: mountvol s: /d
Try the copy command again
View the properties of the two files to verify the Digital Signatures
Click Properties of the File
Select the Digital Signature Tab
In the Signature list click Microsoft Windows and the click "Details" and then click "View Certificate"
The Certificate information should show
Issued by: Windows UEFI CA 2023 (if it shows Windows UEFI CA 2011 you have not updated the boot manager files correctly to the EFI/System partition)
The location of these two files in my Macrium Rescue flash drive (N) are
\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
I first replaced the existing "bootx64.efi" in the Rescue Flash drive directory with the extracted "bootx64.efi" file. I verified the certificate again because I'm paranoid.
I was able to boot the Macrium Rescue flash drive with Secure Boot enabled and without getting the Bios error ""Secure Boot Violation" The System found unauthorized changes on the Firmware, Operation System, or UEFI drivers"
Since I was able to boot the Rescue drive I did not need to also replace the "bootmgfw.efi" file.

This is from the Macrium forum.

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You can also copy them to where Macrium reflect stores the PE files for creating rescue media (see advanced macrium settings for the location - default is C: I think). Then whenever you create rescue media with macrium, the media will boot with the 2023 certs. For me I configured the PE location to E:, so the files I replaced were:

"E:\boot\macrium\WinREFiles\media\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi"
"E:\boot\macrium\WinREFiles\media\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi"

Replace the E: with C: or whatever drive you have selected to to store the PE files on.

Thanks @PerpetualCycle I’ll give that a try.