Macrium Reflect moving to lease model.

glasskuter said:

Users need firm answers on all this unholy mess, both from MS, Macrium, Acronis, et al so we know where we stand and can make our decisions what is right for us going forward. If we on this forum don't have a clear understanding, how can Joe Blow out in the world be expected to. There is absolutely nothing that will keep us from using any app we now have to make an image going forward, but that image is worthless if we can't restore it.

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Yeah, that whole situation is a mess. You are correct in that I do patch files myself, but that is a truly unique situation. How many people do that? Extremely few!

Unfortunately, I have no clue what type of changes the July patches will make. My wish would be that Microsoft would issue the July patches along with some sort of clear guidance. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

glasskuter said:

What if Paramount got the bright idea of letting only version 9 make recovery media that will restore our images on these systems where revocations are in place? That would generate a lot of sales from people who had decided the lease price was too high and had no plan to upgrade but use whatever version they had as long as it would work..Well, surprise! At this point it, doesn't work. Is this a stretch??

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The "revocations" gets written to one of four Secure Boot keys. Simply turning off secure boot will allow you to boot to anything you want. PIA, I know, but at least it's a workaround.

Scott said:

Simply turning off secure boot will allow you to boot to anything you want.

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That's absolutely correct UNLESS going forward from 2024 MS decides to make secure boot mandatory. I doubt that they will, but hey, it's MS. Who the heck knows. MS song and dance is one of the reasons I turned my secure boot off now and will be following Dell UEFI bios updates closely going forward just to make sure the option is still there and under my control. Since the OEMs are in MS pocket, I don't trust them very far either. They will do what MS tells them to do. Am I paranoid about this. Yep.

MS stated " Once the mitigation for this issue is enabled on a device, meaning the revocations have been applied, it cannot be reverted if you continue to use Secure Boot on that device. Even reformatting of the disk will not remove the revocations if they have already been applied...................................All Windows devices with Secure Boot protections enabled are affected by this issue..................Linux is also affected by this issue. Microsoft has been coordinating with representatives from major Linux distributions to make the fix available for their operating systems.

One can read more or less into that statement.

"Microsoft has been coordinating with representatives from major Linux distributions ..." You think we can safely assume that no guns and no heads were involved?

I just wanted to mention that I know some people who have replaced Macrium free with Hasleo free.
Hasleo comes with more features in it than Macrium free.
I have Macrium Home version as I like to encrypt the backups which the free version will not do.
Free version of Hasleo has encrypt backups so I may check it out.
At the link you can see all the included features of Hasleo free.

hdmi said:

What I think is that the set price of the ISO file that I linked to up thread is zero smackeroonies. What I ALSO think is that, for most home users, the features that it has should be precisely in line with what most home users need most.

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You cant run scheduled backups with a boot disk.

I'm a different sort.
I install V8 free, make a bootable USB drive from it, the uninstall the software.
I then use the bootable USB to do full backups (or restores).
I'm thinking that as long as PCs are using NTFS and it's derivatives that this boot stick will continue to work. Do you think that is correct?

I was doing this with Acronis before I moved to Macrium (because it was free). I can use the boot stick on any PC.
It's definitely no frills - but I kinda like that. KISS.

In the mechanical HD days some would install rails in the HD bay and make a direct copy of the system drive every day to an identical drive. In the event of disaster slide old drive out, slide new drive in, and reboot. Presumably data was mirrored to the cloud. I don't know how secure booting figures into it. But one would think doing something similar with SSDs would be much faster.

Is anyone doing it?

glasskuter said:

The thing about that iso @hdmi is it will work no differently than the Macrium recovery media most of us are using now. It won't work for anyone who has applied the revocations of the May update (or after MS automatically applies the revocations beginning in early 2024) unless the user turns off secure boot which most people will not know to do before booting from the media.

In fact, for anyone who has secure boot turned OFF as I do, I have not seen a definitive statement from MS that guarantees MS won't automatically force secure boot ON to automatically apply these revocations next year, leaving us with no way to turn secure boot off to use the media we now have, whether it be Macrium, Acronis, or any other. This is the biggest question for me. I mean, MS firmly states that even the OEM recovery partitions become useless so that leads me to think secure boot may be forced whether I want it or not.

If you haven't already, read this in its entirety and you'll see what I mean. I've read it 5 times and come away with the same questions each time.

KB5025885: How to manage the Windows Boot Manager revocations for Secure Boot changes associated with CVE-2023-24932 - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

I come away from it with the understanding that once MS updates WINPE, the backup software manufacturers will have to update their product to include the new WINPE in their recovery media. However, neither Macrium nor Acronisn nor any XXX image application is releasing answers to how or IF this is going to be addressed on their end regarding recovery media for older versions of their product. @hsehestedt probably knows more about this than anyone here as he's played around with manually altering recovery media to include the May update (IMO he'll have to do it all over again because the second deployment stage of the CVE will be released in the July update next week)

Users need firm answers on all this unholy mess, both from MS, Macrium, Acronis, et al so we know where we stand and can make our decisions what is right for us going forward. If we on this forum don't have a clear understanding, how can Joe Blow out in the world be expected to. There is absolutely nothing that will keep us from using any app we now have to make an image going forward, but that image is worthless if we can't restore it.

@hsehestedt Do I have all that right?

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Thanks, but I have already read that KB article. An attacker will commonly use this vulnerability to continue controlling a device that they can already access and possibly manipulate. Emphasis in bold is mine. Learning how to turn Secure Boot on/off is not especially hard nor time consuming IMO, and, it pays off rather nicely, also IMO. lol Even if you haven't applied the revocations, you still won't be able to use the free Linux based bootable Rescue Media ISO that I linked to earlier. Not unless you turn off Secure Boot first, but after the image create/restore task has finished successfully, before you boot back into Windows you can still always turn Secure Boot back on if you like. I need to go into my BIOS settings to temporarily change the boot order so I can boot from my USB flash drive, anyway in the first place. So, to also temporarily turn off Secure Boot in there, it only takes a few extra keystrokes.

I don't have to worry about WinPE. It's a Linux based ISO file like I said. All I need for it to work on my USB flash drive─that I formatted with Ventoy before I merely copied the actual ISO file itself directly onto this same flash drive─is just a working PC, capable to run Linux, with Secure Boot off and BitLocker off─and enough available free space on the SSD to create my new image on it. After I launch my image creation task, I always remember to tick the Verify image checkbox that appears at the bottom of the progress window. Once successful, I only have to change the boot order back to normal and turn Secure Boot back on so I can boot back into Windows normally and copy my newly created image file to my backup storage media. Doing an image restore works similar, and, Windows won't protest after. That's just because all the partitions required for that will be there, also including all of the required data stored on them of course. Else, what would be the point of restoring from image I mean?

BobOmb said:

You cant run scheduled backups with a boot disk.

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I don't need scheduled backups of my Windows partition. Just a manual backup of it a few times per year is more than enough, as I use a separate backup strategy for all my important personal data.

TVeblen said:

I'm a different sort.
I install V8 free, make a bootable USB drive from it, the uninstall the software.
I then use the bootable USB to do full backups (or restores).
I'm thinking that as long as PCs are using NTFS and it's derivatives that this boot stick will continue to work. Do you think that is correct?

I was doing this with Acronis before I moved to Macrium (because it was free). I can use the boot stick on any PC.
It's definitely no frills - but I kinda like that. KISS.

Click to expand...

The bootable Linux based Rescue Media ISO file that I linked to earlier is also free, and I can use the boot stick on any PC also. As long as PCs can run Linux I remain confident it will continue to work. I didn't need to install/uninstall anything, as the bootable ISO file can be downloaded directly onto the stick after the stick has been formatted with Ventoy, and Ventoy is portable.

glasskuter said:

The thing about that iso @hdmi is it will work no differently than the Macrium recovery media most of us are using now. It won't work for anyone who has applied the revocations of the May update (or after MS automatically applies the revocations beginning in early 2024) unless the user turns off secure boot which most people will not know to do before booting from the media.

In fact, for anyone who has secure boot turned OFF as I do, I have not seen a definitive statement from MS that guarantees MS won't automatically force secure boot ON to automatically apply these revocations next year, leaving us with no way to turn secure boot off to use the media we now have, whether it be Macrium, Acronis, or any other. This is the biggest question for me. I mean, MS firmly states that even the OEM recovery partitions become useless so that leads me to think secure boot may be forced whether I want it or not.

If you haven't already, read this in its entirety and you'll see what I mean. I've read it 5 times and come away with the same questions each time.

KB5025885: How to manage the Windows Boot Manager revocations for Secure Boot changes associated with CVE-2023-24932 - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

I come away from it with the understanding that once MS updates WINPE, the backup software manufacturers will have to update their product to include the new WINPE in their recovery media. However, neither Macrium nor Acronisn nor any XXX image application is releasing answers to how or IF this is going to be addressed on their end regarding recovery media for older versions of their product. @hsehestedt probably knows more about this than anyone here as he's played around with manually altering recovery media to include the May update (IMO he'll have to do it all over again because the second deployment stage of the CVE will be released in the July update next week)

Users need firm answers on all this unholy mess, both from MS, Macrium, Acronis, et al so we know where we stand and can make our decisions what is right for us going forward. If we on this forum don't have a clear understanding, how can Joe Blow out in the world be expected to. There is absolutely nothing that will keep us from using any app we now have to make an image going forward, but that image is worthless if we can't restore it.

@hsehestedt Do I have all that right?

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I would doubt that MS could turn on or off the Secure Boot function in a BIOS. Also entry to and modify the BIOS can usually be passworded. If such were done I would hope that an OS level app would be unable to access it. Also BIOS is usually third party software relative to MS. It is not their playground. However, they could implement Win 11 such that it wouldn't work without Secure Boot on and then your fears might be realised.

pparks1 said:

My preference when I get a phone is always to just pay for the full amount for the phone on day 1 and be done with it. However, Verizon always has always had a solid buy buy back option on my previous phone and this requires me to pay for the phone for 2 years with monthly payments. It's always the exact same price for the new phone, just total cost/24.

I traded in my Note 8, which was almost 4 years old on a Galaxy S21+ and they gave me $400 on the Note 8. 400/24 = $16.67 per month. No way was I giving up $400 for the convenience of paying off my new $1000 phone on day 1. Over the course of 2 years, I paid $600 for the phone with the old trade in. I still own my new phone and it's now paid off. Hoping to keep it at least 1 more year before I buy a new phone.

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@bikemanI7

Use economics rather than "Gut feel". --If paying 16 USD a month leaves 1000 USD capital free and you can earn more with that capital than the 16 USD per month then pay the 16 USD. Or if you need to buy something else which saves you more interest charges using the 1000 dollars then even better.

One of the best things you can do if you have a mortgage of course in these present times (world wide) of rising interest rates is to use that 1000 USD to make an overpayment on the mortage as even that smallish amount can make a huge difference on the interest you pay even on a long term mortgage.

However this is a windows rather than an economics forum - but in general it's usually better with things like phones etc to use up front payments rather than pay the high interest charges companies usually charge. Sometimes it's cheaper to pay with a credit card or a bank loan with lower interest than the company is charging you.

Again though this is a Windows Forum - but everybody should learn the best way of using their money. There are plenty of very wealthy individuals out there who got rich because they were a bit smarter with cash than the majority.

And for anybody - if you've space and need disk copies - remember any linux distro can copy any file, partition etc with a simple dd command as root or sudo : dd if=<input file image or device> of=<output file or device> bs=2048M status=progress.
Then you can compress the file via tar, zip etc etc . All 100% free Also the bootable version og GPARTED can copy, recover, edit etc partitions and disks etc.

If you spend a little time booting up a live linux distro or running one on a VM you can play around with it and you'll find when companies start going "subscription" you can use alternative FREE software - even if you need to invest a little learning time -- saves you a shed load of cash.

Also for DATA backup / archive - learn rsync and its front end GUI GRSYNC. Also 100% free.

E.g :




A load more options too in advanced and extra options sections.

Don't become beholden to large companies squeezing every last cent out of you.

As for Secure boot - if this means actually writing to a computers BIOS then I'm sure many don't want that. On non Ms hardware (i.e 99.999% of computers as Ms only have control over their particular Surface thing) then they would certainly be in breach of EU anti competition legislation and similar elsewhere if their implementation of secure boot meant that people couldn't dual boot or even single boot alternative OS'es and boot from external devices such as external USB devices or different internal HDD's / SSD's.

Ms would probably implement secure boot via the efi file on the boot device as this is a "bog standard" writeable file. The Ms bootloader would do its business there and that's the point at which Windows boot would continue or fail.

However these sorts of mechanisms are really not good in the long term for proper security -- who uses TPM for any security these days -- the device itself is over 15 years old (that's equivalent to not ONE but TWO geological ages as far as technology is concerned) but Ms is still insisting it's there.

Far better to build all the security in the OS itself especially an OS that's run on so many different bits of hardware.
Apart from Ms Office and a few corporate applications I find my need for running Windows is getting less and less these days -- and if the restrictions get too irksome I'll just abandon it altogether. Why for example a Dual processor machine containing 2 separate processors which still can blow away for speed etc a load of much more modern hardware is deemed not sufficient to run W11 -- Bonkers. In any case W11 still runs on VM's with just "Virtualising the CPU". !!

Running a test machine 8 years old with TWO of these installed :

Intel Xeon Processor CPU SR0R6 E3-1220L V2 3 MB L3 Cache 2.30 GHz 4 Core 17w

Cheers
jimbo

So, what are you all gonna do about it?

Stigg said:

So, what are you all gonna do about it?

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Nothing or as some might say "Sweet S-- All".

I don't need to - in any case I run windows from vhdx files usually the largest of which is around 60GB. Since I have 2 X 20TB storage on a NAS server - there's no problem simply copying the vhdx file to the NAS server. I don't need Macrium any more - was good in the past but since the whole mechanism of booting and using vhdx files has become a lot easier I don't need "Classical system backups" any more. For data I use the GRSYNC program as shown in my post above.

Cheers
jimbo

BobD said:

However, they could implement Win 11 such that it wouldn't work without Secure Boot on and then your fears might be realised.

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jimbo45 said:

Nothing or as some might say "Sweet S-- All".

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Does that mean Sweet Soy with All extras?

As I see it all backup software is redundant if bootable devices cannot boot so this means that developers will have to make sure their WinPE is updated to ensure bootable devices will work after MS revocations are enforced or they will go out of business.

They also need to tell us that they are working on doing this. It is in their interest to tell us. Why is that you ask? Because people, like me, who are considering buying their backup software will not buy it unless they know boot devices will boot after MS revocations are enforced in first quarter of 2024.

Am I naive to expect Macrium (or any other developer) to tell us they are working on a fix to ensure sales to continue?

wiganken said:

As I see it all backup software is redundant if bootable devices cannot boot so this means that developers will have to make sure their WinPE is updated to ensure bootable devices will work after MS revocations are enforced or they will go out of business.

They also need to tell us that they are working on doing this. It is in their interest to tell us. Why is that you ask? Because people, like me, who are considering buying their backup software will not buy it unless they know boot devices will boot after MS revocations are enforced in first quarter of 2024.

Am I naive to expect Macrium (or any other developer) to tell us they are working on a fix to ensure sales to continue?

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Private companies exist to make money one way or the other - they aren't run as charitable concerns How they do this varies hugely in quality of product and service as we all know. However in tight markets with mature products -- i.e there's not much extra added functionality they can add which causes people to keep buying / upgrading is for them to charge for leasing or using the product rather than outright purchase.

For example if you have a Samsung S21 Ultra phone why would you bother to upgrade to the latest one. What does it offe rother "Than the Newest". So to entice people they lease the wretched things at what seems a cheap price even though there's really no need to upgrade. Probably the same with Iphones etc.

On these very Forums there's plenty of people running W11 on quite old machines not officially supporting Windows 11 - so one can only suppose this is a sort of way of "extending or increasing revenue stream". But the cat's out of the bag - people don't need this and companies that go down this route will eventually go out of business if there's any conceivable alternative.

Even in cases where things like Utilities are paid for monthly many where they can are making themselves independent of the Grid -- possible for loads of people to do it now whereas the technology wasn't affordable years ago. For example I have a colleague in the UK where just the monthly standing charges on his energy bill (that's the basic daily charge he has to pay whether you use any electricity / gas or not --seems an absurd idea -- I don't pay a fixed 5 USD fee to buy at a Supermarket added to my bill whatever the size of my bill) amounts to something like 25% of his bill -- so he said enough -- Solar panels and small wind turbine etc -- now he's grid free. !!

I think the montly subscription model has now passed its peak - companies still trying this on unless they offer really good value for money won't survive.

Cheers
jimbo

wiganken said:

As I see it all backup software is redundant if bootable devices cannot boot so this means that developers will have to make sure their WinPE is updated to ensure bootable devices will work after MS revocations are enforced or they will go out of business.

They also need to tell us that they are working on doing this. It is in their interest to tell us. Why is that you ask? Because people, like me, who are considering buying their backup software will not buy it unless they know boot devices will boot after MS revocations are enforced in first quarter of 2024.

Am I naive to expect Macrium (or any other developer) to tell us they are working on a fix to ensure sales to continue?

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What are these revocations coming into effect next year? I've not seen much about them, got a link?