I’m killing time. Right now I’m waiting for updates and downloads to complete on my office work computer, a machine that I went to great trouble to make bulletproof. For example, I run a top-end Intel SSD and have a disk image backup.
Today, my machine gave me a BSOD after uninstalling a troublesome program. Acronis Enterprise Server. So, just to help people who might have issues or are considering using this program, I though I’d write about it while I wait for the updates to complete, since Acronis forced me to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 Professional.
This is one of this cases where a program started out great, then as corporate weaslism takes hold due to the success, the program becomes more bloated, fragmented, dependent on more libraries, license tiered, and overall more difficult to manage and less rewarding in actual use.
At my office we used to love this program, because it had a great feature that allowed you to image your disk to a state where windows didn’t have anything except the generic/basic boot drivers installed, allowing you to image to another mobo/processor combination. This days are long gone and we’ve relegated Acronis to the scrap heap because it has become an enterprise level mess in more ways than one.
I still had Acronis on my main work machine, but this morning the background program for it started doing weird stuff, utilizing a lot of CPU space. My usual checks for malware/virus came up zero, and I had no explanation for why the Acronis background server program was using a lot of CPU cycles. So, I decided to uninstall it.
Big mistake, HUGE mistake.
After uninstalling Acronis, I found I was in a boot loop, and right after the Win7 animated logo, I’d get a BSOD. Safe mode – same thing, and attempts at OS repair (using Windows tools and third-party tools) came up with no success at all. I also thought it might be related to a recent bungled Microsoft patch which causes a BSOD boot loop after Windows update installs it and the user reboots for the first time, and downloaded the removal tool as a bootable ISO to burn to CD. No joy there either.
I’ve never had the de-installation of a program hose the operating system. Never.
It makes me wonder what sort of “tentacles” Acronis attached to the OS without telling me. So, needless to say, Acronis is now permanently off my list, especially since I had used it as a backup program to keep a disk image. My backup image included the Acronis program, so since trying to remove it caused the problem in the first place I was in a no choice situation – a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro was the only way forward.
I spent the entire morning on the mess Acronis created, and I’ve not got a single thing done today other than deal with that mess.
After a fresh install of Windows 7, which gets me back to the desktop, but of course I have a lot of work ahead putting programs and files back into place, along with 147 Windows updates, and likely more after that.
I know many of you will throw out the standard gloating snippets like:
- Get a Mac
- Run (pick your distro) Linux
- Run FreeBSD or CentOS or some other OS
etc…
…with tales of fantastic other-worldly levels of reliability, so let me just say in advance that until this incident, I have had wonderful reliability with Windows 7 and I have far too much invested in programs and systems to move. So, those aren’t options for me.
Thanks for killing time with me while I wait for the updates to download and install.
I have to reboot now to finish. See you in a few hours.
_Jim says:
May 9, 2013 at 2:10 pm
What’s an “update”? (I think I turned off updates on all but one computer here. Running the latest Service Packs, but that is all.)
======================================================
I have several XP machines that I haven’t updated in 5 years !!!
Works just fine.
I un-installed acronis on a Win 7 machine about a year ago. Can’t remember why now, though I seem to recall it was causing crashes. I’ve moved to Norton Ghost. Windows backup doesn’t run on my machine anymore. Self snipped a paragraph on problems with other operating systems. I’ve seen how those threads turn out and it isn’t pretty!
@Sean, system restore usually will not work in this scenario.
@Anthony, while never been a real fan before, there are some seriously good uses for VMware and Hypervisor. You can build an image from your revitalized machine, or from Windows 7/8, Server, etc., then install that in the VM. You can make copies of the VM in stable form and store it. And, you can then map removable media as a network drive through the VM system for your data. I got my Surface Pro running images of a USB 3.0 Toshiba 1.5TB drive and storing data on it. I was impressed enough that I will get a full copy of VMware 9 when things slow down. I was able to build a firewall and a management server and run it on a Surface (for config testing), and a Windows client. And just turn it off when I am done with no effect on my computer. Kind of nice. And Acronis can BSOD the VM session all it wants…
Not nice! Good luck with it all – I hate headaches like that one!
I agree with you, they get a great product and can’t stop fiddling about or adding to it until it is totally ruined. You’d think someone Up High would realize that and stick with what works. All trying to outdo each other, or last year’s whatever-was-best. They want people to keep buying new stuff, or old stuff with more bells and whistles, then force them to by removing the old stuff!
Sympathies, mate.
All fascinating stuff, not only from Anthony, which was very interesting, but also from the commentators. Thanks, lads (guys and gals)! Me, I gave up on Acronis a long time ago, but only because the back-up was so slow.
…I know many of you will throw out the standard gloating snippets like: Get a Mac/ Linux/BSD/ CentOS/etc…with tales of fantastic other-worldly levels of reliability, so let me just say in advance that until this incident, I have had wonderful reliability with Windows 7 and I have far too much invested in programs and systems to move. So, those aren’t options for me…”
Not said with gloating, and acknowledging that handling a problem and a forced rebuild is not a time you should be thinking about changing your O/S as well, but the belief that you have too much invested in ANYTHING to consider changing it is a dangerous state of mind to be in. For example, Mann, Hansen and Phil Jones all have too much invested in Global Warming to consider that it might not be right.
All O/Ss can get into situations where they fail. So I wouldn’t take an occasional failure as a necessary reason to change. But If I found the price/performance of my chosen system to be heading downward compared to the alternatives, I’d like to think that I was able to consider them dispassionately, and maybe make a plan for moving over at some time of my own choosing, rather than bite the bullet of a steadily worsening service because I simply could not consider an alternative…
Unfortunately, I think all these ‘disk manager’ programs will at some stage walk on something from the OS. I had McAfee do it, Norton Ghost did it (and kept on reappearing after complete re-installs like a ghost 😉 ) So far I have had no problem with Acronis (yet) but then I am not being at all inventive with its use. Its the old thing though keep backups of backups, keep data on separate disks to the OS. Have a spare mirrored machine with same software and NAS disk copy. I also keep a soft copy of the installation software and license keys on a ‘Software’ folder – that has saved me several times.
But with all computer systems and raid drives – it is a case of WHEN they fail not IF. It is not paranoia it is reality
Big user of Acronis Disk Director here, and I like it, it does all I want especially with my virtual machines.
But, regardless, a massive failure like this is a serious PITA!
I had exactly the same issue with a client computer last week. There are tons of articles you’ll fine about their upper filters drivers not being gone after an uninstall and if you do remove the files they point to – viola – you get your bsod on a reboot. And same observations – used to love it, recommend it but it’s become bloatware trying to push their cloud backup. They have a published uninstall tool, but they warn that it might not work either. WUWT?
I can empathise
Typically, these days, I just do backup with Microsoft’s own little disk2vhd program. This gives you a nice vhd file which you can mount and restore as you will, or in a pinch can be mounted as a whole pc with a program like virtualbox or Microsoft’s own hyper-v (which now comes with Win8 Pro).
Also, the built in Microsoft server backup tools in 2008 and 2012 server work fine. Not so much call to buy 3rd party backup programs anymore unless you are looking for a specific feature.
I use ‘Reflect’ to clone/move/upgrade people to SSD drives from Mechanical Drives because it’s one of the few ‘Acronis’ like programs, that, unlike Acronis, will align the partitions as needed for best speed with an SSD drive.
I have an older free version of Acronis on an old XP machine suffering BSODs.
In my case, I’m blaming bad drivers or a bad memory stick or a malware infection.
Some of the error messages encountered…
0x0000008e
coxc0000005
0x80611c3c
0xa9317c00
0x00000000
And the biggy?
win32k,sys 0x00000050
http://www.aumha.org/a/stop.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894278
There’s no such thing as as a perfect operating system. As far as my experienced is concerned with various OS, the principle differences are all acquired through habits. Windows captured the world market by MS arranging for the OS and previously DOS to be installed on every machine sold. There nothing wrong with either. Personally, I use Linux at home, releases varies. I have XP on an under the desk system and Windows 7 on a laptop. The biggest handicap Linux has had is the absence of user-level documentation – it all used to be in what I called the language of “man,” – as in “% man ls” – which is designed for grumpy sophonts whose keyboards are full of beard dandruff. Windows and Apple were always – or used to be -superior in documentation, bu the rise of pdfs and cds has put a serious crimp in that. There’s nothing dumber than “help” that requires a connection to the internet, when your problem is getting a computer to boot.
No, I’m not going to suggest that you get a Mac. But reading through these comments, it sure reminds me how happy I am to have bitten the bullet and switched years ago. However much pain was involved in the switchover, it was finite – compared with the unrelenting agony of Windows.
Life is too short for Windows.
Backups?
You can have your cake and eat it too Anthony. Buy a mac, and run Windows 7 in a VMware Fusion virtual machine. Take snapshots all you like to preserve state, and restore back to a known config if things go south.
Virtualization is your friend 🙂
Acronis, just like Hotel California: you can check out any time you want but you can never leave
Hi Anthony,
You just might want to be a bit suspicious of your boot drive, or wherever you are storing your system. I had an SSD problem last week along similar lines. Removing Acronis and having your system BSOD might have been a symptom rather than the cause.
Corrupting disk files on the system disk can cause things going wrong that cause a system repair or other such utilities to find the issue.
For me, I locally backup to Windows Home Server 2011, and it has a bare metal restore function. Really saves the day.
SSD’s as boot/system drives for me are incredible time savers. But, I do find the early ones fail a bit more than hard drives, so use a bit of caution. Now that you had one failure, you might want to have a backup facility that would allow a bare metal rebuild quickly. Worst thing would be to go through the pain of a total rebuild, only to be hit by the same problem.
The Apple Tax: A dollar a day
The Apple Pax: Priceless.
Some things are priceless.
For everything else, there’s Windows.
(A dolor a day.)
Incidentally, One can continue to run Windows on a Mac, and gradually migrate over to using the Mac more often.
I do a lot of development in a VM workstation environment. I really like it, Get a solid machine, set up the VM, which is simply a file on the host. Problems? Grab a backup of the file and you are golden…
Ditto the comments on Acronis, the Home version booted from CD or USB key works well enough, but it doesn’t support “server” versions of Windows. I’ve never been happy with the installed version. And I have never found the option to make an image bootable on any system usable. When moving images I just let Windows boot using whatever default drivers it needs and then find and install whatever is needed. That usually works well.
Clonezilla appears to work well too. But the user interface is less than friendly. If you know Linux and have been doing Linux admin for years its mostly recognizable and usable.
ditto on the Clonezilla
and ditto on the VM, predicated on your having very current multi-core cpu and lots of ram
And couldn’t you just have restored with your backup, and then just turned off and ignored the Acronis, rather than uninstalling?
I’ve hung on to my Ghost 7.5 version which was about when they got NTFS support right. Coworkers recommend Clonezilla, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet.
One tool I can’t do without is GRC’s Spinrite, which has rescued many hard drives when they’ve gotten flakey. (Even SSD, on level 2 scan.)
I’m even local! Chico is my adopted home town.
kadaka says:
“Backups?”
LOL!
Me, too. On a wing and a prayer! [well, I do have a basic Time Machine].
[ I would advise Anthony to upgrade to a Mac… but I don’t want to get on his sh*t list. ☺]
I run all my Windows instances within VMware ESXi Server (free). I make incremental copies of each vm. I run the vm’s on Macs, but one could run it on anything.
I’ve never had a linux distro that I couldn’t hose. All OSes are junk. Things sure were better back in the TRS-80 days.
Acronis? Yuk!
Try Macrium Reflect!
Simpler, faster, and way more reliable.