Solved One gripe about Macrium Reflect backup software (no help needed, just rant)

hsehestedt · Feb 28, 2023

Macrium Reflect has to be one of my favorite pieces of software. There is just one thing about it that bugs me: The antiquated activation method that they use.

To explain what I mean, let's take the example of Microsoft 365 (previously Office 365). Let's say that I plan to reinstall Windows from scratch. I can wipe out my current Windows installation and reinstall, then after having reinstalled Windows I can go to my account on the Microsoft website and deactivate my license, freeing it up to be reinstalled again.

Many companies use something similar. In other words, they all have a self-help portal where you can manage your licenses.

With Macrium Reflect, you need to first deactivate your license on your system. There is no way to go online and address it off-system. In my case, I had a long running, production VM that was in service for about a year. I made the decision to destroy that VM and set it up from scratch on a new system. I could swear that I first deactivated my license and uninstalled Reflect before destroying that VM, but that must not have happened because I got a nag stating that my license was already in use when I installed Reflect on my new VM.

I ended up having to open a support case with Macrium, which is rather annoying because you then need to wait a couple of days for a response.

Ironically, because this is backup software, I suppose that I could have restored my VM, deactivated my license, then destroy the VM again, but even that is a lot of hassle.

Sorry for the rant, this issue simply annoyed me enough that I felt like I needed a quick rant

.

glasskuter · Feb 28, 2023

Ranting is good for the soul. I gotten more peevish and less accepting as I've gotten older. A good gripe does wonders for freeing the mind. Stick around. I'm long overdue for one of my own. Any day, now.

cereberus · Feb 28, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Macrium Reflect has to be one of my favorite pieces of software. There is just one thing about it that bugs me: The antiquated activation method that they use.

To explain what I mean, let's take the example of Microsoft 365 (previously Office 365). Let's say that I plan to reinstall Windows from scratch. I can wipe out my current Windows installation and reinstall, then after having reinstalled Windows I can go to my account on the Microsoft website and deactivate my license, freeing it up to be reinstalled again.

Many companies use something similar. In other words, they all have a self-help portal where you can manage your licenses.

With Macrium Reflect, you need to first deactivate your license on your system. There is no way to go online and address it off-system. In my case, I had a long running, production VM that was in service for about a year. I made the decision to destroy that VM and set it up from scratch on a new system. I could swear that I first deactivated my license and uninstalled Reflect before destroying that VM, but that must not have happened because I got a nag stating that my license was already in use when I installed Reflect on my new VM.

I ended up having to open a support case with Macrium, which is rather annoying because you then need to wait a couple of days for a response.

Ironically, because this is backup software, I suppose that I could have restored my VM, deactivated my license, then destroy the VM again, but even that is a lot of hassle.

Sorry for the rant, this issue simply annoyed me enough that I felt like I needed a quick rant .

They allow you to activate on new pc before deactivating on old pc. TBH, I am not sure they really check that much - it comes down to honesty.

hsehestedt · Feb 28, 2023

cereberus said:
They allow you to activate on new pc before deactivating on old pc. TBH, I am not sure they really check that much - it comes down to honesty.

That's an interesting observation. I did notice that even though I got a nag about the license already being in use, Reflect worked perfectly fine. I sort of assumed that it might gripe after some period of time, but maybe it doesn't.

Bree · Feb 28, 2023

hsehestedt said:
With Macrium Reflect, you need to first deactivate your license on your system. There is no way to go online and address it off-system. In my case, I had a long running, production VM that was in service for about a year. I made the decision to destroy that VM and set it up from scratch on a new system. I could swear that I first deactivated my license and uninstalled Reflect before destroying that VM, but that must not have happened because I got a nag stating that my license was already in use when I installed Reflect on my new VM.

I had the opposite problem, two machines apparently happily activated with the same key.

When Windows 11 22000.51 (the very first Insider build) was released I transferred a system image of Windows 10 and all my installed apps from my old unsupported 'main machine' to a new supported device (to become my System One below) then upgraded that to 11. I ran that alongside my old machine for 3 months until just before the official release. Then I re-imaged the Windows 10 and let Windows Update offer it the official Windows 11 upgrade.

It was a week or so into my 'test run' upgrade that I realised I hadn't deactivated Reflect before cloning. Both machines were now activated with the same key. My dilemma was, should I deactivate one of them? And if so, would I risk loosing my licence for both, perhaps rendering it permanently lost? In the end I decided I didn't dare risk changing anything and kept my fingers crossed that Macrium wouldn't notice.

cereberus said:
TBH, I am not sure they really check that much - it comes down to honesty.

Apparently they don't check that much. Neither machine made the slightest complaint in the three months I ran them that way. Come the end of my test migration I made sure I removed the Reflect key from the old machine (leaving Reflect installed as Reflect Free) before making the final transfer image, then activated it once it was on the new machine.

Ghot · Feb 28, 2023

@hsehestedt

Harrison Ford said it was easier getting the "Ark of the Covenant" than it was to activate Macrium Reflect.

I'd have to agree. Activating Macrium is ridiculously complex even without VMs. LOL

cereberus · Feb 28, 2023

I never bother install Reflect in a Hyper-V virtual machine.

All you need to do is mount the vhdx as a drive and then image backup the vhdx drive from host OS installation of Reflect.

This does not violate any licencing. It is faster as well.

badrobot · Feb 28, 2023

The deactivation probably will just take some time. Like when I remove a device from my VPN account so that I can use it on another device. Even though it is done online and you can check which devices are connected or not, the removal from the "system" is not instant. You have to wait at least 24hrs I think. Not sure how long for Macrium. Just thinking out loud.

pparks1 · Feb 28, 2023

Yeah, kind of wish a new activation would just deactivate the previous one.

hsehestedt · Feb 28, 2023

cereberus said:
I never bother install Reflect in a Hyper-V virtual machine.

All you need to do is mount the vhdx as a drive and then image backup the vhdx drive from host OS installation of Reflect.

This does not violate any licencing. It is faster as well.

You have a really point, but it brings up a question that I don't have sorted in my mind...

The VM in question is something that I run "in production" pretty much 24 x 7. In order to back it up by mounting the vhdx, I would first need to stop the VM, right? I would suspect that I could not simply mount it as read-only because Macrium Reflect would need to create a snapshot on that volume.

By running the backup from within the VM, I avoid that situation, and this allows me to do the backup while the VM continues to run.

If you know of a workaround to this, I would love to hear it, but I suspect that my need to run this VM almost non-strop is a bit of a deal breaker for the method that you suggest.

cereberus · Mar 2, 2023

hsehestedt said:
You have a really point, but it brings up a question that I don't have sorted in my mind...

The VM in question is something that I run "in production" pretty much 24 x 7. In order to back it up by mounting the vhdx, I would first need to stop the VM, right? I would suspect that I could not simply mount it as read-only because Macrium Reflect would need to create a snapshot on that volume.

By running the backup from within the VM, I avoid that situation, and this allows me to do the backup while the VM continues to run.

If you know of a workaround to this, I would love to hear it, but I suspect that my need to run this VM almost non-strop is a bit of a deal breaker for the method that you suggest.

Yeah - in that case you are probably correct. However, you could try a file and folder backup from host. In theory, as vhdx is a file, vss should enable you to back it up? I will test it some time.

edit: it seems to file backup ok. I need to test restore though.

edit 2: it restored fine (I restored to different location) and I mounted vhdx as a native boot drive, and it worked.

Of course, you would have to test it yourself to see if it is reliable i.e. if vhdx is rapidly changing would vss cope - is there a size limit (my vhdx file worked with 40 GB host install)?

Next test is if I can make incrementals LOL.

edit 3: if vhdx was in a separate partition, (in theory) you could just use normal image backup rather than file backup which is faster .

hsehestedt · Mar 2, 2023

Thanks for taking the time to do all that testing. I may switch over to your method. That would also have the added benefit of freeing up one Reflect license

cereberus · Mar 2, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Thanks for taking the time to do all that testing. I may switch over to your method. That would also have the added benefit of freeing up one Reflect license

Obviously test it thoroughly. It might be prudent to pause the vm for a few minutes to minimise vss interaction.

hsehestedt · Mar 2, 2023

Absolutely will test! I'm too paranoid about my data especially after the weird silent data corruption I had over the past couple days.

I ran a checksum against a known good copy of all my data overnight (about 8 TB) and I came through this fine, with all copies of data good.

I also replaced all network cables today with brand spanking new Cat 7 cabling.

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