Anyone use Macrium 7 (free edition) to restore a Windows 11 installation?

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys .. I know this is a rather strange question and people will ask " Why not just buy macrium reflect 8?" (which I do plan on doing I just don't have enough money for licenses for all six PC's . will get to that in a minute)

So I was lucky enough to have Macrium Reflect 7 (free version) and so far it installs on my daughter's Win 11 desktop PC which I built myself (so no proprietary Dell or Lenovo or whatever software on the daughter desktop just my own purchased Win product key and a clean Win 11 installation) and macrium reflect 7 (free) also installs on my two acer win 11 laptops and generates backups without any problems.. but I haven't had the guts to actually test it and see if it will successfully restore a Win 11 backup. I was wondering if anyone had tested this and if so if it worked for them in a Win 11 environment?

I do absolutely plan on buying four Macrium 8 licenses for our three desktop PC's and one laptop my wife's own .. but even with the Macrium Black Friday sale prices that I'm desperately hoping they do again this Black Friday 2023 which (hopefully) drops the prices to $35 a license, $140 on four licenses is the most I can afford.. I don't want to whine or bore people with my financial woes but.. at times it's not fun living in Florida .. our car insurance and house insurance prices have effectively doubled (insurance companies HATE Florida for a variety of reasons) and when you combine that with putting two kids through college it really puts a strain on the old wallet. Needless to say the insurance woes happened BEFORE I dropped money on six PC's (except for the two laptops for my kids which I was forced to buy them for school purposes)

So I'm getting a Macrium Reflect 8 license for the three desktop PC's (all are ones I built myself with the Win product key I bought myself that works) .. and a Reflect 8 license for my wife's acer laptop when I upgrade it to Win 11 only because I know she's going to save documents on the C drive instead of on the secondary drive like I keep hoping she will thus the need for backup software ... I'm not too concerned about those PC's far as Win 11 compatibility.

But as far as the daughter and son acer laptops I plan to just cross my fingers and hope that 1) reflect 7 free edition works fine on my son and daughter's Win 11 acer laptops should I need it to restore a Win 11 backup and 2) if not just use the acer bootable rescue media (usb thumb drives) I created and at least restore the son and daughter laptops to their original factory condition (not the greatest outcome)

Sorry yet another long wall of text I know I apologize I'm infamous for those.. basically just wondering if anyone can confirm they've used successfully used Macrium 7 free on a laptop running Win 11 to restore a Win 11 installation (doesn't have to be Acer, HP, compaq, some laptop sold to you by a manufacturer) and they've succeeded in restoring Win 11 from the backup onto the laptop.

thanks so very much to anyone who reads this and responds

 

[djbrad]

I googled and found your question on tomshardware
Someone replied that yes, it works.

And google also reported :

Does Macrium Reflect 7 work with Windows 11?


Support for Reflect on Windows 11

Given that Win 11 is slated for release in late 2021, on release, we will backport all required changes to Reflect 7 to ensure that it too is compatible — as part of our product support policy.2 juill. 2023

 

[andrepartthree]

(looks embarrassed).. it's true I posted on tom's hardware too due to my paranoid always worrying about things nature ... but djbrad thanks so much as always for all your help and for taking the time to look at my question .. I did see macrium reflect's blog type thing where they said at least until July 2023 they will update Macrium Reflect 7 to make sure it's Win 11 compatible I guess it shows you how paranoid I am that I posted here too anyways ...

I guess my big concern is how well Macrium handles laptops. whether it be acer, HP, compaq or what have you ... in the case of a desktop PC you can build it yourself, buy your own copy of Windows and you don't have to worry about say Acer's software or bios built into the laptop saying " Nope you can't do that just buy a new acer laptop instead " so I have that going for my three desktop PC's for myself son and daughter at least ... I have heard that .. different product I know... of people who used Acronis True Image to restore say a HP laptop back from a Acronis image and from what I hear on the 'net Macrium is supposed to beat Acronis hands down .. so hopefully even the free version of Macrium Reflect 7 can handle an acer laptop without any difficulties?

I also find myself wondering if there's a limit to Macrium's kindness in terms of them disabling Macrium 7 free edition from working at all in the future next time it checks itself online against Macrium's servers which I'm guessing it does each time (otherwise I'd just buy one license at $35 and try to content myself knowing that I gave them at least some money .. I'm serious these insurance rate hikes are killing us here in Florida ) ... which is why I'm planning on buying four licenses, three for the desktop PC's and one for my wife's laptop (which see heavy use so it would be a huge pain to have to reinstall everything all over again if macrium 7 suddenly stopped working )

 

[djbrad]

You can still download and use macrium 8 free. Download the home trial from the website and rename the exe to "reflectdl.exe".

Free will then be available in the dropdown menu.

 

[andrepartthree]

reflectdl.exe

Oh my gosh djbrad you are the best .. that worked exactly like you said it would thank you so so much

 

[andrepartthree]

You can still download and use macrium 8 free. Download the home trial from the website and rename the exe to "reflectdl.exe".

Free will then be available in the dropdown menu.

Sorry just one more dumb question I swear .. the renamed macrium reflect 8 file that you just told me about.. have you used it to restore backups of windows ? (and if so was it Win 10, Win 11 ? ).. or do you know of others who have used it for that? Sorry it's my paranoia speakinga again .. but I will absolutely be keeping this around to install if Reflect 7 stops working for Win 11 some day thanks again ( I find myself hoping that Reflect 8 would recognize and let me restore a backup created using Reflect 7 .. I know with Acronis True Image it lets you restore say a backup created using Acronis 2017 software even if you have acronis year 2018 edition software installed so guessing and hoping macrium would do the same)

 

[djbrad]

I used macrium 8 to move my windows 10 install from a gen 3 drive to a gen 4 one, no problem.

I have it installed on my windows 11 main pc, but I never restored a full backup yet with it

Macrium 8 should be able to restore the v7 file, as stated by the FAQ of the software :

Can v8 read and restore images created with Macrium Reflect v6 or v7? Yes, v8 is backwards compatible with all Images and File and Folder backups created with earlier versions of Macrium Reflect.

To remove any doubt, just install macrium 8 on your kids laptop when they come home next time and create a new backup.

It may be hard to do that if you visit them at college without getting : "Did you just came to work on my computer?"

A good thing to do would be to create a macrium v8 recovery usb flash drive to restore their laptop in case of disaster.

Test the recovery procedure to familiarise yourself with it, and if your kids need to use it, you can guide then with a facetime call.

Done it with my mother a few years ago, when Norton Ghost was the way to do.

 

[andrepartthree]

v8 is backwards compatible with all Images and File and Folder backups created with earlier versions of Macrium Reflect.

djbrad again you are awesome thank you so much ... I googled what you said "Yes, v8 is backwards compatible with all Images and File and Folder backups created with earlier versions of Macrium Reflect." .. and when you search that exact sentence it comes right up on Macrium's FAQ

Upgrade FAQ - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

stupid me I should have just done a google search for that exact same thing instead of bothering people about it (slaps head)... but thank you so much .. this is very reassuring

I got a chuckle out of the "did you come to visit me at college just to test out my new laptop" comment .. and cripes Norton Ghost that brings back memories I remember that ! That was the same software I used ages ago too !

 

[Cannon Fodder]

Hi guys .. I know this is a rather strange question and people will ask " Why not just buy macrium reflect 8?" (which I do plan on doing I just don't have enough money for licenses for all six PC's . will get to that in a minute)

[snip]
$140 on four licenses is the most I can afford.

A suggestion for you - maybe you ought to read this thread: Backup software

If you read my most recent post, on page 3, you might find an acceptably priced alternative, given AOMEI's current pricing, i.e. you can get 'Lifetime' licenses for several PCs, for a decent price, OR, if the functionality is enough, you can still get a free version of their backup software.
AOMEI Backupper

 

[andrepartthree]

A suggestion for you - maybe you ought to read this thread: Backup software

If you read my most recent post, on page 3, you might find an acceptably priced alternative, given AOMEI's current pricing, i.e. you can get 'Lifetime' licenses for several PCs, for a decent price, OR, if the functionality is enough, you can still get a free version of their backup software.
AOMEI Backupper

Thanks very much for that, that was a great read very informative (the thread you linked and your comment that is )

And my apologies I should have been more clear on my first post... due to my paranoid nature I don't bother scheduling automated backups of Windows... files get saved on three different hard drives manually every time I make a change to said files or get a new file, one of the "hard drive" locations is a usb thumb drive that.. well I'm hoping Norton's backup feature built into their security software is really doing it's job and backing up the usb files like it should be ... the usb drive has a copy of the most recently changed files since the last time I copied all the files into an external drive that isn't normally connected to the PC and I "point" Norton at that and say " backup those files" (and cross my fingers ) .. so basically I just do my own backup of Windows itself every 3 months on all the PC's in the household, so my demands for backup software aren't really that intense compared to "normal" people (just a system image backup type thing basically of the "C" drive and it's recovery drive partition type thing)

Given that I now have access to free Macrium 8 (thanks again djbrad ) and given that even Macrium 7 seems to be working out for me for now .. and honestly given how many people online can't say enough good things about Macrium ... I'm thinking I'm just going to buy as many licenses as I can afford come Black Friday just to support the company... honestly if it's possible to spread out that $140 year by year (say $35 a year on licenses assuming that they run the BF special each year) it would really help me out .. but bare minimum I plan on buying one of their licenses come BF just to ease my conscience since it looks like they've got a great product ...

I can say from experience when I was trying to troubleshoot a sound problem (stupid me it was a problem with the headphones not a Windows issue like I thought) on the PC and ended up restoring from a Macrium 7 Windows backup of Win 10 it worked flawlessly quickly and easily I was shocked at how smoothly it went compared to say Acronis which used to be my go-to software (now that they've gone into "subscription model only" mode not so much and as I found out Acronis 2017 or older licenses just say "nope" when I try to install them on say a Win 11 laptop anyways).