Why Acronis True Image Wins

Contrary to innumerable claims made by "top-shelf" technical sites, various Microsoft MVP's and even Microsoft itself, Vista's Complete PC Backup and Restore does not create a disk image, or even a clone of your hard disk.

	"After you restore a Windows Vista-based computer by using a Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore image, you may be unable to install certain programs..." The Windows Temp directory is not restored. Microsoft had to rectify the problem in a service pack. Windows activation files (WGA) are not backed up and you must reactivate Vista after performing a complete restore. Those limitations, amongst others, are not the behaviours of either a true disk cloning or true disk imaging backup application. In Vista and Windows 7, you cannot restore any files at all from a Windows Complete PC Backup set. You must create a completely separate file backup using the Microsoft Vista Backup tool. You cannot restore backed up files from a Windows Vista to a Windows XP installation, nor can you restore files from a Windows 7 installation to any other version of Windows. "Notice that Windows 7 backup and restore data can be restored only on a Windows 7 operating system."
	Acronis True Image creates a true disk image. The entire hard disk is cloned into an image therefore all files and folders are restored, without the need for re-activation. Furthermore, unlike with Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore, you can restore individual files from an Acronis True Image backup, to any operating system that can run Acronis True Image.
	Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore is not available on Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home Premium. Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore is only available to Vista Ultimate, Business and Enterprise users.

	Acronis True Image works on all editions of Vista.
	With Vista's file backup, you cannot control the files that are or are not backed up, at all. You cannot specify the directories that you want backed up. You cannot specify the file extensions that you want backed up You cannot specify directories that should be included or excluded. Vista's file backup will search your entire disk drive looking for the files it thinks should be included:
	There is no indication of what Vista Back Up Files considers a "document". None whatsoever. If you have an application that creates, say for example, .qwz document files, then you have no way of knowing if those files will be included in your backup or not. It gets worse. After Vista's file backup has searched your entire disk drive looking for the files it thinks should be included in your backup, it includes them in your backup whether you want them backed up or not. That means if you have, say for example, 20Mb of important files you want to keep, you could easily end up with several gigabytes of unwanted files, and if your documents are .qwz files, as described above, you can end up with 0 bytes of the files you really need to keep.
	Acronis True Image will backup any file or directory that you specify, and it will not include any file that you explicitly do not want.
	kadaitcha.cx does not trust its backups to Windows. kadaitcha.cx uses and recommends only Acronis True Image. kadaitcha.cx is an affiliate of Acronis.