# Windows system image



## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

I just had to reinstall Windows on my laptop that I did not have a saved system image like I do for my desktops (my bad).

But question: why is this feature not easier to find in Windows 10? Have to drill down through a bunch of backup options and then more or advanced options to find it and then it is still called: Backup and restore, Windows 7. Why on earth isn't this more prominent... and why isn't the "Windows 7" moniker dropped??


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## tristar (Aug 12, 2008)

It's easy, Start-->Type 'Backup' and you get the option, can't think of an easier way :grin:


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

Yeah, I need to remember to do that... Going in through control panel ... uggghhh. I just don't do this often enough. I think I am going to set up a reminder to re-image my machines every 3 months or so.




tristar said:


> It's easy, Start-->Type 'Backup' and you get the option, can't think of an easier way :grin:


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

You should not be using the Windows built-in system imaging utility anyway, per Microsoft's own instructions. They deprecated this utility (or one of its core components, anyway) several years back and state directly that one should use a third-party backup and restore utility of one's own choosing. And there are scads of them like Macrium Reflect, Paragon, EaseUS To Do, and others that do the job better and have a much nicer UI.

Microsoft Announcement of Deprecated Features, including SIB [Backup and Restore (Windows 7)]

The "(Windows 7)" part is retained to indicate the utility's origins and that it is not really considered to be a Windows 10 based utility.

Do as Microsoft directly suggests and find a third-party utility of your choosing.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

OK, that makes more sense.... although I hate to have to pay $ for something that should be built into the OS, IMO. MS has a way of killing off a lot of useful stuff.



britechguy said:


> You should not be using the Windows built-in system imaging utility anyway, per Microsoft's own instructions. They deprecated this utility (or one of its core components, anyway) several years back and state directly that one should use a third-party backup and restore utility of one's own choosing. And there are scads of them like Macrium Reflect, Paragon, EaseUS To Do, and others that do the job better and have a much nicer UI.
> 
> Microsoft Announcement of things removed/deprecated as of Fall Creators Update, including SIB [Backup and Restore (Windows 7)]
> 
> ...


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

All of the utilities I mentioned have free versions for home users.

I use EaseUS To Do simply because the user interface is the most "dummy friendly" and it's hard to get people to even institute a cyclic backup plan, which is an essential part of computer ownership (at least if you consider your data valuable, and most do, but don't acknowledge that until a major loss occurs).

Paragon is very nice and Macrium Reflect (even the free version) is a "geek's dream" in terms of the number of bells, whistles, and options it possesses. It's also very well known to be very, very reliable.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

I actually have the EaseUS partition manager on one of my desktops. I'll have look at it to see if that also has the image creation feature or if that is a separate EaseUS app.



britechguy said:


> All of the utilities I mentioned have free versions for home users.
> 
> I use EaseUS To Do simply because the user interface is the most "dummy friendly" and it's hard to get people to even institute a cyclic backup plan, which is an essential part of computer ownership (at least if you consider your data valuable, and most do, but don't acknowledge that until a major loss occurs).
> 
> Paragon is very nice and Macrium Reflect (even the free version) is a "geek's dream" in terms of the number of bells, whistles, and options it possesses. It's also very well known to be very, very reliable.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

Even if it does, it makes no sense to use a Partition Manager for this task.

They have EaseUS To Do Backup as a dedicated utility, and that utility will not allow you to make the potential mistakes one could make in a partition manager.

Download it and use it if you like EaseUS products.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

OK, I see it is a separate app, EaseUS ToDo. Thanks for getting me on the right track.

One final question: is the system image created by EaseUS useable directly by Windows 10 Recovery or does one need to install EaseUS ToDo on the new HDD and install it with that?


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

I don't even know what you're referring to by "Windows 10 Recovery."

Part of installing EaseUS To Do and, in fact, most backup and recovery suites, is the creation of a USB drive or DVD that acts as bootable media in the event an actual recovery is needed. When a recovery is needed, at least in most cases, it's because the Windows operating system cannot be booted at all.

Macrium Reflect actually allows you to install the recovery part on a separate partition of the disk drive, and if you elect to do that when you boot the computer you will be presented with a boot menu asking if you want to boot into Windows or the recovery manager. This is just a way of avoiding having to create recovery media with Windows PE that's part of it, and that users often lose. But you end up with that menu at boot time.

I just create the recovery disc on USB and store it in "my tech drawer," labeled, in the event I should ever need it.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

If you are in the Windows repair/recovery that runs on the X: drive or from a bootable Windows 10 recovery DVD or USB drive one of the advanced options is: restore from a system image.... using the image created via Windows 7 restore and backup.



britechguy said:


> I don't even know what you're referring to by "Windows 10 Recovery."
> 
> Part of installing EaseUS To Do and, in fact, most backup and recovery suites, is the creation of a USB drive or DVD that acts as bootable media in the event an actual recovery is needed. When a recovery is needed, at least in most cases, it's because the Windows operating system cannot be booted at all.
> 
> ...


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

Then the answer to your question would be, "No, it does not work with Windows Recovery."

What you describe is pretty much analogous to what gets created, in its own form, as the recovery drive for a specific backup and recovery product. They each want their own specific bits, which makes perfect sense. They're all based on Windows PE, but there's lots of other vendor specific elements, too.

Note that even in your own example the message is pretty clear that the expected image would have been created by the now-deprecated built-in backup utility. It's right there in the part that reads, "using the image created via Windows 7 restore and backup."

There are many different ways that system images can be created, much like there are many different ways a word processing document can be created based on what program you used to create it. The recovery process is specific to the system image and what created it. That's why they're generally called backup and recovery suites. The two halves go together and you can't "mix and match" across products.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

Those were my words, not MS's. Alls it says is restore from a system image, but back then the only way I ever did it was with the Win7 utility. Looks like I'll have to figure out the restore process with EaseUS. The backup process is dead simple so far, running right now on one desktop.



britechguy said:


> Then the answer to your question would be, "No, it does not work with Windows Recovery."
> It's right there in the part that reads, "using the image created via Windows 7 restore and backup."


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

The restore process is also pretty darned simple, unless someone finds booting from USB to be difficult.

You should have been asked when you installed EaseUS To Do whether you wanted to create the recovery drive. If you weren't, or you skipped it, I know that the option exists inside the backup side of the suite to do so at a later date. You will need to do this if you intend to practice a recovery, which is a very good idea.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

No, it didn't ask me. Maybe it will when the backup completes. That's how windows 7 image backup works. I already have several Windows 10 bootable DVD and USB recovery drives. Too bad they won't work with the EaseUS images.



britechguy said:


> The restore process is also pretty darned simple, unless someone finds booting from USB to be difficult.
> 
> You should have been asked when you installed EaseUS To Do whether you wanted to create the recovery drive. If you weren't, or you skipped it, I know that the option exists inside the backup side of the suite to do so at a later date. You will need to do this if you intend to practice a recovery, which is a very good idea.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

britechguy said:


> You should not be using the Windows built-in system imaging utility anyway, per Microsoft's own instructions. They deprecated this utility (or one of its core components, anyway) several years back and state directly that one should use a third-party backup and restore utility of one's own choosing


Point of clarification: Deprecated means no longer being developed in Microsoft language.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

Well, since I have EaseUS to do on this box, I just fired it up and checked.

In the Tools menu (wrench icon at bottom) one of the options is "Create Emergency Disk," which is the recovery portion of the suite.

This is generally a slow process unless you have very fast internet, as Windows PE is downloaded as part of the process, and that's not a small download. I mention this in case you might have data caps at home in which case I'd wait until I am on an unlimited data internet connection.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

So what do they call what they did to Media Center not porting it to Windows 10? I used to use that for OTA channel guide and DVR until I upgraded my HTPC only to find it was gone. What a PITA that was... but I'm now using PLEX DVR which filled the gap for a few $.



Corday said:


> Point of clarification: Deprecated means no longer being developed in Microsoft language.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

I have already done that and burned the DVD. It didn't take very long at all. My Internet connection is about 225 Mb/s. Now to test it.



britechguy said:


> Well, since I have EaseUS to do on this box, I just fired it up and checked.
> 
> In the Tools menu (wrench icon at bottom) one of the options is "Create Emergency Disk," which is the recovery portion of the suite.
> 
> This is generally a slow process unless you have very fast internet, as Windows PE is downloaded as part of the process, and that's not a small download. I mention this in case you might have data caps at home in which case I'd wait until I am on an unlimited data internet connection.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

Just tested the boot DVD and it worked fine. It took a good while to load the recovery environment but it works. I didn't actually test a full recovery but found the backup and took it all the way except to click "proceed". Only issue was that in this mode the some of the drive letters were changed... guess it isn't seeing the removable SD/CF drives etc. I'll also have to make a USB recovery drive for my laptop since it doesn't have an optical drive.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

I have never seen a recovery suite that "sees" removable drives by default, other than the source drive for the backup. The backup side also doesn't generally see them, or back them up, either.

A system image backup is supposed to be for fixed drives, and very often it's strictly for the OS system drive. If you have your data on either another physical drive or a separate partition on the same drive (which would have a different drive letter) it's not going to get picked up by default for certain types of backups. You need to look at exactly which drives are part of that backup.

This is one of the reasons, even when there is only a C: drive with everything on it, that I suggest that a full system image and separate user data backup be taken. It takes longer to "dig out" user data from a system image than it does to just take a dedicated user data backup.

Under Windows 10 (and 8.1, too) I love the built-in File History utility for keeping user data backed up.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

I wasn't expecting it to, just noting for anyone reading that I had to browse to find the drive with the image backup since it didn't have the same letter as when I made the backup. I have 4 SSDs and HDDs on this machine but still not really a big deal.



britechguy said:


> I have never seen a recovery suite that "sees" removable drives other than the source drive for the backup. The backup side also doesn't generally see them, or back them up, either.


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## jenae (Jun 17, 2008)

Hi, actually the MS system image still works I ran one yesterday on a test machine, although Brian is correct MS did say it was deprecated, and you would be better off using one of the free one's already mentioned. Just thought you might like to know, some of MS' announcements do not bear fruit, this appears to be one such case, since it is still part of the RE and still works.

Note:- you need to go to troubleshoot, then advanced then use the more recovery options at the bottom of the page.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

jenae said:


> . . . some of MS' announcements do not bear fruit, this appears to be one such case, . . .


Well, I've seen plenty of these announcements result in "snatched fruit" long after the announcement.

Let me be clear, too, you are absolutely correct that the old windows built-in system image backup utility still functions. I did not mean to give the impression that it does not.

It's never been a great one, though, and its backups tended to be much larger in size on a backup drive than those of other products, and this can make a big difference if you're backing up multiple machines to the same drive and/or like to keep multiple prior images.

Any time I read anything from Microsoft declaring a given thing deprecated I take that as meaning, "It may still be available at the moment, but we're no longer developing it and we could pull it via Windows Update with no additional warning." I don't ever want to get caught out with regard to something as critical as backups.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

That's exactly how I felt about Media Center. I have a HTPC that I use as a DVR, streaming server, and security cam recorder. I used Media Center for many many years with Win 7 for the DVR and media part. It got to the where I needed a more powerful system so built a new PC and got Win 10. No Media Center?? Huh? Yet it was still supported for Win 7 for like 5 more years (at the time). They killed a bunch of us cable cutters with that move. Fortunately some 3rd parties filled the gap and I am mostly happy with PLEX even though I had to go premium for those features.



britechguy said:


> Well, I've seen plenty of these announcements result in "snatched fruit" long after the announcement.
> L


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## Pursya (Feb 27, 2008)

Recommending Macrium Reflect free version.
I've yet to have to do a restore, but the backup process is quick and reliable.
Updates are also quick and easy.
Only thing with the free version is the pestering to get you to go with the paid version.


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## spaceconsulting (Jun 24, 2010)

Warning: Do yourself a favor and use Macrium Reflect Free. I have tried others which appeared to work. Then when I needed to restore, I found that the restore could not be done from the "new" version of the software. What good is a backup if the restore cannot be done? I can't tell you which ones will always work, I can just tell you that I have been burned on several occasions.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

spaceconsulting said:


> Then when I needed to restore, I found that the restore could not be done from the "new" version of the software. What good is a backup if the restore cannot be done?


I have nothing against Macrium Reflect Free, and have recommended it, but *any time a backup and recovery suite gets a version update* the first thing you should do is to *take a new baseline full system image* with that version.

The vast majority of backup and recovery suites will be perfectly capable of using a backup from a prior version to do a recovery, but why on earth ever risk that?


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## ernmas (Jan 13, 2012)

Try this
Type control panel in the search bar when found open and windows 7 old feature is back if want just mount to task bar and its there always
Best luck!


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

ernmas said:


> Try this
> Type control panel in the search bar when found open and windows 7 old feature is back if want just mount to task bar and its there always
> Best luck!


You would benefit, greatly, if you took the time to read through entire topics before responding.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

Since I had just reinstalled windows on this laptop and taken an image with the Ease US ToDo image tool I decided to do a full test of the restore feature... and it worked great and pretty fast.

I just installed the free version on all my PCs but I wonder how smooth the transition will be when the 30 day trial period is up. Hope not too many sales pitches and such. Thing is even though I don't really need the additional features of the pay versions I would consider buying a license for a product like this even as a home user if they made it good for multiple PCs, like Malware Bytes does.


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## spaceconsulting (Jun 24, 2010)

Raylo...Again...Warning: Do yourself a favor and use Macrium Reflect Free. 5 years from now when you can't find the original software and need to do a restore, it will still be around and will still be backwards compatible.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

> taken an image with the Ease US ToDo image tool I


 EaseUS has been in business longer then Macrium. They are not going out of business any time soon. Macrium is a great product but EaseUs is actually more user friendly. I recommend them both. Free versions of clone software rarely see USB External drives, but All Paid versions do. After the 30 day trial, you will have to decide to pay for it or now. It is well worth the cost, if you are going to be Imaging or Cloning your drive more then once, like once a month or whenever.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

spaceconsulting said:


> Raylo...Again...Warning: Do yourself a favor and use Macrium Reflect Free. 5 years from now when you can't find the original software and need to do a restore, it will still be around and will still be backwards compatible.


I'm afraid your fears are unfounded.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

spaceconsulting said:


> Raylo...Again...Warning: Do yourself a favor and use Macrium Reflect Free. 5 years from now when you can't find the original software and need to do a restore, it will still be around and will still be backwards compatible.


And Macy's closed another 125 stores today.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

If you create an Image with a particular software, it may have proprietary extension to the file that only that software can open, (ie) *Image.cbm*. However if you rename that extension to *.iso* (ie)* image.iso* or image.img, these extensions are universally recognized and can be opened by most software if the software company is out of business.


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## spaceconsulting (Jun 24, 2010)

Stancestans said:


> I'm afraid your fears are unfounded.


No, my "fears" unfortunately are NOT unfounded. I have been burned before by more than one backup software. Once I had a perfectly good backup (which I tested to make sure) and tried to do a restore, but the updated version of the software was not compatible with the backup which was made with an earlier version some years before. I couldn't believe it, but it was true; who would ever think that a newer version of the same software was not compatible with a backup made from a previous version of the same software. I did not keep a backup version of the original backup software, I only had a newer version. I had no way of reverting to the earlier version, so I could not restore. Another time I used backup software that came from a disk drive manufacturer when I bought a new hard drive. It seemed like good software, UNTIL years later when that disk drive failed, and I replaced it with one from a different manufacturer. Only then did I find out that the software was deliberately "crippled" and would only work with a hard drive that was from that one manufacturer. The backup I had made was not usable unless I was willing to purchase another hard drive from the same manufacturer, which I was not about to do. I mean, first the drive failed, and then I couldn't restore because the software they gave me was crippled. No way I was going to buy from them again. I am sure there are numerous good backup software programs, but I am just saying that I have run into problems in the past that were very frustrating. I haven't had any problems with Macrium Reflect so I recommend it, but to each his own. A backup is only good if you can restore it (which might be quite some time later).


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## stevsays (May 6, 2010)

Boot to start up menu, to see if there is a restore partition. Don't forget to take note of your windows product key - just in case.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

spaceconsulting said:


> No, my "fears" unfortunately are NOT unfounded.


Yes, they are. You do not seem to recognize that you had an experience that can only be described as an outlier.

Those of us who've been circling this block for decades now can say, with great certainty, that your fears - and insistence that only Macrium Reflect is suitable for use - are absolutely unfounded. Macrium Reflect is a fine, fine product. So are many others that have been around "since dirt."


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

spaceconsulting said:


> A backup is only good if you can restore it (which might be quite some time later).


A years-old backup is virtually useless, by the way, even if it could be restored. This is even more true in the age of Windows 10.

Anyone using backup and recovery software who doesn't take these multiple times per year is kidding themselves if they think they'll have anything of real use on a restore from a years-old backup.

The whole point is to take backups on regular intervals, determined by things like amounts of new user data generated over a "typical" time period, and on-demand, off-cycle intervals when tons of new software have been installed or lots of new user data has been created/uploaded that it's essential be backed up.

Backups are really not meant to be a factory restore partition substitute.


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## spaceconsulting (Jun 24, 2010)

britechguy said:


> Yes, they are. You do not seem to recognize that you had an experience that can only be described as an outlier.
> 
> Those of us who've been circling this block for decades now can say, with great certainty, that your fears - and insistence that only Macrium Reflect is suitable for use - are absolutely unfounded. Macrium Reflect is a fine, fine product. So are many others that have been around "since dirt."


Britechguy, I did not insist that only Macrium is suitable. Maybe my recommendation came out a little strong, so sorry if it seemed that I implied that. I stated the exact opposite as follows: "I am sure there are numerous good backup software programs". I was just offering that for years I have had very good experience with Macrium and further it is free and doesn't expire. The softwares that I had trouble with were popular programs that at the time had great reviews and many (including me) put trust in, but they let me down when I needed them. 

Britechguy, I agree with you that usually old backups are not very usable, and you need to make frequent backups. But you never really know. Some of my older computers I only use once or twice a year (they have old software that will no longer run on modern operating systems, and in this case it makes no sense to try to transfer and translate some of the data files to new software on a new machine; just not worth the cost or effort for these archived applications). If something goes wrong with them, I will have to use an old backup. I don't make many backups of these because I rarely change much on them and I only take them out and set them up when I need to use them again. As for my everyday computers, yes I agree that you need to keep frequent backups or you will have a difficult time trying to restore and update if the backup is very old.


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## britechguy (Dec 6, 2019)

spaceconsulting said:


> Maybe my recommendation came out a little strong, so sorry if it seemed that I implied that.


That is the implication when you double down, which you did, but I thank you very much for posting your clarification, which is exactly what should occur if one's words are misinterpreted.

I will say, though, that your own post (#37) verifies my assertion regarding your experiences being outliers. Your own words strongly suggest or specifically state you were not using longstanding backup & recovery software like Macrium Reflect, EaseUS To Do, AOMEI Backupper, Paragon Backup & Recovery, or similar. Drive manufacturer specific utilities are problematic, or can be.

I have never, ever, had one of these well-known utilities not be able to recover from backups made from earlier versions of themselves (except if the backup itself has become corrupted, which can happen, though it is rare).


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## spaceconsulting (Jun 24, 2010)

britechguy said:


> Your own words strongly suggest or specifically state you were not using longstanding backup & recovery software like Macrium Reflect, EaseUS To Do, AOMEI Backupper, Paragon Backup & Recovery, or similar. Drive manufacturer specific utilities are problematic, or can be.
> 
> Actually, in one instance I was using one of these. Keep in mind it was many years ago, and I believe the software was in its infancy. In the other case, I also believe it was one of these, but not the "official" version, but a crippled version licensed only for the one hard drive manufacturer at the time.
> 
> The reason I was not more specific about which programs I had trouble with and more exact circumstances is because it was many years ago and I don't want to say something negative about specific software unless I am sure I recall everything correctly. The point I was trying to make is to be careful which software you choose, and I offered up one recommendation that has been reliable for me. As stated previously, my recommendation may have come out a bit strong, and I did not mean to imply there are no other good choices. I am confident that you have more experience to make good recommendations, more so than I do.


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