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Macrium Reflect 5.0 is available as a downloadable application. I'll walk you through the process of downloading and installing the program.
The first step to backing up is selecting and installing backup software.
As a result, in this first step in our series about backing up with Macrium Reflect, I'll do just that - download and install the current version of Macrium Reflect 5.0.
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Macrium Reflect
The first place to start is the Macrium website.
Click the Download Free Trial button near the lower right.
This will take you to the c|net download center where you'll need to click Download Now to complete the download.
The downloaded at this stage is not actually Macrium itself, but rather an installer. After downloading, run it and you'll be presented with a dialog box in which you'll select which version of Macrium that you want:
If you've already purchased the program, select Full version and copy in the license key where requested. Otherwise, simply select Trial installer and the Standard version.
Be sure to select the correct version - 32-bit or 64-bit - for the system on which you're installing Macrium.
After the program downloads, it automatically runs Macrium setup:
Click Next to begin the installation. After extracting the file, the Setup Wizard begins:
After agreeing to the license terms (if you've purchased the product), you'll once again be asked to provide your license key:
You'll be taken to a setup options page. By default, everything is selected, which is appropriate:
The only change from the defaults that I recommend is to check Install for all users.
Click Next followed by Install and the installation begins. When complete, click Finish and you're done.
Macrium Reflect has been installed on your machine.
The setup program will place a "Reflect" icon on your desktop - double-click that and Reflect will start.
Video
Video Transcript
This is Leo Notenboom for AskLeo.net.
Downloading and installing Macrium Reflect.
Macrium Reflect is available at Macrium.com. Download the free trial. We'll go ahead and download this from the c|net downloader. Since we're using Google Chrome, it's asking if it's OK to download an .exe file; well, I think it is. We will go ahead and click on that to run it.
Now, I'm going to go ahead and install the full version because I'm going to want to show off all of its features and functionality. I believe that the trial has the majority of what you would like to evaluate and I encourage you to go ahead and do that before you purchase the product to make sure that it meets your needs. Since I have purchased a license for this, I'm going to go ahead and do that.
You do have to select the correct architecture, and in this particular case, this is 32-bit machine and we're going to save it to our Downloads folder. Running the installer directly after downloading - as you can see, what we downloaded initially is an installer program; a downloader that is now going to download the correct version of Macrium Reflect. Once the file is downloaded, we're going to go ahead and run it immediately so that we can go ahead and install the software.
As you can see, it's a fairly large download (162 MB); through the magic of some video editing, we're going to make it take a lot less time than it actually did. For those concerned about the size of the download or the length of time it might take, in my case on a 3 MB connection, that was probably about 10 or 15 minutes. Macrium does make the product available on CD as well, I do believe.
So, it's been successfully downloaded. We hit OK and the installer should fire up.
Windows User Access Control asks us to confirm and we hit 'Next'...'Next' again. Accept the license agreement. It wants my key again even though I gave it to the downloader. Confirmed the registration of the product.
In this particular case, we have options to choose from; the location to install the product is where I want it. We do want to install it for all users most typically. The product itself and the various rescue boot media creators are installed as well. We'll hit Next; click Install (the installation can actually take a second or two to get started) but once it does, it's fairly quick. And that's it. We have installed Macrium Reflect on this computer.
The icon's been placed on our desktop; we'll double-click it. Confirm that, yes, we do want to allow this program to make changes on our computer as backup software goes. It's very reasonable and common for that software to need what boils down to administrative access to your machine.
And there it is - Macrium Reflect. Installed and running on our machine.
In the next video in this series: first things first. We'll create a rescue media bootable disk.
Next Steps
The next video in the series: Macrium Reflect 2: Creating Rescue Media.
Article C4986 - November 22, 2011
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
@Ron
Posted by: Mark J at November 29, 2011 1:02 PMLeo has recommended Acronis backup for years. Recently, he has changed his recommendation to Macrium Reflect. This is reflected in the update to the original article recommending Acronis.
http://ask-leo.com/acronis_trueimage_home_backup_software.html
@Anne O
Posted by: Mark J at November 29, 2011 1:12 PMThis article might help.
How do I tell if I have 32 bit or 64?
Is there a link to their site somewhere on this page? I'm going to Google to find their site. All the links are for some uncompressor.
29-Nov-2011
It looks to me as this is a 'How To' and an implied recommendation.
A question: is the free version good to go - no restrictions - such as time limit, number of uses, backup types, etc?
I pay attention to your recommendations, Mr. Leo, because you pretty much know your stuff.
I'm always looking for a better way to do what needs must be done and you come through.
29-Nov-2011
Posted by: Snert at November 29, 2011 5:07 PM
Thanks very much for the video, Leo. You mention somewhere that you bought the Household 4 Pack of the Standard version. I think this is a good option for me also but wondered if I have to download that 162MB file for each computer I'm going to install it on (they're all 64 bit). Thanks.
06-Dec-2011