PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0.3 Problem

[Chris Forecast]

I have a user interface problem with PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0.3 running on
Windows XP.

When the program is run a window appears that is split into two panes. A
left-hand task pane, and a right-hand pane. By dragging the divider bar
between the two panes you can change their widths. When the program is
closed the positioning of the divider bar is saved (I think) to a
"Preferences.xml" file, so that when you run the program again it should
appear in the place where you last left it.

However, this doesn't seem to work properly, and the divider bar reappears
approximately 70 pixels to the right of it's last position. This means that
if you repeatedly run the program and close it, the left-hand pane gets
progressively wider.

Once it has got beyond about half way across the screen it is no longer
possible to move the divider bar. When you move the pointer over the divider
bar, the cursor changes to indicate that it can be moved, but dragging has
no effect. If you continue running the program you can end up with the
left-hand pane occupying the entire window, so the right-hand pane
disappears.

The only way that I've found to 'repair' this is to delete the
"Preference.xml" file, which Drive Image then recreates the next time it is
run. But then the problem starts all over again. You can also make the
"Preferences.xml" file read-only, but then your preferences are no longer
saved, and you get an error message when you quit the program.

Does anybody else get this behaviour, or is it something peculiar about my
setup?

Does anybody know of a fix?

Thanks

Chris

 

[Rock]

I have a user interface problem with PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0.3 running on
Windows XP.

When the program is run a window appears that is split into two panes. A
left-hand task pane, and a right-hand pane. By dragging the divider bar
between the two panes you can change their widths. When the program is
closed the positioning of the divider bar is saved (I think) to a
"Preferences.xml" file, so that when you run the program again it should
appear in the place where you last left it.

However, this doesn't seem to work properly, and the divider bar reappears
approximately 70 pixels to the right of it's last position. This means that
if you repeatedly run the program and close it, the left-hand pane gets
progressively wider.

<snip>

I have DI 7.0.3 on SP2. It doesn't show this behaviour. I just opened
it, resized and closed it, then reopened about 5 times. No change in
the width of the left pane. Didn't matter if the window was full screen
or not.

 

[Chris Forecast]

I have DI 7.0.3 on SP2. It doesn't show this behaviour. I just opened
it, resized and closed it, then reopened about 5 times. No change in
the width of the left pane. Didn't matter if the window was full screen
or not.

Thanks, that's very puzzling then. I'm wondering if there may be something
wrong with my "Preferences.xml" file. Would you mind posting the contents of
your "Preferences.xml" file, which can be found here:

C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\IsolatedStorage\[long
string of alphanumeric characters]\[long string of alphanumeric
characters]\Files\Drive Image 7.0

Thanks

Chris

 

[Richard Urban]

PowerQuest screwed up on this one. The window position isn't even saved.

Ghost 9.0 (Drive Image 7.03 - repackaged) gets it right!

--

Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew half as much as you think you know,
You'd realize you didn't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Rock]

PowerQuest screwed up on this one. The window position isn't even saved.

Ghost 9.0 (Drive Image 7.03 - repackaged) gets it right!

But the relative size of the two panes is saved as well as the size of
the window.

 

[Chris Forecast]

I have DI 7.0.3 on SP2. It doesn't show this behaviour. I just opened
it, resized and closed it, then reopened about 5 times. No change in
the width of the left pane. Didn't matter if the window was full screen
or not.

I think I've figured out what the problem is - it looks as though it's not
taking the screen dpi setting into account.

I normally have this set to 'Large size (120DPI)' which is when it fails. If
I revert to 'Normal size (96DPI)' it seems to work fine. I guess this means
there's not much I can do about it. Don't you just hate it when software
writers get this sort of thing wrong.

Chris

 

[_Vanguard_]

I think I've figured out what the problem is - it looks as though it's
not
taking the screen dpi setting into account.

I normally have this set to 'Large size (120DPI)' which is when it
fails. If
I revert to 'Normal size (96DPI)' it seems to work fine. I guess this
means
there's not much I can do about it. Don't you just hate it when
software
writers get this sort of thing wrong.

Chris

And it is a problem not likely to get fixed since Symantec bought
Powerquest, and DriveImage will wane and die (because Symantec will push
their Ghost product). The "acquisition" was Symantec's ploy to
eradicate a competitor, something they have done several times. You
won't even see DriveImage listed in the drop-down box of products on
Symantec's home page and it isn't shown on their "Disk Management"
products page for their online store. It's begining to fade already.

Symantec doesn't produce software but instead buys it from somewhere
else. Symantec is software *publisher*, not a developer house. So
expect DriveImage to disappear in about a year (it is already
disappearing from Symantec's site) and start hunting down alternatives
now.

 

[R. McCarty]

Symantec has used their home "Security" software advantage to build
up huge cash reserves. They know that Microsoft will eventually enter
the Anti-Virus/Spyware market. This explains their 13 Billion dollar
purchase of Veritas - to move more into Enterprise products. Just
yesterday, I helped someone who upgraded to NIS-2005 and had a
concern about the PC becoming slow. Turns out the latest Common
Client service now consumes a huge 43.0 Megabytes of memory.
As to Drive Image, I'll continue to use 6.0 until some technology change
no longer allows it to function.

 

[Chris Forecast]

And it is a problem not likely to get fixed since Symantec bought
Powerquest, and DriveImage will wane and die (because Symantec will push
their Ghost product). The "acquisition" was Symantec's ploy to
eradicate a competitor, something they have done several times. You
won't even see DriveImage listed in the drop-down box of products on
Symantec's home page and it isn't shown on their "Disk Management"
products page for their online store. It's begining to fade already.

True enough. It does appear on their support pages, but the amount of info
there is pretty minimal. This particular problem doesn't affect the backup
capability of the software, so I'll continue to use it. It's just an
irritation. Anyway I've reported it to Symantec tech support - though I'm
not expecting a very useful response from them.

Chris

 

[Howard]

Symantec has indeed bought Powerquest. But it has NOT killed
DriveImage. It has rechristened DriveImage as Ghost and has killed
the product it used to call Ghost.

 

[_Vanguard_]

Symantec has indeed bought Powerquest. But it has NOT killed
DriveImage. It has rechristened DriveImage as Ghost and has killed
the product it used to call Ghost.

It's been a couple years since I bothered testing Ghost against
DriveImage. So Symantec finally decided to kill off their Ghost product
(forgot who they bought it from) and renamed DriveImage as Ghost? Hee
hee hee hee. Very interesting.

The problem is that previous users or trialers of Ghost will presume the
new Ghost is the same as the old Ghost and still won't bother with the
new Ghost. Maybe they should have called the new Ghost a new name, like
Casper.

 

[Al Smith]

Symantec has indeed bought Powerquest. But it has NOT killed

DriveImage. It has rechristened DriveImage as Ghost and has killed
the product it used to call Ghost.

If old Ghost is gone, and Drive Image is now called Ghost, will we
still be able to buy something called Drive Image?

 

[CS]

If old Ghost is gone, and Drive Image is now called Ghost, will we
still be able to buy something called Drive Image?

Nope. The name "Drive Image" is gone unless you can find older copies
for sale somewhere. Even though the Ghost 9.X engine is indeed the
Drive Image 7.X one developed by Powerquest, the name won't be used.
Symantec is famous for purchasing already developed software and then
killing it off. Look for the same thing to happen with Veritas
products now that they've been bought out by Symantec.

 

[Howard]

Nope. The name "Drive Image" is gone unless you can find older copies
for sale somewhere. Even though the Ghost 9.X engine is indeed the
Drive Image 7.X one developed by Powerquest, the name won't be used.
Symantec is famous for purchasing already developed software and then
killing it off. Look for the same thing to happen with Veritas
products now that they've been bought out by Symantec.

They didn't do this with GoBack. They are bundling it in Systemworks
and also selling it as a separate product.

 

[_Vanguard_]

They didn't do this with GoBack. They are bundling it in Systemworks
and also selling it as a separate product.

Have you seen any major updates to GoBack since Symantec bought it from
Roxio (which was a division created to shed software from Adaptec who
bought WildFire to get GoBack), like using the rest of the unused track
0 for its code or to allow chaining of other utilities that want to also
use the MBR bootstrap area to avoid conflicts, like to chain with
multiboot managers or security products? No. That's what happens when
a software *publisher* purchases software. It wanes.

Why would the GoBack name get changed or usurped because Symantec bought
it? It wasn't like Symantec had a competing product before buying
GoBack. There was no need to change the name. For DriveImage and
Ghost, Symantec wants to hide that it is killing off its Ghost product
line for which it has earned customer recognition, especially for
corporate sales (they are more concerned with their image than for any
product they acquire).

 

[Howard]

There's been one improvement to GoBack since Symantec bought it. The
product now has a test mode which creates an additional GoBack drive
to test out new software or other changes. They also made a few
things worse. The old GoBack used to enable the restoration of a file
to its original folder without having to know where exactly the file
originated from. The Symantec version requires you to browse to the
original folder in order to restore a file.

 

[Al Smith]

Symantec has indeed bought Powerquest. But it has NOT killed

They didn't do this with GoBack. They are bundling it in Systemworks
and also selling it as a separate product.

I don't mind so much what they call it, as long as I can still buy
Drive Image (now Ghost) when I need to upgrade, which I'm sure I
will, since they deliberately build in obsolescence into the
software to force upgrades. The only way I'd not buy the new Ghost
is if the idiots at Symantic were to institute some sort of
product activation similar to Microsoft's XP product activation.
That would force me to move to a different backup software.

 

[CS]

I don't mind so much what they call it, as long as I can still buy
Drive Image (now Ghost) when I need to upgrade, which I'm sure I
will, since they deliberately build in obsolescence into the
software to force upgrades. The only way I'd not buy the new Ghost
is if the idiots at Symantic were to institute some sort of
product activation similar to Microsoft's XP product activation.
That would force me to move to a different backup software.

It wouldn't surprise if they did just that. Anyway, I've personally
switched from Ghost\Drive Image to True Image from Acronis. Much
easier to use and seems to support a wider range of hardware than
Ghost\Drive Image. Nor does it need the .NET Frame to work. Acronis
has a demo you can download if you would like to give it a try.
www.acronis.com