Main screen
Starting Acronis True Image Home 2011 takes you to the main screen. This screen provides quick access to practically all of the program’s functionality.
If you have not created any backups yet, the program will offer to create a new backup with Acronis One-Click Backup tool or manually. If you have at least one backup, the screen will display the list of your backups.
Add backups area
To create a new or add an existing backup to the backup list, you can use the Add backups area. It contains the following items:
- Disk and partition backup
- Nonstop Backup
If the backup list already includes a Nonstop Backup, this item changes to Edit Nonstop Backup settings, because you can run only one Nonstop Backup at a time.
- Online Backup
- File backup
- E-mail backup
- Browse for backup
Click this item to browse for backups on your computer and add them to the backup list. This may be useful when you have backups created by a previous Acronis True Image Home 2011 version which are not shown in the backup list.
If the added backup was created by a previous Acronis True Image Home 2011 version or copied from another computer, you will be unable to perform some operations. In particular, you cannot refresh the backup by clicking Back up now. Also, you cannot edit and clone the backup settings and schedule. To be able to perform the unavailable operations, you may recreate the settings of the added backup by selecting Operations ® Recreate backup settings (for more information, see “Operations menu” later in this section).
My backups menu
The My backups menu contains the following items:
- Explore all backups – allows you to explore all your backups in the Acronis Backup Explorer using the time line.
- Validate all backups – checks the integrity of all your backups.
- Expand all – expands all collapsed backup boxes.
- Collapse all – collapses all expanded backup boxes into narrow stripes.
- Update backup list – click to search for lost backups.
- Sort backups by:
- Name – sorts all backups in alphabetical order.
- Date created – sorts all backups starting from the newest down to the oldest.
- Date updated – sorts all backups by date of the last version. The newer the last backup version, the higher the backup will be placed in the list.
- Type – sorts all backups by types. The order is the following: disk backups – file backups – e-mail backups – nonstop backup – application settings backups – system state backups – Windows backups – ZIP archives.
- Total size – sorts all backups by size, starting from the biggest down to the smallest.
- Remove from the list:
- All backups – removes all backup boxes from the backup list. The removed backups can be returned to the list by using the Browse for backup tool.
- Not-backed-up-yet boxes – removes all “empty” backup boxes from the backup list. Be careful because, after removal such backup boxes cannot be returned to the list.
My backups area
The area shows the backups you already have. It provides access to all operations with the existing backups and allows you to start recovery of your data.
To start recovery of the latest backup, select the backup containing the data you need to recover and then click Recover. When an image backup contains more than one backup version, click the Explore all versions link below the Recover button. This will open the Acronis Backup Explorer with the Disks and partitions tab selected. You can also open the Acronis Backup Explorer by clicking on the backup name.
You can update an existing backup at any time by selecting it in the backup list and clicking Back up now.
Operations menu
Clicking Operations in the box of a selected backup opens an Operations menu containing the following items:
- Open backup location – opens the folder containing the backup files.
- Edit backup settings – allows editing of the current backup settings.
- Recreate backup settings (available only for backups manually added to the backup list) – allows configuring the settings for image, file, and e-mail backups created by a previous Acronis True Image Home 2011 version. This item may also appear for backups created on another computer and added to the backup list without importing their settings.
- Validate backup – starts backup validation.
- Delete backup – deletes all backup versions of the current backup at their location. Be careful, as the deletion cannot be undone.
- More – opens the following additional items:
- Create shortcut – creates a shortcut on the Desktop. The shortcut allows you to run a backup without starting Acronis True Image Home 2011.
- Consolidate versions – allows you to delete the backup versions you no longer need while maintaining the consistency of the backup.
- Clone backup settings – clones the current backup settings when you need to create several similar backups. Clone the backup settings and then introduce the required changes.
- Move backup… – allows moving all the backup files to another location. The subsequent backup versions will be saved to the new location.
If you change the backup destination by editing the backup settings, only new backup versions will be saved to the new location. The earlier backup versions will remain in the old location.
- Remove from the list – removes the current backup from the backup list shown in the My backups area. This operation also turns off the scheduling of the removed backup (if a schedule was set), but it does not delete the backup files.
- Clean up… (available for Nonstop Backup only) – opens the Cleanup dialog box where you can delete the backup versions you no longer need. The backup chain will not be corrupted.
In case of Nonstop Backup the Operations menu will have less items. The Operations menu of backups created on another computer and added to the backup list without importing the backup settings will also have less items.
To collapse an expanded backup box into a narrow strip, right-click in the free area of the box and select Collapse in the shortcut menu. You can also collapse an expanded backup box by double-clicking on it.
To expand a collapsed box, right-click in the free area of the box and select Expand in the shortcut menu or double-click on the b
ox.
When a backup box is collapsed, the Operations menu contains additional items related to backup and recovery operations available for the backup:
- Back up now – adds a new backup version to the existing backup or replaces the existing backup version, depending on the backup scheme being used.
- Explore and recover – opens the Backup Explorer window.
- Start (available for a nonstop backup only) – starts nonstop backup protection.
- Pause (available for a nonstop backup only) – suspends nonstop backup protection.
To turn on or change the schedule for the selected backup, click the link to the right of Schedule:. For more information see Scheduling.
Search
To search for a backed up file you need to recover, type the filename or part of its name, in the search field on the main menu bar. If the search is successful, the program will open Acronis Backup Explorer and show the found file and backup(s) containing the file.
Menu bar
The menu bar on the main screen allows you to choose several major program features.
The menu bar includes the following items:
Tools & Utilities
Choose this menu item to open the Tools & Utilities screen with a list of all Acronis True Image Home 2011 tools and utilities to choose from.
Try&Decide
Choose this menu item to turn on and off the Acronis Try&Decide feature and to change the Try&Decide settings.
Help
Choose this item to open the program’s Help, go to the Welcome screen, generate a system report, view the log, get customer support, check for updates (you can also manually disable or enable checking for updates by selecting the Automatically check for updates at startup option), etc. In addition, this menu allows you to configure the Windows integration settings and Timeout settings.