Hey Everyone!
I wasn’t even going to write it but I felt I just MUST, in order to make sure “justice” is done in regards to CTM. ;D.
First I will say that I’ve had ZERO problems with Comodo Time Machine (CMT from now on) and more than any other, this tool it has saved my system many times durring a recent PC crisis that was hard to diagnose. I Love this software program. Live or die, it will go down in my personal history as one of the best backup programs I’ve ever used… ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING IT’S FREE.
However I almost didn’t use it. In fact, after a very short but satisfying experience with the software I QUICKLY and fearfully uninstalled it… NOT because I had any problems with it… but BECAUSE OF THE HORROR STORIES I READ IN THIS FORUM ABOUT IT.
Please bear with my verbosity. My experience is particularly significant and might actually help resolve this controversial topic if considered and acted upon. I will leave that up to you. For the moderators if this is too verbose or off topic I hope you will consider editing out the unnessary parts and keep the significant parts. Everyone want’s a resolution to this issue and I think trashing CTM would be a very bad mistake and a disservice to the public.
I’ve read the horror stories and I know CTM is not the “original” or the first program of this type, but I’ve tried at least two of the original 3 Virtual Backup System (Rollback RX for one). It was ok but took about 5 hours to uninstall! No kidding. CMT uninstalled in about 10 minutes… more on that later…
A Quick bit about myself and my experience. I’m a web developer by trade for almost 20 years now. Prior to this I was a SYSOP of a popular neighborhood BBS system (remember those).
Years ago I built computer systems as a side job but found I enjoyed working on them more when my income wasn’t dependent on them. I now moonlight for friends and close acquaintences as a remote PC repair tech and I’ve only taken my PC in to the shop two or three times in 15 years. I do all the construction, upgrades and maintainance myself.
I’m not bragging. The point I’m making hopefully will help someone else. One of the biggest mistakes I see people making with what I call “Extreme Power Tools” like Time Machine is they rush to install WITHOUT READING THE MANUAL AND GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE TOOL!
I download the software, found the manuals (I dont think they are visible in an obvious way on the download page) installed it and came to these forums to learn more about it. As I mentioned, after reading all about it I was very nervous and promptly found and read the post on uninstalling it and did so in haste. Although I’d had it on my PC for awhile and it has saved my PC from what would otherwise be a total loss more than once, I promptly uninstalled it based on some of the postings I read here.
I will qualify that I READ the manual and the uninstall instructions written by Comodo techs in the forum first but I was on pins and needles almost expecting my system to have a nuclear meltdown as it uninstalled… and… nothing, not a problem in the world and a fast, painless uninstall.
So, I reinstalled it… and uninstalled it again… NO PROBLEMS. I’ve purchased alot of sofware in my time and one of my biggest gripes is all the JUNK that is unsupported and abandoned leaving me with an expensive useless “tool”. There is only one thing that bothers me more… and that is when an excellent or potentially excellent piece of software is abandoned due to a lack of vision on the part of the company who made it. Or worse still, due to nothing but the bottom line or the inability to ask the right questions in order to collect enough of the right type of accurate information to diagnose the issue and resolve it (which is what I hope you do with CTM).
I don’t comment on these forums normally but I felt compelled to write this. Find out what the problem is and fix it. Keep this program alive. It’s powerful and awesome and worthy of your efforts Comodo.
For those who have had problems. I will finish this novel by saying three things that I hope will help this topic of CTM, then close with my system details. In my humble opinion:
If we want to resolve this issue, solve the problem and SAVE CMT from the dumpster…
1. Post your System Details and Exact Experience. Be Honest and Specific! Otherwise all we have is a big heated debate based on biased personal experience and speculation, not on the Specific Facts that will ultimately lead to a solution.
2. READ THE MANUAL FIRST. This isn’t some computer game or toy. It’s a POWER UTILITY and I’ve never known one that didn’t have the power to destroy a system as well as fix and tune it. Not a good one anyway.
Finally and most Importantly… and this is probably not going to make me any friends but Ihave to say it and I don’t mean to offend…
3. NEVER NEVER NEVER run a powerful system utility without DOING A HARDCOPY REMOTE DISK BACKUP FIRST. I’m not going to flame or criticize, but I will tell you the same thing I would think to myself if I had the same experience I’ve read many describe in these forums…
What destroyed/Lost your data wasn’t CTM. It was a combination of:
a. Not reading the manual and becoming totally familiar with the software FIRST
plus
b. Not doing a complete remote hardcopy system disk backup before using a power tool like CTM.
I do not in any way work for Comodo. Thank you all for your time and patience.
MY COMPUTER SYSTEM
ASUS M2N SLI Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 CPU
4 Gigs of DDR2 800 RAM
- Nvidia Nforce 560 SLI Video Card w/500 megs RAM (replaced)
ATI Radeon HD 4650 Video Card with 1gig Ram
2 1 Terabyte Seagate Barracuda Hard Drives
2 CD ROM Drives. 1 internal and 1 External USB
and
One Computer lover and addict who will be very let down if CTM isn’t developed to it’s full potential as one of the fastest, most solid, trouble free “Virtual Backup” power utilities available anywhere for any price.
CTM backs up my 1 TB hard drive in about 5 to 10 seconds. After the worst disaster it takes as long as it takes to boot my PC to fix things like they never happened… FOR FREE!
I leave it to you. Thanks for listening.
