Please read this document carefully

July 31, 2024

This document outlines usage limitations and is essential to read before using the product.

For system requirements, please visit System Requirements.

Notes on upgrading/updating ActiveImage Protector

• During the upgrade process, the previous version of ActiveImage Protector will be completely uninstalled and the new version will be installed in its place. If an error occurs during the upgrade process, it will be necessary to re-run the installer as ActiveImage Protector has been uninstalled from your computer.

• Upgrading is not allowed while running a task in Cluster Edition.

• Version 6.5+ doesn’t support Data Deduplication Compression feature for Backup to tape devices. If you have a backup task configured with this feature, please recreate it after upgrading to Version 6.5+.

• When upgrading from Version 6.5.0, the changed block tracking mode is set to CBC (Changed Block Comparison) by default. If necessary go to Preference > Backup and select Tracking Driver Mode to change the block tracking mode.

• After upgrading the product, the settings configured for Post-Backup Process may not be properly migrated. If you have this problem, please configure the settings in [Edit Task] window.

• After running the HyperStandby task and selecting VMware vSphere ESXi as the target host, you may receive an “Installation failed” message when upgrading the product. However, the upgrade process has actually completed successfully.

• When upgrading the product to Version 7.0.0 in the environment where the product was activated by using a license file, please enable [Retaining configuration and log files] option for the current version and install Version 7.0.0 only after uninstalling the current version. If the product is upgraded directly from the current version to Version 7.0.0, you will have to obtain the license file again after upgrading to Version 7.0.0.

• When upgrading the product while a backup image file is mounted, you may encounter an issue where the mounted image file is not unmounted. In this case, simply restart the system to unmount the image.

Upgrading from Version 2018

• You will be requested to enter the product key for Version 2022.

• During the upgrade process, when you cancel the upgrade process, the product is uninstalled.

• ActiveImage Protector 2022 does not support BootCheck task for Windows 10 x64 using Hyper-V configured on other computer. If this task is migrated to ActiveImage Protector 2022, the task will fail in error.

• When a schedule is configured by enabling Post-backup Process, please edit and update the schedule or reconfigure the schedule settings after upgrading to ActiveImage Protector 2022.

• When a task is created in ActiveVisor Version 6 or earlier by deploying backup template and enabling [Create sub-folder for each client] option, and the agent is upgraded to Version 2022, under the computer named sub-folder created according to the option, a subsequent sub-folder in unique name is created for backup storage saving the backup images.

• When creating a source backup image to use for HyperStandby on API agent that was upgraded from Version 2018 to 2022, you need to recreate the task.

• Upgrading by using Setup of the product version 6.5.0.7616 fails. Please uninstall version 2018 before upgrading.

Overview

• ActiveImage Protector supports a maximum number of 128 disks per system, 24 volumes per disk, and 64TB per volume. Backup or Copy using VSS supports up to the maximum number of 64 volumes.

• You are not allowed to edit Deduplication Compression level or Password Protection / Encryption by editing schedule setting.

• When performing operations in ActiveImage Protector, please be sure to not select image files that are in use on another host. If selecting an image file set that is currently in use on another host, the operation may fail.
  Example 1: If you attempt to restore an incremental file that is already being consolidated on another host, the task will fail with an error.
  Example 2: If you select an image file for consolidation that is mounted as a writable volume on another host, the consolidation task will be logged as having succeeded in the task history; however, the files will not have been consolidated.

• ActiveImage Protector 2022 supports backup image files version “208” or later created by AIP version 3.5 SP7 or later.

  The ReZoom it! feature, used to restore virtual machines, is not supported.

• If login credentials for accessing a network shared folder are changed, you may be prompted to restart the system after changing the credential information.

• If the [SMB 1.0/C IFS file sharing support] option is disabled on the system, the list of networked hosts will not be displayed when using the following features and you will have to manually re-specify the hostname to perform any operations.

  • Browse files and folders to select files

  • Run the Restore Image Wizard

  The behavior is the same on Windows PE-based boot environments built with Windows ADK for Windows 10 Version 1703 or later. {: .alert .alert-info }

• Please do not select the backup image file of which file version is not supported. That image file will not be displayed in the console.

• Operating a Linux FS in a backup image on Windows system is not supported.

• When ActiveImage Protector for Windows is installed on the source system created / converted by using the following features, if there exists a scheduled backup task, the schedule is disabled on the created virtual machine. If you continue to use, please enable the schedule. The subsequent and first backup task creates a backup file according to the settings you configured.

  • Virtual Conversion

  • vStandby

  • HyperRecovery

  • HyperStandby

• Concurrent execution of backup tasks for Hyper-V host by using ActiveImage Protector agent and backup task for VM on the same host by using HyperBack is not supported. This is because a check point for a virtual machine cannot be created while taking a snapshot of Hyper-V host due to the limitation to Hyper-V hosts.

• Before staring uninstallation of the program, please make sure no task is running.

• When using a backup image of Windows 10 system, ID4 event is alerted in Windows Event Log.

  • Mount Image

  • File Recovery

  • Consolidate (Mount driver is installed, [Use Smart Consolidation] option is enabled for Post-backup Process)

  • Virtual Conversion (Conversion of an Image File)

  • HyperRecovery

  • HyperStandby

• When virtualized by specifying a mount point for CSVFS volume by using the Virtual Conversion, vStandby, or HyperStandby feature, the created virtual machine is registered as a VM on the specified Hyper-V host. If needed, the virtual machines can also be configured for high availability.

• Please assign MSI by using the Group Policy’s [Software Installation] feature. Uninstallation of the product by a local user is allowed to perform in silent mode only.

• ActiveImage Protector features do not support the backup images of Linux LVM system created by ActiveImage Protector Linux Edition.

• Tape device LTO 6 or later recognizable in Windows is supported in unique format.

• When saving backups in tape pool, a backup image file exceeding the maximum size of a tape media configuring tape pool is not supported to create.

• Backup process time may be increased when a tape pool is specified as backup destination storage.

• When saving backups in tape pool, the space in the tape media becomes full and the tape media is replaced with another tape media. The backup image file in backup process will be rewritten from the top of the new tape media. In this case the backup process time will be increased. The progress bar in console window indicates to start from the beginning.

• When autoloader of a tape library is not recognized in boot environment built by RescueBoot, please use driver loader and load the driver.

• When Hyper-V on local computer is registered as backup source for HyperBack by selecting [Connect to this host] in HyperAgent of Virtual Edition, the IP address and “127.0.0.1” are registered on the activation server. When deactivating, please deactivate with the registered two items.

• In Select Recovery Point wizard, when selecting a folder on which a large number of backup files including incremental backups are located, the process time may increase before the recovery point is displayed and operation becomes enabled.

• When backing up Microsoft BitLocker encrypted device, please note the following limitations depending on the backup feature you use.

  • Hot Backup
    Backup using Smart Sector technology is supported. BootCheck can be enabled for this backup. When restoring this backup file, BitLocker encryption is disabled for the restored device.

  • Cold Backup
    Backup using Smart Sector technology does not support the encrypted device. Full-sector backup is executed. BootCheck cannot be executed for the created backup image (BootCheck task fails in error). When restoring this backup image, BitLocker encryption is enabled for the restored device. When using the restored system disk for booting up the system on a different computer instead of the backup source computer, you will be prompted to enter restore key.

  Copy operation has the same limitations. When copying BitLocker encrypted device in boot environment, BitLocker is enabled with the copied device.

• When selecting cloud storage for backup destination, Desktop Edition supports up to 2TB for backup size.

• The following features do not support using the backup files saved in Wasabi.

  • BootCheck
  • Mount Image
  • Image Target Server
  • HyperStandby
  • HyperRecovery LIVE!
  • Virtualization
  • Virtual Adapter

  The following features do not display Wasabi as the destination saving backup files. Before using backup files located in Wasabi, please select Amazon S3, go to [Enter Provider] - [Add New Target] and select Wasabi.

  • In-Cloud Recovery

  • In-Cloud Standby

  • You are not allowed to change the status of [Console] configured before installation.

  • After installation, you are not allowed to delete a specific component.

  • BootCheck task fails in the environment where Windows Modules Installer service is not running.

Software Activation

• Activation is automatically performed at:

  • 3 minutes after a system restart.

  • 24 hours after the last activation occurred. (One hour for Server and Virtual Edition)

• If the offline bundle is created by using the entire licenses assigned to the product key, Actiphy’s activation server does not accept activation of the product key.

• When using license file or AAS is operating in server mode for license activation request, check-for-update feature is disabled.

• When using license file for license activation, the remaining days of valid license is not notified.

Backup

Volume Backup

• Backup of exFAT volume uses full sector backup process (both base and incremental backup).

• When [CBC (Changed Block Comparison)] is selected for changed block tracking mode, multiple schedules can be configured for the same backup source, however, only one schedule can be started at a time. Please make sure not to configure the multiple schedules for the same time.

• Backup by Disk does not support dynamic disks. Only mirroring or simple dynamic volumes are supported.

• When running online backup on Windows 10/Server 2016 or later system, ID513 error is recorded in Windows Event Log.

• We do not support the combined use of this software with any other products that use VSS. If another VSS-related product is already installed, please ensure that no ActiveImage Protector tasks are scheduled while the other VSS product is running.

• If you configured the settings to run both a backup and vStandby tasks, please make sure that both tasks are scheduled at different times to avoid conflict.

• In order to execute a hot backup on a Windows machine running Oracle Database 11g, including creating a snapshot of database using Oracle VSS writer, the backup source database must be running in ARCHIVELOG mode. The following URL in the Oracle Database Platform Guide provides details on how to perform Database Backups and Recovery using VSS:
  http://otndnld.oracle.co.jp/document/products/oracle11g/111/windows/E05885-02/vss.htm

• When an image file containing a system volume, created via a scheduled task is restored and booted for the first time, the following error below may be logged. This error does not affect the consistency of the restored source image file nor does it affect the restored system.
  “Could not create an image file using the schedule "

• If a backup is configured with the [Separate image file for each disk] option enabled and the number of disks you want to backup is changed, a full backup will be created instead of an incremental backup when the scheduled task runs.

• The Linux-based Boot Environment does not recognize virtual disks converted from ReFS formatted volumes and memory. If you use an ReFS formatted virtual disk to store system backups, the Boot Environment will fail.

• Smart Sector Backup does not support VMware vSphere ESXi hypervisor data store of 2TB or larger datastore. Please check in the checkbox for “Include free space in image” and run full sector backup. Since Smart Sector does not support VMFS version 6 format, full sector backup will be taken.

• If you have configured backups for dynamic volumes which are on multiple disks, the image file name will not be displayed correctly in the Summary page of the Backup Wizard.

• After a base backup image file is created for a new image set, when the image file was lost or corrupted for some reason, the subsequently created incremental keeps continuity with the incremental image set of the previous generation.

• (6700) If a backup image file is successfully created, but an error is logged in the task log, that error will be displayed on the [Dashboard] -> [System Protection Status] screen and may be regarded as an alert.

• If you define a scheduled task within five minutes of the scheduled start time, the task will not run until the following occurrence of the schedule.

• When the host is restarted in the midst of backup process, the running backup task will not be automatically resumed. You need to execute the backup task again.

• If you change the destination for saving backup image files from Volume A to Volume B, the files from Volume A will be duplicated on Volume B. This is necessary to maintain consistency. All backup files must be contained on the same volume in order to guarantee the consistency of the backup.

• While executing Consolidation using image file set in which incremental backup files are created on a host other than the backup source host machine, incremental backup tasks cannot be executed. Thee incremental backup task will not be executed until the next schedule.

• If you enable the [Eject the destination USB device once the backup is finished] option, removable USB devices will be unmounted. NOTE: The [Post Backup] option will be disabled when this option is selected.

• If you have an RDX license, please aware of the following limitations before configuring ActiveImage Protector to eject the RDX cartridge once a backup is complete.

  • This option is only available with Tangberg RDX devices.

  • Please make sure the RDX Manager is installed prior to configuring RDX devices in ActiveImage Protector.

  • The auto-eject feature only supports weekly schedules. Additional scheduling options are not available for these devices.

• If a Microsoft BitLocker encrypted volume is included in the backup source for cold backup in Windows RE/PE boot environment, full sector backup of the encrypted volume is taken.

• In a cluster environment, please make sure multiple backup tasks are not scheduled for the same CSVFS source volumes on multiple nodes at the same time when using Server Edition. If backup tasks are executed at the same time for the same CSVFS source volumes on multiple nodes, a VSS conflict could occur.

• If you add CSVFS volume restored from a backup image to cluster shared volume, or delete the backup source CSVFS volume from cluster shared volume and then add again, because a different ID is assigned, the subsequently executed backup task will fail in error -455. In this scenario, please edit the backup schedule and select the CSVFS volume as the backup source again.

• When configuring the settings for Post-backup Process, please schedule the incremental backup tasks with a suitable interval. With an insufficient time interval, the post-backup process may not behave properly within the interval.

• When using a script for backup task of CSV volumes, please make sure that the specified script file is located in the same path on every backup node.

• When enabling [Make backup image file P2V ready] option in Advanced Backup Option, VMware paravirtual SCSI controller driver is not supported.

Tracking driver mode

• Even when selecting Tracking Driver mode, CBC mode is selected for incremental backup of a volume formatted with the file system other than NTFS/ReFS.

CBC mode

• Should an incremental file become compromised, deleted or corrupted, the subsequent incremental backup can be taken, keeping continuity in the incremental chain with a valid incremental file.

• Incremental backup process takes longer in the following cases.

  • The backup source volume includes a large file (ex: fixed VHDX). Changes are made and identified in the file.

  • Created base backup of the virtual machine using the fixed VHDX “in which there are no checkpoints”.

    Created base backup of the virtual machine using the fixed VHDX “in which there are checkpoints”. The incremental backup process was faster compared to the scenario with no checkpoints (proportional to the amount of the changed data in the virtual machine).

    If a checkpoint is created for the virtual machine using fixed VHDX in the midst of the image chain, the subsequent incremental backup process takes mostly the same time as a base backup. However, the following incremental backups will be faster (proportional to the amount of the changed data in the virtual machine).

  • When running incremental backup of a volume formatted with the file system other than NTFS and CSVFS, differential backup process is performed to create incremental backup image files.

    Cluster edition does not support backup of CSVFS volume combined with a volume formatted with other file system.

    Backup of disks including CSVFS volumes does not support backup by disk.

File Backup

• You are recommended not to specify a system file or a file / folder of database as the backup source. The file restored from the backup may not correctly behave or be recognized.

• When no change is made to any of the backup source item, no backup image is created by incremental backup task execution.

• Suspending a running task is not supported.

• [Standard Compression (High)] is enabled to created the backup image file.

HyperBack

• Pass-through disks, such as iSCSI targets, that are attached to a virtual machine system cannot be included as a backup source.

• When targeting Linux virtual machines with databases (MySQL, etc.), please use the “FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK” option to stop the database before running a backup task.

• Specifying the same virtual machine as a backup source from the multiple hyper-agents is not supported.

• ReFS is not supported.

• When configuring the settings for Post-backup Process, please schedule the incremental backup tasks with a suitable interval. With insufficient interval, the post-backup process may not behave properly within the interval.

Hyper-V Virtual Machine

• It is recommended that you install Integration Services on the backup source virtual machines.

• Backing up a guest virtual machine configured with Pass-through connected disk is not supported.

• During the execution of a backup task in the following scenarios, a checkpoint snapshot [VG_Snapshot1(or 2)] is created for the guest virtual machine. This checkpoint snapshot is not automatically deleted when you delete the associated backup schedule and can cause future scheduled backups to fail. To prevent future backup schedules from failing, manually delete this checkpoint snapshot when working with:

  • Guest virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier, or the first generation guest machine of Windows Server 2016 or later.

  • Virtual machines backed up with the “Using Microsoft Resilient Change Tracking (RCT)” option disabled in [Preferences] - [HyperAgent].

• Running incremental backup tasks after executing one of the following base backup tasks and restoring to another checkpoint (snapshot) creates an incremental image file of the same size as the image created by re-executing the base backup:

  • Guest virtual machine running Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier, or the first generation guest machine of Windows Server 2016 or later.

  • Virtual machine backed up with “Using Microsoft Resilient Change Tracking (RCT)” option disabled in [Preferences] - [HyperAgent].

• Oracle on a guest virtual machine must run in Archive Log Mode. If Oracle runs in No-archive Log Mode, VSS will fail to ensure the data integrity of the backup on the guest virtual machine.

• When you select clustered guest virtual machines for the backup source, the backup task will fail if the connection to the specified cluster node is not established before starting the task.

• Backing up a suspended guest virtual machine is only supported on Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V or later.

• If you import a version 5.0 second-generation virtual machine into Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016 or later, and you back up that virtual machine with the RCT option enabled, the process fails with Error-631.

• If you run an incremental backup on a version 5.0 second-generation virtual machine using the RTC option on Windows 2016 or later and you change the checkpoint on the virtual machine, the backup will fail with Error-630. If this issue occurs, you will need to recreate a base backup of the virtual machine again.

• To access Hyper-V host, you need to log in by using the built-in Administrator account. You are not allowed to use other accounts in Administrators group.

VMware vSphere Virtual Machine

• Free license version of VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) is not supported.

• We recommended that you install VMWare Tools on the backup source’s guest virtual machine. If VMWare Tools is not installed, the backup of virtual machines which have databases such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server installed will fail to ensure data integrity.

• ActiveImage Protector cannot backup VMs that have Independent mode disks or physical compatibility RDM disks.

• You cannot select a VM on an ESXi host that has more than 31 snapshots. Doing so will cause the task to fail.

• Running an incremental backup task after running a base backup task and restoring it to another snapshot will cause the base backup to be recreated.

• Running backup tasks on a running virtual machines may fail with Error-630. If you get this error, shut down the virtual machine and run the task again.

Deduplication Compression

• Only single byte alphanumeric characters are supported in the temporary work folder setting for the Deduplication Compression feature.

• Backups tasks that are configured to create backup images files using the Deduplication Compression feature may take more time than image files created using the Standard compression option.

Post Backup Process

• The tasks other than HyperBack / HyperStandby tasks and post-backup processes other than BootCheck run sequentially.
  For example, if a replication task is configured for the target that can deliver only slow write speed, the subsequent tasks will run only after the replication task completes. In this case, you need to shift the replication task to a later schedule.

• The multiple post-backup tasks configured for one backup task will run in the following order:

  • Immediately / When new xx image files are created:1 Verify Image, 2 BootCheck and Replication, 3 Consolidation

  • At xx:xx: The tasks run at the specified time.

  To run the tasks in a specific order, please schedule them with a suitable interval.

• Using Destination Isolation option with a Post Backup Process is not supported.

BootCheck

• Please configure your firewall to allow File and printer sharing and Windows Management Interface (WMI) when using Hyper-V on a remote computer.

• Please ensure Virtual Conversion is enabled on the computer running BootCheck. For more information on how to enable Virtual Conversion, please contact the manufacturer of your computer.

• Since BootCheck bootstraps systems from backup images, you’ll need to be aware of the limitations of the hypervisor you are using before implementing BootCheck.
  For example, since Hyper-V does not support using uEFI to boot Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 x64, BootCheck will not work in these situations.

• Please do not enable BootCheck when configuring tasks against backup sources that do not have system volumes. BootCheck is not supported when active partitions (e.g. system reserved area) are not included in the backup source.

• BootCheck does not support cases where the boot partition and system partition are on different disks.

• BootCheck uses 1 GB of memory on the hypervisor.

• Running a BootCheck task for a backup image of a system configured on a dynamic volume is not supported.

• Running a BootCheck task for a backup image of Linux virtual machine is not supported.

• BootCheck provides confidence that the backup images are bootable. BootCheck does not guarantee that every features normally work when the system boots up.

• If shutting down or rebooting the system, BootCheck’s virtual machine remains on Hyper-V host of the working agent. Before shutdown / reboot the system for the sake of system maintenance please make sure BootCheck is not running. You are also recommended to apply Windows Update which requires system restart while BootCheck is not running.

• If the virtual machine for BootCheck remains on Hyper-V host of the working agent, please delete the virtual machine from Hyper-V host.

Replication

• If WebDAV is selected as the replication target, the progress percentage of the task does not increase since the start until the completion of the task. If you select multiple files for replication source, the progress percentage increases for the ratio of the processed files to the total source files upon completion of the replication task.

• If WebDAV is selected as the replication target, Pause/Resume does not work for the task. When the task is cancelled, the file in process will be replicated. When there are more Replication source files, the subsequent source files will not be replicated.

• In the system environment with 8GB or above memory, network throttle setting does not work. The percentage of the completed processes remains unchanged from the start to the end of replication of the files.

• While you are configuring the replication target setting and you select Amazon S3, a new bucket cannot be created.

• When backing up CSV volume and accessing SFTP server by using Private Key, the specified Private Key file has to be located in the same path on every backup nodes.

• Only east-2 region of object storage of Amazon S3 compatible storage “NIFCLOUD” is supported.

• The backup image file replicated to WebDAV or cloud storage is time-stamped with process run-time.

Standby

vStandby

• Dynamic disks, storage spaces, and 4K sector native hard disks are not supported as the source disk.

• Double-byte characters cannot be used to specify virtual machine names or a VMDK file names.

• WINS addresses are not supported when configuring network settings for a virtual standby replica.

• Deleting virtual standby replica deletes the created virtual standby replica only.

• In [Preparing Virtual Standby Replica…] dialog, there may be instances that an existing virtual standby replica cannot be deleted. If you encounter this problem, please use the vSphere Client to manually delete the virtual standby replica, or change the name of the new virtual machine.

• If a NIC or a disk is added to the source machine only after the virtual standby replica was created, the changes are not applied to the newly created virtual standby replica. If you encounter this problem, please delete the schedule and recreate virtual standby replica.

• If you configured the settings to run both a backup and vStandby tasks, please make sure that both tasks are scheduled at different times to avoid conflict.

• If you selected Thick Provisioning for Disk Provisioning (Disk Type) or Static, it takes more time to create a virtual disk as the virtual disk depending on the size of the conversion source disk.

• The boot point created after upgraded to the current version should include the full data just like the first boot point.

• While a schedule is disabled, if you edit the schedule or select [Backup Now], the schedule will be enabled.

VMware vSphere

• Free license version of VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) is not supported.

• If an NFS datastore is specified as the target, thick provisioned virtual machine disk is created.

• If the ESXi host is set to maintenance mode, a virtual standby replica cannot be created. Creation of boot points terminates with an error.

• If virtual conversion via vCenter Server of VMware vSphere fails, please directly specify ESXi hypervisor as the target.

• If a network name is specified using a double-byte character, it cannot be indicated in the wizard.

• (7894) Virtual conversion from 16 or more hard disks is not allowed.

• If failed in Error -4101, apply Windows Update and try again.

Microsoft Hyper-V

• Ensure that Administrative share is enabled on the managed remote computer.

• Please configure firewall settings to allow [File and Printer Sharing] on the remote computer. If the firewall settings are configured via Group Policy, go to [Network] - [Network Connection] - [Windows Firewall] and enable [Allow inbound file and printer sharing exception].

• You need to log in as the built-in Administrator account. The use of an account in Administrator group shall not be authenticated.

• uEFI system conversion is supported only with conversion target host supporting Generation 2 virtual machines.

• Execution of a task, while a virtual standby replica is up and running, fails with an error.

• If Hyper-V target host on Windows Server 2008 R2 is selected, virtual switch settings are not applied to virtual standby replica.

• (8465) Restoring virtual standby replicas created on Hyper-V target host on Windows Server 2008 R2 to physical machine is not supported.

• The pull-down list for selecting a folder is not scrollable. If you want to select an unshown folder, please select [New…] and specify the folder name.

• The virtual standby replica deployed from ActiveVisor are created as follows:

  • Virtual hard disk file：Folder named with the virtual machine in “vStandby_x” folder shared with Everyone full control

  • Except for virtual hard disk file: The default location on Hyper-V target host

HyperStandby

• The use of differential image files is not supported.

• When you run ActiveImage Protector or ImageCenter LE to consolidate image files including an image file selected by HyperStandby, it is recommended to not include the image file last used by HyperStandby.

• If losing the continuity between the incremental image selected by HyperStandby and the incremental image last used by HyperStandby , all images in the series of images from the full (base) image to the target incremental image will be selected as the conversion source.

• If the image file lastly used by HyperStandby is lost as a result of execution of consolidation task in ActiveImage Protector or ImageCenter LE, the entire images in the image set will be converted to boot points when the HyperStandby task is subsequently executed.

• After changing the credentials information by selecting [Change Credentials] in menu, system restart is needed to apply the changes.

• To convert a backup image file created by using Deduplication Compression, up to 600MB memory is used per task while running the task.

• You may get the message saying “Boot Failed. EFI SCSI Device.” during the process of the first boot-up of a standby VM on uEFI system, however, the system normally boots up.

Microsoft Hyper-V (Target)

• Please remember the following when performing a virtual conversion to Hyper-V on a remote computer.

  • Ensure that Administrative share is enabled on the managed remote computer.

  • Please configure firewall settings to allow [File and Printer Sharing] on the remote computer. If the firewall settings are configured via Group Policy, go to [Network] - [Network Connection] - [Windows Firewall] and enable [Allow inbound file and printer sharing exception].

  • You need to log in by using the built-in Administrator or a user in Domain administrators group. Other users in Administrators group are not authenticated.

• If you run a task while a standby virtual machine is up and running, the task fails in error.

• Secure Boot is enabled, by default, on the standby virtual machine created from the backup image of uEFI.

• If Secure Boot is not supported in the backup source system environment, please manually change the setting to disable Secure Boot when booting the standby VM.

• If establishing the connection by selecting domain user from the connection history, you need to re-enter the credentials information again.

VMware vSphere (Target)

• Free license version of VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) is not supported.

• If VMware vSphere is specified for the target host, VMDK files are created and updated from cold images (a backup image created in Linux-based or Windows PE-based Boot Environment).

• If virtual conversion to vCenter Server of VMware vSphere or datastore on ESXi hypervisor, please establish the connection by using port 902. If you fail to establish the connection, please check the Firewall setting on the target host.

• Virtual conversion of a backup image including 16 or more disks fails.

• Migration by using vMotion is not supported.

Windows Image File

• Backup images containing dynamic volumes are not supported.

Image List

• The status in Image List is not correctly indicated. Go to [Current Task] to monitor the task progress and [Task Log] tab in [Dashboard] for the tasks execution results.

Create / Edit Task

• When OS and firmware are selectable in [Standby Setting] page, please manually select OS and firmware for the image and proceed.

• Please remember the following when creating a task.

  • Up to 20 tasks can be concurrently executed.

  • Concurrent execution of multiple tasks for the same host and the same datastore takes longer process time.

  • Running a task for a datastore where a live virtual machine exists, depending on the actual usage conditions, the process time may be longer or the performance of live virtual machines may be impacted.

Recovery

• When restoring a backup image located in cloud storage, the process time increases. Besides, the restoring virtual machine may not become available in HyperRecovery Live!

Volume Recovery

• Agentless backup images created by HyperBack are not supported.

• Backup images cannot be restored to disks with a different sector size than the backup source disk.

• If you have multiple hard disks connected to your system and one of the drives has the same signature as the source disk, you will need to select Use disk signature of restore target in order to restore.

• Restoring to two or more bare-metal hard disks is not supported.

• Restore a backup image file including a volume formatted with a file system other than NTFS in enlarged size is not supported.

• When you restore the MBR or first track of a disk, the MBR or first track in the base backup image is used during the restore process.

• The Restore drive letter option is not supported.

• Tasks that restore backups to bare-metal disks or that restore multiple backups at the same time may result in a -701 error. If you encounter this problem, please retry the restore task again.

• You will need to select the restore target from the context menu in boot environments created using Windows 10 ADK. Dragging and dropping restore sources to restore targets is not supported in this scenario.

• When you select Restore by Disk to restore an image of an MBR disk onto a bare-metal disk, the largest supported volume size is 2TB.

• Partitions created using Create Partition will be unformatted.

• There is a limitation in the Restore Wizard that won’t allow you to create multiple partitions via the Create Partition drop-down menu and then restore multiple volumes to those partitions. To work around this limitation, you will need to create a single partition and then restore a volume to that partition. You will need to repeat this process, one partition at a time, until you have restored all volumes into these new partitions.

• You cannot recover an entire system on mirror-configured dynamic volumes.

• You cannot restore split-images with deduplication compression from optical media.

• You cannot restore uEFI system-disk images with ratio expanding, even if you select a larger disk than original disk as the restore target.

• When restoring only the system volume on a bare-metal recovery, if you use the option “Restore as BIOS boot system”, the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) will be created with [hypervisorlaunchtype] set to “Auto”.

• When restoring a backup source volume / disk which backup schedule is configured, incremental backup is executed after restoring the volume / disk, keeping continuity in the existing incremental chain.

• When restoring mirror-configured dynamic volumes, you need to restore both primary and secondary disks.

• Backup by Disk does not support dynamic disks as the restore target. Only mirroring or simple dynamic volumes are supported.

• Creation of a partition on dynamic disk is not supported.

• Restore of dynamic volume supports overwriting restore on existing volume on dynamic disk and restore by volume to basic disk.

• When restoring a backup image of Windows system to bare metal disk using Boot Environment (Linux), restore by volume does not enable to boot up the restored system.

• Restore from backup in tape pool does not support Volume Recovery in reduced size.

• When restoring from backup in tape pool, the recovery point of the media inserted in the drive is indicated.

• Split backup images files created by using ActiveImage Protector 2022 and written in an optical media are not supported to use.

File Recovery

• Before using the File Recovery feature, please make sure that the mount driver (ActiveImage Mount Component) is configured.

• File Recovery does not support backup images that include a volume formatted with a file system that the computer running the task does not support.

• If there are multiple copies of the same backup or archived image file in a backup destination, in the user interface multiple date/time-stamped Recovery Points will be displayed.

• If you include more than 24 volumes in an image set or if more than 24 of the total number of images are mounted while file recovery is in progress, the restoration of all volumes after the 24th will fail.

• If the restore source files include files under the root of an image or in a hidden folder, the attribute of the restore target folder will be “hidden” until the recovery process completes.

• If you restore a folder that includes a large number of files or a file that is large in size, the progress bar may:

  • Remain at 1% for an extended period of time, in the case of a single large file.

  • Seem to hang at various percent markers if multiple large files are present.

  • Take a long time to move from 99% to a completed state

• When you select a folder to restore, “-Recovering” will be appended to the folder’s name. In the event that you cancel the task while it is in process, the “-Recovering” part of the name will remain.

• If you select a destination in the file system that does not support Alternate Data Streams (ADS), the file’s ADS information will not be retained.

• Restoring from an optical media is supported, but only if the image is saved on one optical disk. Restoring an image that spans multiple optical disks is not supported.

• ActiveImage Protector does not support the recovery of EFS encrypted files and folders.

• File Recovery in the IT Pro Edition may fail with the error, “Device not found.” If you get this error, please try again.

• When specifying SFTP server or cloud storage as the destination for File Backup, please download the backup in local storage or network shared folder, so that the file can be restored from the downloaded backup.

• When the path length of the restored item exceeds 256 characters, the process will fail in error.

• Restore File / Folder feature does not support the use of backup image files of dynamic disk / volume as restore source.

HyperRecovery

• If you run the HyperRecovery task against an image that only contains a subset of the volumes from a disk, only the volumes included in the backup will be restored. All other partitions will be restored as RAW.

• Please remember the following when restoring to Hyper-V on a remote computer.

  • Ensure that Administrative share is enabled on the managed remote computer.

  • You need to log in by using the built-in Administrator or a user in the Domain administrators group. Other users in Administrators group are not authenticated.

Hyper-V Virtual Machine

• Restoring uEFI system by selecting [Restore as new virtual machine] option, Secure Boot is enabled, by default, on the created virtual machine. Please change the setting, if necessary.

• When [Only Restore Disk] option is selected to restore from HyperBack image, if a folder named the same as the source virtual machine exists in the restore target volume, the task fails to start with Error Code 12.

VMware vSphere Virtual Machine

• When restoring a backup image of Hyper-V guest virtual machine to ESXi host, the operating system is not automatically selected in the wizard. Please select the same or a proximate version in the list.

• When restoring a backup image of Hyper-V guest virtual machine (Generation 2) to ESXi host, you need to configure EFI setting before booting up the restored virtual machine.

• Recovery of a virtual machine spanning 16 or more hard disks or connecting 10 or more NICs is not allowed.

• Virtual disk restored to NFS datastore is created by Thick Provision Eager Zeroed.

• Depending on the OS version of the backup source guest virtual machine, Operating System may not be automatically configured in HyperRecovery wizard. In this case, please select the same or the approximate version to proceed with the wizard. When the restored virtual machine does not boot up, please check the disk controller of the restored virtual machine. If the type of the disk controller is not the same as the backup source guest machine, please select the same disk controller and boot up the restored virtual machine again.

• In order to correctly recognize the used storage space for a virtual machine in ESXi VM window, select the virtual machine, go to [Edit Settings], detach and save the connected hard disk, and add the hard disk in [Existing hard disk].

In-Cloud Recovery/Standby

• [Boot up remote appliance] fails in Error -1, when the product activation is performed with the product key but not for online activation.

• When using trial version (trial key), the restore task fails in Error -1.

• You are not allowed to specify the date when selecting a recovery point.

• When resource group [AIP_Appliance_group] already exists in Microsoft Azure and if the instance specified as the restore target is different from the region, launching remote appliance fails. If you get this problem, please delete [AIP_Appliance_group] and launch remote appliance again.

Image File Management

Quick Verify, Deep Verify

• When running Quick Verify task by using 7.0.1 or earlier Versions for the backup image files created by using 7.0.2 or later versions, the task fails in -440 error.

• When the backup image files created by using Version 7.0.2 or later are consolidated by using the product version that does not support the Version 7.0.2 or later image files, Quick Verify / Deep Verify task for the backup image files fails in -413 error.

  • Version 7.0.1 or earlier ActiveImage Protector
  • Version 5.0.2 or earlier ImageCenter

Consolidation and Archiving Incremental Backup Files

• Before running consolidation tasks, please make sure that at least the same or more available space than the size of consolidated image files is in the storage of source image files.

• While executing an incremental backup task on the backup source host machine, a consolidation task for the image file set cannot be executed from another host. Please execute the consolidation task only after the incremental backup task is completed on the backup source host machine.

• If any of the following conditions are met in the system environment or consolidation source, even if some data are deleted from incremental image files up to the latest one, the processed image size is not decreased by the deleted data size but may increase.

  • Mount driver is not configured in the system environment.

  • Source volume is formatted with file system other than NTFS.

Mount Backup Image

• Up to the maximum number of 24 volumes are supported to mount in the product. Other than this feature, [File Recovery] feature allows to mount the volumes included in an image.

  • The entire volumes included in the image are mounted, when you proceeded with [2. File Recovery] in Restore File Wizard.

  • While File Recovery is in progress, the volume including the items to restore is mounted.

• The backup images created by HyperBack are not supported.

• You may get “Device not found” error in IT Pro Edition. If you get this problem, please try again.

• When mounting multiple disks included in multi-disk image as writable, the same number of differential image files (*.AIX) as the number of the mounted disks are created in the destination.

Image Target Server

• The volume formatted with FS which the connected system does not support cannot be used even after the target is connected.

Virtual Conversion

Virtual conversion from image file or physical disk

• Virtual conversion does not support dynamic disks as a conversion source.

• Virtual conversion does not support backups of dynamic volumes as a conversion source.

• If you perform a virtual conversion with thick provisioning (for VMware products) or fixed virtual disk size (for Microsoft Hyper-V), the lead time before the task execution may be significantly longer depending on the source disk size.

• When converting from image files, the task execution progress may appear to be stopped 0% after the task is started. This task isn’t stopped and will increase as the file is processed.

• If the task doesn’t start when converting to a target location on VMware vSphere vCenter Server, please specify an ESXi host directly as the target for conversion.

• Virtual conversion of a hard disks that don’t have a logical sector size of 512 bytes will fail.

• Backup images created by HyperBack are not supported.

• [Convert from Disk] in IT Pro Edition may fail with a “pipeline error”. If you get this error, please try again.

• If virtual conversion to ESXi host fails in Error -4101, apply Windows Update and try again.

for VMware products (conversion to virtual machines)

• Network names containing double-byte characters are not displayed on wizard.

• Conversion to datastores on ESXi 4.x hosts is not supported.

• If no destination folder is specified, the files are created in root directory on the datastore.

• (6532) Conversion to NFS datastores is not supported.

• (7655) You cannot convert more than 16 HDD in the same task.

for VMware products (conversion to virtual disks)

• Before selecting a local or shared folder as a destination, please ensure that the location is NTFS formatted. Storage destinations formatted with Linux file systems, FAT/FAT32, etc. are not supported.

• Virtual conversion to ESXi 6.5 (or later versions) is not supported.

• If you select a vCenter Sever for virtual conversion, the virtual machines are created as follows:

  • If you specify no folder or specify an existing folder：tempVM＜task start date and time＞ After the process completes, please delete the virtual machine from the inventory using the vSphere Client. After copying the vmdk file to another folder/path, please delete the temporary created folder if it’s unnecessary.

  • If you create a new folder： the created folder name
    After the process completes, please dispose the registered virtual machine from the inventory by using vSphere Client. Please delete the vmx or vmsd file in the created folder if unnecessary.

  • VMware paravirtualization SCSI controller driver is not supported.

for Microsoft Hyper-V (conversion to virtual machines)

• Please remember the following when performing a virtual conversion to Hyper-V on a remote computer.

  • Ensure that Administrative share is enabled on the managed remote computer.

  • You need to log in by using the built-in Administrator or a user in Domain administrators group. Other users in Administrators group are not authenticated.

• uEFI system conversion is supported only with conversion target host supporting Generation 2 virtual machines.

• If a Hyper-V host on Windows Server 2008 R2 is selected as the target host, the network settings are not applied to the created virtual machines.

Virtualization Adapter

• You may get “Unknown platform error” in IT Pro Edition. If you encounter the problem, please try again.

• VMware paravirtualization SCSI controller driver is not supported.

Utilities

• When remotely accessing RescueBoot via VNC Viewer, if selecting [Launch Command Prompt] or [Launch AIP CLI], Windows command prompt or command line interface may not be displayed.

Disk / Volume Copy

• When copying the BIOS boot system disk to an enlarged disk, if disk signature is copied, the system copied on the following OS does not boot up. Even the system copied on the other OS may boot up but go in recovery mode. In this case please restart the system.

  • Windows 10
  • Windows Server 2019
  • Windows Server 2022

Tape Manager

• When the available space in the tape media specified as the backup destination is insufficient, the backup task fails in “[-702] Disk is full” error or “[-640] Tape media not found”.

• When upgrading from Version 6.0.x, [Automatically allocate a tape from [Empty Media]] option is enabled or disabled as follows but please change the setting if necessary:

  • Actiphy pool: Enabled
  • Created pool: Disabled

Boot Environment

• When establishing the connection to RescueBoot booted with a instance of cloud via this product or VNC viewer, please do not change the IP address allocated to the connection target NIC. If changed, connection using the IP address allocated to the NIC fails to establish.

Windows RE/PE-based

• You can access a network shared folder by taking the following operating procedures:

  • Directly access in Explorer.

  • Go to [Utilities] - [Network Setting] and create network drive to access.

• Japanese language input is not supported.

• To use the Deduplication Compression feature, folders on local storage can be selected as temporary work folders.

• Once Boot Environment boots up, do not remove the media until all operations are complete.

• In the event [Utility] - [Restore Boot Setting] - [Create BCD] is selected to run for the system which has no Boot Configuration Data (BCD), BCD is created with [hypervisorlaunchtype] set to “Auto”.

• Please note the following limitations to [Restore VSR].

  • (8465) Restoring virtual standby replicas created on Hyper-V target host on Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 to physical machine is not supported.

  • Restore virtual standby replica configured on VMware vSphere is not supported. Please create a backup in virtual standby replica and restore the created backup image to the source machine.

  • Restore from Hyper-V is not supported in boot environment built by using Windows RE. Please create a backup in the virtual standby replica and restore the backup image to the source machine. Or, use Actiphy Boot Environment Builder and build boot environment by using Windows ADK for Windows 11 Version 22H2.

• RescueBoot built by using Windows ADK for Windows 11 Version 22H2 does not boot up on Windows Server 2012R2. Please use Windows ADK for Windows Server 2022 to build RescueBoot.

• The information of backup destination is not ported to RescueBoot boot environment.

• Version 7.0.0 Cloud Edition does not support QuickRecovery.

• Wireless LAN is not supported.

• The time zone for the boot environment media is configured as follows:

  • Boot Environment Builder： Specified time zone
  • Recovery Media Maker/IT Pro Creator： The time zone of the system on which the media is created.

  When booting in boot environment, the hardware clock is adjusted to the time of the time zone configured for the media. When booting the boot environment in the environment where the time zone is different from the one configured for the media, please restore the hard clock to the original state before rebooting the system.

Linux-based

• uEFI boot with secure boot option is not supported. With CSM (Compatibility Software Module) enabled, uEFI boot is supported in legacy mode (MBR) or compatible mode. With CSM disabled or if CSM boot is enabled in uEFI mode only, uEFI boot is not supported.

• Add Device Driver feature is not supported.

• If a single byte space is included in the path to storage destination for saving volume backup image, you may encounter an error.

• If a Windows 7 system disk or later is created in Boot Environment and restored in Windows module (including Windows PE boot environment), please execute restore task without changing restore settings. Should you change restore settings, disk meta data is not restored and the restored system fails to boot up.

• Once Boot Environment boots up, please do not remove the media until all operations are complete.

• If clicking on [Create Support Info], the message dialog is not displayed. The support information file is created in “/opt/BE” in the following format:

  • AipSupportInfo_yyyymmdd_hhmm.tgz

• Drive letters indicated in disk map are not consistent with those in Explorer for browsing a file.

• When overwriting to restore the mounted volume, please unmount the target volume by selecting [Utilities]-[Mount (Local)] before you proceed with further operation.

• You cannot restore split image from optical media.

• (7669) You cannot mount image.

• Before you start using USB HDD, please make sure that the USB HDD is connected to the system before booting up. If you use network shared folder mounted to the system, ensure that the network shared folder is mounted before launching Restore Image Wizard. In the event that you connect USB HDD to the system or mount the network shared folder only after Restore Image Wizard is launched, the USB HDD or network shared folder may not be displayed in [Backup Destination].

Image Explorer

• Copying a large number of files may take a long time to complete.

• Internal files cannot be booted from an image file.

• Browsing the contents of ReFS and Linux file systems is not supported.

• File properties are not maintained when copying a file from directly opened image file. If file properties need to be maintained, please use the Mount Image feature.

• Items in the image file are grayed out in the UI, however, you can browse or copy items inside folders.

• Agentless backup images created by HyperBack are not supported.

Remote Client Management Console

• Remote Host Management List supports the following versions for monitoring the status :

  • Windows Edition：Version 3.5 SP7 or later

  • Linux Boot Environment：Version 2016 or later

  • Windows PE Boot Environment：Version 2016 or later

• Linux Edition：Version 2016 or later

  • Boot Environment：Version 2016 or later

• When multiple schedules are created on the remote host, only the schedules for the most immediate execution are listed.

• (7532) To select any host from the search result, please click on the host name. The checkboxes may be disabled even if you click on.

• In the event that the host name on Remote Host Management List is changed, please delete the host name from the list and add it to the list again.

• When adding the remote host which booted into Boot Environment to the list, please enter “root” to user name/password.

• HyperBack task is not supported.

Connect to Remote Host

• Connection only to version 2022 agent is supported.

• A connection to AIP agent of upper version than the AIP agent on the local host cannot be established.

• To connect to Boot Environment agent, please enter “root” in User Name and Password.

• To connect to AIP agent Linux Edition, log in as “root” user.

• When connected to Boot Environment (Windows PE) agent, AIP CLI is disabled.

• To disconnect from a remote computer, select [Connect to local host]. The same is true if there is no agent installed on local host.

• When the managed agent is not displayed in [Connect to Remote Host] list, please make sure that [AipService (TCP/UDP)] is enabled in the managed agent’s inbound rule settings for Windows Firewall. If not, please ensure that the Windows Firewall exception settings are configured for the following TCP/UDP ports.

  • TCP Port 48236

  • UDP Port 48238

  • UDP Port 48239

    If you change any of the above port numbers, a restart of the ActiveImage Protector Service is required.

• When accessing to lower version agent by using upper version console, the features and options which the agent does not support may be displayed. Since the unsupported features and options do not work properly, please refrain from using them.

• The thumbnail does not provide the real-time monitoring of the status of the virtual machine in restore process by using HyperRecovery LIVE!. Remote access to the virtual machine in restore process is also disabled.

• When connecting to Version 7.0.3 or earlier agent, after shutting down / rebooting, the console becomes no responsive.

Other Utilities

• Use the Event Log Viewer to monitor the latest 200 events. If the number of events logged in the period you specify exceeds 200, no events are displayed.

• All contents may not be displayed in Task Summary.

Others

• Before using this product, ensure that [Windows System Restore] (System Protection) is disabled.

• If using a disk de-defrag utility along side this product, it is highly recommended to create a full backup image after the completion of a defrag process. Disk de-frag software may change sectors on the disk and cause the size of incremental backup files to increase.

• When migrating the system on VMware virtual machines to other hypervisors or physical computers, uninstall the VMware Tools configured on VMware virtual guest machines before creating backup image files.