Lin Evans

Hi Jacek, Could you try the same but in the Project Options Advanced Tab use "Run Slideshow" instead of "Run Application" - be certain all three shows are created with the same version of PTE. Please let us know what happens. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, You might want to have a look at Burnaware which is an inexpensive, but very good alternative - see it here: http://www.burnaware.com/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Hopefully it will work just fine. There have been lots of issues with Windows 7 and cloning per this: http://www.anotherwindowsblog.com/2011/02/windows-7-not-genuine-after-disk-clone.html Can't say from personal experience since I have never backed up my own Windows 7 system with a cloned drive. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, I have multiple OS systems on different machines - everything from XP to 8.1 but I keep XP on my development machine because it has features which I like. My issue with PTE finding files may be only on the XP system, truthfully, I haven't tried it with any other OS, but it does present problems now and then. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, So you set the bios priority to boot from the USB device and if necessary, that boots the system. Then you do the restore from the latest virus free image which then only requires restoring (if available) any files subsequently added after the date that image was made? Sounds reasonable. Either way, since virus or malware infestation is nearly always limited to the C:\> drive, for speed of recovery or cloning, keeping the C:\> free of all except applications would be the best strategy. Unfortunately, I have a rather large amount of data on my C:\> drive which I probably "should" migrate to external or backup discs, but to do so would confound programs such as PTE because of the change in location of the data files. I've begun to try to keep zipped backups of all my projects now to eliminate the time sink of searching out the new locations for relocated data. Hindsight - LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, You answered apparently while I was modifying my original reply. Yes, the clone software only works when the orignal drive is operational. But in that respect, so too does the imaging software. Both apparently will, as you say, restore the entire operation to a new drive. The difference is that you must use the recover disk to boot your system so that the imaged information including OS, registry and boot sector is made functional on the replacement disc. The cloned disc just has to be installed, or in my case connected which takes only a few seconds to get things working. The advantage of the imaging "plus" incremental backups of the imaging software is that everything is up to date and according to the article I linked, there is less probability of a virus infecting both Windows partitions. Of course that's not a problem with the way I did it because only one drive is functional at a time. Were the drives mirrored, then the probability exists for a virus or malware to infect both. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Almost all of the present clone software packages also have the option to create a boot disk to get the system up and running. Some of them also have backup functions such as Acronis True Image. The one I recommended is strictly a cloning software rather than a cloning and backup software. All of the imaging software in the world won't help you with a total hard drive failure. Yes, you have your backups of your application software and your data files, but if the hard drive itself is trashed (not just files corrupted or missing boot sector, etc.) you have to purchase a new hard disk, install an OS on it, recover all your files from the imaging software and then register each to make them work meaning you must enter each unlock code for each software which requires it. By cloning your drive, and then optionally mirroring, you prevent this and only need to recover the data installed since the cloning operation or, in the case of mirroring, just disconnect the defective drive, make a simple bios change and you are up and running immediately. They are just different ways of achieving the same result. My comments about Acronis do indeed refer to an earlier version but on the ease of cloning with Acronis and not referring to its backup capabilities. Perhaps imaging software now has the ability to restore the boot sector and registry? If it does this I wasn't aware of it. If so, it would appear to be functionally identical to cloning software? LATER: It appears that I'm out of date about imaging software which apparently can also backup the registry and boot sector and restore it as Gary did with Acronis. My old version of Acronis could not do that - it was both clone and backup, but could only clone to an identical size drive and to do this one either had to have the capability of installing two drives in the single enclosure or purchase an enclosure with power supply to temporarily house the cloned drive. With incremental backup capabilities, it seems that perhaps even an external hard drive could be used to temporarily hold the image to be restored to a new internal drive in the event of total hard disk failure.... I found this which is dated 2009, but may be helpful in deciding which way is better for you.... http://www.pcworld.com/article/164972/image_or_clone.html Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I suspect that the best way to go depends on several factors. Having multiple systems helps - I too have multiple systems. If - and it's sometimes a BIG if, one has all the application programs and unlock codes for their software stored and available for reinstall, then it's just a matter, as you say, of installing the new drive, operating system and applications. Much of this can be automated from the backups if they are current. In my own case, I have probably right at 200 application programs, the majority of which I purchased on-line so have no install CD's. I generally keep my unlock codes in a text document so I can easily recover them, but having suffered crashes in the past many of them have been misplaced over time. I have actually purchased some of the same software over and again because of crashes and poor backup habits so in my own case having a cloned drive is a huge time and effort saver. With the incredibly low cost of internal hard disks today, It's cheap insurance and only takes a few minutes to temporarily install a second drive in a desktop unit and let the clone software run overnight. In my case and because of the huge number of files the clone process took about five and a half hours, but the peace of mind of knowing that if my system crashes I can, within about two minutes be up and running as if nothing had happened is invaluable to me. Over the years I have had numerous backup systems from external hard drives to incredibly expensive optical drives and LTO - Ultrium tape libraries, I've had them all, but never really was tremendously organized with my procedures. My late wife would probably roll over in her grave if she heard this. She was a VP and Marketing Director in the tape library business for Hewlett-Packard for many years and fortunately, through her and her engineering contacts, I had access to incredibly expensive (for home use) tape backup systems. She used to laugh at me when I suffered hard drive failures and having all these expensive and complex systems for backup, never really availed myself of the technology so had to spend days rebuilding files, reinstalling applications, searching for unlock keys, etc. She would be very happy to learn that I finally learned my lesson the hard way and now just clone the drive and laugh at the possibility of a system crash. Of course if she were giving me advice, I would not only have a cloned drive available on site, but have an additional one stored off-site so in the event of a fire or other natural disaster, all would not be lost. I think we all have systems which we have worked out over the years for protecting the data we find critical and what works best for our individual cases. It's indeed not a one size fits all situation. Best regards, Lin

Nice job Mur - excellent example of the flexibility of PTE and excellent job of using the 3D features to build and display your house! Best regards, Lin

Hi Jeff, Maybe I can answer some of your concerns. If you perform a "clone" of the SSD to a new larger SSD then it will be virtually identical to the original when cloned with the proper software except it will have additional space available for writing. In this sense, it will boot just as it did from the original and nothing will seem a bit different except you will have more sectors available for use on the new and larger SSD. The cloning must be done when new application software is added, or you must install to both drives because the registry must be identical on the two drives. Nearly all software today writes to the registry and records the presence of the unlock key. Without this, your software applicaton will not run on the new drive unless you install the new software there. Just copying the application as installed will not suffice, it must be registered to work. Imaging and mirroring are essentially the same in function. These processes preserve the integrity of all the data and appllication files by duplicating them on each drive but they do not write to the registry AFAIK. In general, the registry and boot sectors are only written to with a true clone operation. The value of mirroring or imaging is that should a file or files become corrupted on one drive, you can copy them the mirror drive or imaged drive assuming that the corruption has not been written to the opposite drive as well. Think of mirroring as real-time backup opposed to off-line backup when you decide it's time. Think of cloning as an off-line duplication of your entire system on a second drive. I do not know whether it would be possible to install a new SSD or hard disk and install the OS then copy from the mirrored drive to the new drive and have everything work properly. I've not tried this, but my understanding is that mirroring is essentially a level zero RAID operation. RAID allows rebuilding corrupted or lost files from partial data striped across two or more hard disks. Best regards, Lin

Symantec was really stubborn even after I pointed out to their vice president of engineering a few years ago that there were software packages with serious markets such those products produced by Wnsoft, Photodex, AV Stumpfl, etc., which created executable code as a product in refusing to deal with fixing the Norton false positives. They had the audacity to suggest putting each executable into a folder excluded from testing by Norton. It took a long, long time for them to fix their over zealous detection scheme so that it wasn't flagging our executable files as threats and actually deleting them! Numerous calls finalliy resulted in success but the damage returned as quickly as it was "fixed." When developers are simply pig headed about refusing to work with other companies, it's time for affected users to drop their products like a hot potato. I suggested to all my clients that they seriously consider other anti-malware products. Personally, I wouldn't touch Norton Utilities myself. It had a good reputation until Peter sold it to Symantec then, over the years, it became the problem in my opinion. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Absolutely, you want to resize the images to no larger than necessary to conserve resources for your show. The bottom line is that the "only" time you need an image larger than the display device resolution which the image will be shown on is when you are doing a deep zoom in on a feature in that specific image. There is absolutely zero advantage in your images being larger than the display. For example, if you assume that the vast majority of users will have displays with an HD resolution of 1920x1080, then only use larger images for those few (if any) instances where you intend to zoom in. If you need to do a close in zoom on a particular image, then make that image large enough to not lose sharpness when you zoom in. As an example, I have a number of different digital cameras ranging from 10 megapixel to 40 megapixel image sizes. I downsample all these images to about two megapixel size for the vast majority of my shows. Things will run much smoother when your images are reasonably sized and for an executable show which give you the very best quality, you don't want to exceed the capabilities of the least common denominator in the chain of possible computer systems that the show will run on. Also there is a limit of about 2 gigabytes for a single executable file. This limitation is imposed by 32 bit software which will play on virtually all systems. So the easiest way to do this is use something like Irfanview or Fastone to resample all images to a standardized size in one dimension. Assuming your kids used cameras, phone cameras, etc., then probably see what the least resolution is, and if it's close to HD, just resample everything to 1080 pixels on the short side. Since there are a number of aspect ratios with different cameras, you can't always assume wide-angle or such. Most consumer cameras shoot in either 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio. Some of the newer ones also shoot in 16:9. If you just consentrate on the vertical height, then you will have sufficient width so that you can either crop or expand individual images to fit your desired display matrix. If you stay with reasonable jpg compression - say the equivalent of Photoshop six to eight, you should get excellent results. Best regards, Lin

A while back I had the C: drive fail on one of my systems shortly after doing a complete backup of data and application programs to a new1TB external USB Seagate drive. I went to the Seagate and it was as dead as a door nail. The drive simply was not spinning! I called Seagate explained the flashing light codes and they sent me a new bottom end which consisted of the power supply for the drive. It didn't help, still dead. Seagate offered to send me a new replacement drive, but the small cost of the drive was inconsequential, the problem was that all my data from the crashed drive was on this backup. Seagate also offered to "try" to recover the data for $1500.00 !! I wrapped the drive in Ceran Wrap plastic and froze it for about 24 hours then took it out and hooked it up. It still wouldn't spin. I was ticked off and I slammed the drive down on my sturdy desk. It started running just fine and it's been working perfectly since and that was over three years ago. Go figure..I was able to copy all the data from it without a single error and I still use it but of course I wouldn't trust if for anything other than just a redundant backup. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, I don't think programs like Acronis True Image can be of much help if the C: drive is already trashed. Their advantage is in preventive care so you have insurance after the fact. In my case, an old friend many years ago when I got the XP system showed me how to set up a redundant boot sector with XP. This person made his living recovering data from dead drives and told me that Windows NT version 3.xx file system keeps a duplicate copy of the NTFS boot sector at the logical center of the volume, and Windows NT version 4.0 keeps a duplicate copy at the end of the partition. Since XP was derived from NT, they share certain characteristics which can be used to circumvent a dead boot sector. I've long since forgotten how this was accomplished, but it's what was happening to my C: drive. When my drive booted, I always saw a choice of two options for loading Windows. I've always chosen the first of these. Suddenly I got an error message stating that the boot sector was not found and the drive wouldn't load Windows at all. I chose the second choice and though I had to "press F1 to continue" it successfully loaded Windows XP. That's when I cloned the drive. It still gives me the same message with the new drive (I suppose the trashed boot sector was cloned as well) but by pressing F1 I'm able to load the new drive and everything works perfectly. I'm fairly confident that it would be possible to write a good boot to the old location on the new drive, but as long as it keeps working I'll just muddle along... Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, I agree and originally, when I first purchased Acronis True Image, I was totally baffled at all the necessary work to clone a drive. In those days one either had to purchase an enclosure with power supply to house the drive to be cloned, or install it in the system and it had to be the exact same drive as the one being cloned. Today, it's actually a pretty painless operation and the newer software can clone to a larger drive without problems. All you have to do is put the new drive in the system, hook up the power and data cables, install the clone software on the original drive and press a couple keys and everything is taken care of. After the clone process is finished which could take anywhere from a couple hours to overnight, you can either leave the cloned drive in or take it out and put it in a storage box in case the original fails at which time you simply "replace it" with the cloned one from the box. Then just restore the incremental backups since the date you cloned the drive and you're off and running as if nothing had happened. Best regards, Lin

Hi Barry, That's "essentially" what is being done, but on a sector by sector basis because a copy requires sufficient RAM to hold the data and even the consumer systems with maximum amounts RAM rarely exceed 32 gb. Here's some of the current software and as you can see, the majority do sector copies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_cloning_software Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I think the primary reason for cloning is to preserve the application software codes from the registry. Obviously, whether your software is installed in the default c: Windows "Program Files" folder, or whether you installed it on a partition or even a second drive where possible, the issue remains that if you loose the drive with the registry, all your software will have to have the unlock codes replaced when the applications are reinstalled or pulled off the backups. To prevent that, one needs the registry just as it existed on the crashed drive. Many times over the years I've had to perform a low level format on a drive which wiped out the registry. I realize that there are applications which can backup the registry, but even then reinstalling application software can be a major issue if you have a lot of it. In my case, I have literally hundreds of application software titles on my development system. It would take days to rebuild if I totally lost it and I might not even be able to find the unlock codes for many of my older programs which I still use on a regular basis. That's my main reason for using clone software. In the event that my drive with the registry fails, I can, in a few short moments remove two screws, plug in a data cable and a power cable hanging in easy reach of the clone disk and with a quick BIOS change be back up and running in about 45 seconds. Yes, I would have to retrieve my backups since the clone, but the vast majority of my work would be nearly instantly available. Even better would be a mirrored clone so that all I would need to do would be disconnect the power from the crashed drive, and make a BIOS change and I would have the mirrored drive up an going in short order. I suppose lots depends on how many applications one runs, but it would be a total nightmare for me to try to reinstall hundreds of applications even from a backup and then try to re-enter all the unlock codes. Maybe I'm missing something??? Best regards, Lin

Could you give a little more information. Were these MP4 h.264 encoded and burned with PTE, or were they executable files? Executable files can be burned to a dvd but will never play on a DVD player because they require a computer. If you can give details about how you created the DVD's perhaps one of us can help sort it out. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, AFAIK Imaging is generally done via a compressed and stored volume rather than incremental mirroring - see this article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2029832/backing-up-your-entire-drive-cloning-vs-imaging.html I agree that having your data on a different drive or partition is probably a great idea especially if using SSD rather than a hard disk. I generally do put data on my C: partition but agree that it's not the best practice. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, What you are doing falls under the umbrella of off-line "mirroring" I suspect. I'm not keeping both drives operational so don't use the mirroring feature of FarStone's product. The important thing is that there are numerous products out there and it's not a bad idea for users to either clone a drive for backup or clone then use mirroring to provide redundancy. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I've so far used Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image and FarStone DriveClone 10. Of these I really like the FarStone product for two reasons. 1. It's incredibly EASY to use and isn't cluttered with backup features though they have another product which includes backup features as well. 2. It gets rid of unnecessary file and clutter. There are a number of excellent products out there - some rated higher on Top 10 Reviews (the one you use has exactly the same rating as FarStone's product) and cheaper to boot, but after trying to get information from the various product web sites, the "only" one who quickly answered my questions was FarStone. The Top Ten Reviews wasn't impressed with FarStone's support so maybe they are trying harder now. Of course Top Ten Reviews is definitely NOT the end word in anything - they rank Proshow Gold over PTE primarily because it has "more transitions" LOL. I actually wrote them and explained that PTE has "unlimited" transitions because users can create their own. These review sites such as Top Ten don't have either the staff or expertise to really dig deep and truly understand the products they review, it's pretty superficial so I take their ratings with a grain of salt. My guess is that users would not go wrong with any of the current products, but ease of use is probably paramount, especially for those inexperienced with the nomenclature and process of cloning. Best regards, Lin

I spent most of the day yesterday tending to a failing hard disk. My old XP development system has a 500 GB SATA disk drive which has been somewhat problematic and lately began showing signs of failing. I decided to clone it to an updated Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive. I have Acronis sofware but it has always been a major pain in the behind to use so I began evaluating alternatives. I finally settled on FarStone DriveClone 10 and I'm happy to say that it was a painless and surprisingly simple process. This software not only allows cloning to a larger drive but also one can clone to/from an SSD, etc. The software performs defragging the old disk before the clone and also removes garbage such as Windows Temp Files, etc. You can even continue using your system while the process is working. All I had to do when it was finished was reassign my cascading drive designators for USB external drives, correct the BIOS to the new drive and everything works perfectly and I have 600 gb free on my drive now. I just left the old drive in the system and disconnected the power and data cables at the drive so if I ever need to do this again, I can simply reconnect and be operational instantly. Here's a link to the FarStone product for anyone interested: http://www.farstone.com/software/Drive-Clone.php Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, The only way to control an animated gif is with opacity, keyframes and the provisions of Adjust Image and Border. Unlike a video, there are no tools to control, start time, etc., but you can adjust the offset in ms, so that would be the way you could control the start time of the GIF. So use the Animation Tab on the Adjust Image and Border (from Properties Tab in Objects and Animations Screen) to control start time of gif. 1000 ms per second.... Best regards, Lin

It's a learning process about the best way and proper place to post shows, demos, tutorials and how-to's. In the past Beechbrook only hosted slideshows and the PTE forum hosted slidshows and demos and how-to's and frequently asked questions and links to a variety of things. To streamline and take the financial stress of of Bill for maintaining the Beechbrook site for PTE shows, I think Igor thought a more or less official site would be helpful. Now that it's up and running, and links have been placed both on the PTE forum to the Slideshow Club site and conversely, there is no need for the duplication of a place for tutorials, utilities and such. Slideshows can be somewhat better organized on the SC site than they are on the PTE site because there is no associated "forum" and questions, answers, discussions, etc., and visitors would naturally expect to find help, tutorials and such on the PTE forum rather than on a slideshow and demo site. I suspect it's all a matter of getting things sorted so that they are most efficient and to minimize the amount of work for the administrator of the SC site. It can become a huge time sink taking care of sorting, arranging, moving and such and there really is no good reason to maintain more than is now there. Best regards, Lin

That last idea is a good one Dave. I've a similar approach at times to some of my animations. The only down side is that there will be no way to alter the individual components once they are made into the twin videos, but I'm reasonably certain that this would still be by far the most efficient way to proceed. Best regards. Lin