I used Acronis on one of my two Win7 computers for about three months two years ago. I dumped it after repeated instances where it would prevent Windows from shutting down.

Researching this, I found that this was a well known Acronis bug that had not been fixed over several versions. There was an active and longstanding forum thread on the subject. Acronis staff variously denied the existence of the bug or claimed that it had been fixed in the latest version on the software, claims that had been made before.

On the recommendation of several thread participants I finally dumped Acronis and installed Macrium Reflect, which has worked well.

I took a look at the information provided by Acronis. The referenced Microsoft article states –

“A VSS application can delete files from a shadow copy during shadow copy creation by using the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlBackupRestoreFilesNotToSnapshot”

On my Win7 SP1 system the default content of this registry key includes –

%windir%softwaredistribution*.* /s

So it would seem that Acronis is referring to the default inclusion by Microsoft of Windows Update data in the list of items exclusded from a VSS backup.

I have use Macrium Reflect to make backup images for years. A similar quirk with Macrium is that all Restore Points are removed/missing after an image retore.

The Windows Update data is also included in the list of items in the related VSS registry key “FilesNotToBackup”

WU database DataStore.edb is unique for each install (even if the machine is the same or os image is backed-up restored)

Acronis is an extremely broken garbage to be avoided at all costs.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/beware-of-acronis-leftovers-issues.316447/

I’ve used the seagate version of acronis for many years, never had a problem

If you mean Seagate Dashboard, which comes with Seagate external and portable hard drives, that is a different animal altogether, though I think I recall reading (now that you reminded me) that Acronis supposedly developed it for Seagate. I have used Dashboard for several years now.

This is caused by the use of volume shadow copy for real time backups. Offline backups (acronis boot disk[linux]) don’t seem to suffer from this.

I’ve had good luck with acronis backups taken and restored offline.

If it’s a VSS issue and the VSS functions are still active or marked by Windows as active, these files should be excluded by almost any imaging (backup) program. These programs must be run outside of Windows (USB or CD boot) in order to have VSS files not marked as in use and active. The outside of Windows images should contain all the Windows Updates data, including Updates History, if this is stored locally.

VSS types of data would include System Restore Point data. I find that most within-Windows backups don’t have usable Restore Points, but maybe that’s just me or just my configuration.

Running Disk Cleanup with WU Cleanup would make the updates history disappear completely from the local disk, I think. (At least until the next Check For and Install Updates run.) Someone can correct me if this is wrong.