Radministrator, some additional feedback on :

I am reacting to two prior posts in which you said [1] “We're simply saying that it's NOT AS RELIABLE as imaging from DOS,” and [2] “imaging from Windows is inherently less-reliable than imaging from DOS.”  It sure seems that the statements express an option asserted as fact.  Nonetheless, in fairness, I do acknowledge that you have appropriately linked this thread to the “controversial” term in the Ghost Guide.

Technically speaking, you’re right – but only because you did not present the full context of the comment which was “truth be told, the reality is most likely that both are essentially equally reliable”.  Note the phrase “most likely” – it was intended to convey my own personal opinion of the situation.  It most definitely is not a claim that I know “truth” (in this or in any other matter).  My apologies if it appeared otherwise.

I believe that the following has already been stated about ten times, but I will repeat again:  no one is claiming that Windows-based imaging is more reliable than DOS-based imaging – only that it is not necessarily less reliable.

It is theoretically possible (but not commonsensical) that a company would, on the one hand, be market-focused and customer-centric and, on the other hand, manufacture and sell a technically less reliable product.  It could occur, but it would represent a significant misalignment of business strategy and manufacturing.

I have no ‘inside’ knowledge on this subject, only what I have read on the Symantec website and elsewhere.  The Symantec LiveState Recovery Advanced Server is described as the “formerly V2i Protector Server Edition,” and thus appears to be a derivate of the Drive Image technology.  A key feature is described as “create real-time 'while you work' backups” – what you and I would call “hot imaging.”  It also does not appear that Symantec has discontinued the sale of the corporate version of the old Ghost, which obviously would not make good business sense.

Kind regards,
Pleonasm

Radministrator, some additional feedback on :

This is why the United States has Democrats and Republicans.  Different individuals can look at the same set of ‘facts’ and arrive at very different conclusions.  I suspect that I read the same forums as you (albeit maybe not as frequently), and I don’t see that the quantity of observed problems with DOS-based imaging is less than the quantity of observed problems with Windows-based imaging (even though the number of Windows-based imaging installations is likely greater).  From the latter, I am excluding, of course, the faux-Windows approaches which involve a Windows front-end to a DOS product.

Yep, I agree that we disagree.   


[1] Who number among the royal “we”?
[2] Your statement may be true.  However, I personally have not read anything herein that indicates that it is true.  And, there is a substantial set of arguments to be made suggesting that it is not true, as I have attempted to articulate in my prior posts.

Kind regards,
Pleonasm

Radministrator, some additional feedback on :

I didn’t read it that way, but I do accept your explanation that you intended it to be an opinion.

Radministrator, I am sorry to say, this view of marketing is at least 10 years out of date with the current mainstream thinking as taught in the top business schools.  I recommend that you enter the search terms “Customer Relationship Management” or “Relationship Marketing” into Amazon.com, and you’ll find many hundreds of books that argue the exact opposite of your thesis.  You can generate more profits by sacrificing product quality or customer satisfaction today, but you can’t generate organic business growth tomorrow by so doing.  You will find it exceedingly difficult to cite an authority that disagrees with this viewpoint.

Kind regards,
Pleonasm

As I write this, I've got a client's desktop on the workbench right now with an image restore in progress.  (Not Ghost, though, this one's BootIt NG--yet another "outside-of-Windows" imager.)

I carry around a small DOS bootable CD with the DOS versions of PartitionMagic 8, DriveImage 2002, Ghost 2003, and Savepart 2.91.  (BootIt NG is on a separate bootable CD because that's not a DOS program.)  What I use depends on what the client has.  If he's purchased a legitimate license to Ghost (whether or not he's installed it), I'll use Ghost on my boot CD when working on his system.  If he's purchased none of the above, I use the freeware Savepart.  For me, it's a tremendous time savings not to have to install something or wait for Windows to boot to use something.

BTW, in the past two weeks I've done about 30 restores on a single computer.  On my own time, above and beyond what I've done during the workday.  Why would one computer need 30 restores?  See here, and perhaps you'll get the idea how it's been used:

www.goodells.net/dellutil/




Absolutely!  It won't even have to be that extreme.  I've read occasional reports of hot-imaging screwups, but as I said, it's still too early for me to see any pattern there.  (Except for DI 7--that quickly earned a reputation as a debacle; they didn't discover until after it was released that it couldn't even write to CDR!)  I've personally had none to clean up so far--few of my friends/clients have made that move yet.

Depends who you ask.

I say: rational.

Give it time.


When the winds of Microsoft blow, it's time to take cover.

NightOwl, I’m only speculating, but maybe there are fewer Ghost 9.0 users visiting this support forum because in general they are having fewer problems?  As I’m sure you will agree, most individuals who visit a support forum only do so when they experience a problem.

My speculation is really not as hard to believe as you might think.  Here is a fun experiment to try.  Go to Google and search within “Groups” for (A) “Ghost 9.0” and (B) “Ghost 2003.”  As you know, this inquiry searches a broad range of user forums and communities.  These forums and communities, by and large, contain user initiated questions & answers.  Want to guess how many ‘questions’ you’ll uncover for Ghost 9.0?  The answer is 2,180.  Now, how about Ghost 2003?  Would you believe that the answer is 19,000 – an 871% increase?

Please forgive my language, but a Web search by Google of “Ghost 9.0 sucks” returns zero results.  Amazingly, there are no recorded instances on the world wide web of "sucks" directly associated with "Ghost 9.0".  None.  On the other hand, a search of “Ghost 2003 sucks” returns 37.

Don't you agree that these results are consistent with the fact that the Symantec Knowledge Base contains 460% more support articles for Ghost 2003 than Ghost 9.0?

Finally, consider that in January, 2005 the readership of Redmond Magazine (comprised of IT professionals) voted Ghost 9.0 “the Best of the Best” with 59.5 percent of the vote - "a landslide victory," according to the magazine editors - and "the largest percentage of votes of any product in any category" (see http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=89422&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=661907&h...; IT professionals prefer Ghost 9.0.  Are they collectively mistaken in their assessment?

Which community – Ghost 9.0 or Ghost 2003 - is experiencing greater reliability?  I will defer to the judgment of the readers of this post.

Kind regards,
Pleonasm

As the Radministrator said, the "." 

I have sent an email to Symantec support asking for technical information on "hot imaging" and why that may be more or less reliable than DOS-based imaging.  As you know, a response may or may not occur, and the resulting content may or may not be valuable.  Nonetheless, if I learn anything, I'll certaintly share it with the forum.

I do recall seeing a quasi-technical document on this subject once before (on the Symantec website?), but I can't find it now.

In the interim, we can agree:  "it is far, far better to image than not to image at all."

Cheers,
Pleonasm