#9 XP-Man
Basically I want to backup my system to a completely restorable state excluding certain folders that contain data that is not particularly important, this in a bid to reduce the size of the backup.

Acronis can do that for you, easily.

#17
John, .... try XXClone, it's a freebie and it makes a perfect copy of your hard drive, including the OS to a second hard drive which is bootable.
If your main hard drive dies, simply power up your XXClone hard drive and life continues on as normal.

Only a zero would rely on ms for a reliable backup of their os

Better to back up your whole drive with
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

One small thought: on 29 January 2012, FolderMatch by SaltyBrine was given away here.
I have found it very useful for backups, as by comparing two folders and then synchronising them (with every possible option available) this small program makes incremental backups easy. It is possible to select the whole of "My Documents" or even an entire drive, although I would only rely upon it for my data drive, not my system drive. Hard drives are so large now that I see no need to compress backups. If they are not compressed, they can easily be checked and any file needed easily found. On the other hand, because they are so large, they take a long time to copy in their entirety, which puts people off making backups when only a few files have changed. Using FolderMatch allows backing up of just the changed files in the modified folders.

It is worth mentioning for some newbies that windows 7 and windows 8 allow you to make a system image backup. Also windows 8.1 has a function that they call "file history" which allows you to back up any files in your "library." So you can set your computer to automatically backup your documents, music, etc to an external hard drive or to windows cloud storage on a schedule that you create.

to me the best backup is one that lets you see 'what you've backed up' in English not a bunch of numbers and 'Aomei' has done that for me

Back up programs are very popular, after the computer companies stopped delevering restore discs within the deal. However, the market is crowded with effective products. Personally, I prefer Aomei Backupper, cause it's freeware and it's very reliable. I'll skip today's offer - with a big thanks for having the chance to try it for free. Also a big thanks to you guys, who actually take your time and try out the software on different operating systems.

Btw, the Paragon Back Up And Recovery 2014 given away here was actually working - even it wasn't as easy as Aomei. Happy summer days with greets from Denmark.

I paid for Acronis a long time ago. Backs up my drive C rapidly.

Generally I do not have a good feel for SuperEasy software products. Something to do with the quality of the coding.

Among the freeware alternatives, I presume Macrium Reflect to be reliable and without any nonsensical bells and whistles.

This software seems very attractive, especially if it works. What I am looking for is:
1. Easy backup of data. One click, five clicks,all the same
2.Easy restore if a crash.

So my questions are;
1. Is this program a data backup or full backup of hard drive?
2. Does does the bootable recovery disk allow reinstallation to a new drive?
3. Does it work? The comments above, especially Karl, indicate not.

Any feedback welcomed.
Thanks

As I am still using XP the need of a system backup is important and I was hoping that today's download would be what I'm looking for, sadly not so.
In a bid to make it a simple backup procedure the selection of what to backup, correction, of what to exclude from backup is not available.
Basically I want to backup my system to a completely restorable state excluding certain folders that contain data that is not particularly important, this in a bid to reduce the size of the backup.
Another failing of today's offering is that in the help file they state that they save to a VMDK file without explaining exactly what it is, not too helpful.
If you're going to create a program and you expect people to pay for it you must be at least as good as the freeware available, in my opinion today's download does not even compare with #3 Giovanni’s first choice “Aomei backupper” and hence it was uninstalled.

@ Karl, post #2: Your comment about this Supereasy-branded software originating from German developer Engelmann has me baffled. I know the website page you link to is in the German language (which, to be honest, I thought you'd understand rather better than I do) but even so: just because the Chief Executive of a company is called Herr Engelmann doesn't mean that the company has the same name.

You regularly post on the subject of developer provenance here and while that can be helpful, it's also potentially dangerous if your fact-checking is less than comprehensive -- as seems to be the case in this instance, where a simple 30-second Who Is look-up results in the following:

Tech Name: Hostmaster ASHAMPOO
Tech Organization: Ashampoo GmbH & Co. KG
Tech Street: Felix-Wankel-Str. 16
Tech City: Oldenburg
Tech State/Province:
Tech Postal Code: 26125
Tech Country: DE
Tech Phone: +49.441933790
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax: +49.4419337979
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: Email Masking Image@ashampoo.com
Name Server: ns05.ashampoodns.com
Name Server: ns03.ashampoodns.com
Name Server: ns04.ashampoodns.com

Problems with the seemingly mediocre (and getting worse) quality of Engelmann products may well put off a considerable number of GOTDers from taking advantage of today's giveaway: I for one wouldn't even consider Supereasy if I thought it was an Engelmann brand.

As to your reference to Ocster, this is indeed another German developer, according to its website page:

https://www.ocster.com/about/en

though look-up details are a bit scarce on the German registrant look-up (you'll need to type in the search name and resolve a truly awful Captcha):

https://www.secure.denic.de/en/homepage.html

But of course, Ocster could also be Supereasy or Ashampoo or Uncle Tom Cobley And All: who knows???

Personally, I'm fed up of developers seeking to foster the notion of marketplace diversity and user freedom of choice via a myriad of different trading names (China has three mega developers who between 'em account for well over a dozen 'companies', many with bogus USA addresses) because all that happens is misdirection and confusion.

Where today's giveaway is concerned, I already have Supereasy from another promotion, albeit the version I have doesn't include any provision of the boot disk you mention from, er, Ocster via, um, Supereasy courtesy of, ah, er, Ashampoo-or-is-it-Engelmann????

Anyway. I've had no problems with Supereasy backup, though personally I still find that the always-free version of Synchredible -- notwithstanding its sell-up nag screen -- beats Supereasy hands down for speed and thoroughness. I'm also delighted to know that Ascomp, publisher of Synchredible, is definitely not Ashampoo or Engelmann or Supereasy or Ocster or any of a gazillion other name permutations: Ascomp is actually. . . Ascomp.

Thanks then, GOTD, for today's giveaway. There's no excuse nowadays for any computer user, anywhere, not to be backing-up -- at the very least! -- their 'My Documents' to an external drive that is mains-powered, *not* a USB-powered portable drive: the failure rate of USB units continues to be so much worse than that of mains-powered units that backing-up valuable data to them is darn near pointless -- you're supposed to be saving yourself from the consequences of drive failure, not jumping out the frying pan into the fire. . .

Can't select a single directory, only drive letter. Useless for me, I just want to backup few dirs eg My Documents.

Do read the license agreement. There's some information there that might interest you. For example, you can transfer your license to another computer if it is uninstalled on the first one.

McAfee Site Advisor yellow-flagged their website as "suspicious" without any detailed explanation.

Step 1 of the registration page asks for your email. After you provide it, the program becomes "active". However, Step 2 asks for your name and date of birth. WHY? Don't fill this out. This isn't necessary, but it implies that if you don't fill this out, you will not get your license key in step 3. Not a problem. To find your license, go to Help/License Information on the program toolbar.

@Karl: Engelmann again - Problems again (but Giovanni+Engelmann=true, lets see...)

It's not a bad softtware but in my view with so many excellent freeware out there it doesn't make sense download it!

Probably good for noobs only!

BEST FREE ALTERNATIVES

Just use the awesome freeware "Aomei backupper":
http://www.backup-utility.com/features/index.html
http://www.aomeitech.com/features/create-bootable-disc.html

See also:
http://www.urbackup.org/index.html (==> supports Bare Metal Restore)


Enjoy! ^_^

Installed and registered without problems on a Win 8.1 Pro 64 bit system. Registration via checked email. You don’t need to give personal information (you can deny).

A German company (Engelmann) with an correct legal “imprint”, according to European Law

https://www.supereasy.net/de/eur/abs

We already had had Supereasy Software…

For me, the Idea of a “supereasy software” is, that you ran the software, flawlessly from start to end to achieve a result without real knowledge of the software behind. A big claim, let’s see…

10 reasons for SuperEasy
What you get with every SuperEasy program ...

1-click technology
Thanks to intelligent automatism you get results with but a few clicks.

Sorry guys, "a few clicks" is not 1-click technology

Upon start a resizable window opens. You can start the predefined backup with one click, otherwise you have to select what and where.

There is a link to a bootable rescue disk. The link leads to OCSTER Backup!!! and changes to SuperEasy where you can download the ZIP file.

You cannot change compression level or other usefull settings.

I startet with a small disk. Whoops! Failed with the follwing log.

-- 2014-06-09 --
09:34 : Activating...
09:34 : The backup was stopped because of the following error:
incorrect function. (Path: '\\?\Volume{e3dc43fd-50eb-11e2-bea7-80ee7320ff24}')


This is an absolute NoGo.

I repeat a sentence from above :

For me, the Idea of a “supereasy software” is, that you ran the software, flawlessly from start to end to achieve a result without real knowledge of the software behind.

Claim failed, uninstalled via reboot. Use Ocster instead.