unruly, my best suggestion uif it were me is getting a 1TB hard drive (cheap enough today for a good one) and putting the backup (or clone) there. Discs are just not the best medium for something that size --- even considering blueray discs, discs are just not as reliable. You could have several and put each !TB in some kind of star gate USB interface, but much slower than having the hard drive connected to your systems controller.

unruly, I recommend using an external HD as backup medium. That way you don't have to babysit the software shuffling DVDs. I set my backups to run overnight. The software can shutdown your PC when it's done.

Lala, the readme contains the activation code for AOMEI Backupper Pro - Copy and PASTE Activation code by pressing Register on the first screen after starting Setup.
If you have managed to install without registering, just start Setup again, but remember to press REGISTER on the first screen. OK?

Fred G Husby, Same exact thing happened to me. No activation dialog and no menu that I could find, as in every other program. I uninstalled the software, reinstalled, and only then the activation dialogue popped out.
Thanks, Fred.

Fred G Husby, I've installed, deleted and re-installed and still no registration option. I looked online and the registration is under the options bar at the top of the screen. However, both time I installed there is no registration option.

What am I doing incorrectly?

1. Run SETUP
2. say YES or NO to Join the User Experience Improvement Program
3. In the left bottom of this screen it says: The software is not registered, and a button named Register. PRESS REGISTER and PASTE the ACTIVATION CODE from readme. That's all

hjbreese, What are the specs for your PC? Windows version? Memory? How are your disks? Full? Checked for errors?

Fred G Husby, I have a very healthy system. I have a AORUS system board with the latest BIOS installed, a 7th gen i7, 32GB RAM, 2 NVIDIA 1080ti video cards configured as SLI, two 512GB Samsung 970 Pro m.2 SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration for my boot drive. Data drives are one 4TB HDD, and three 1TB SSDs. All disks are 100% healthy according to Hard Disk Sentinel. I just ran DISM on my boot drive and found no software errors. I'm running the latest updated Windows 10. My Internet connection is Gigabit wired connection to a fiber 1000 service.

hjbreese, Much better than what I have. Then it is no hardware problem. Hard to say what it might be. Language?
Try and UN-INSTALL using IObit Uninstaller or REVO Uninstaller You'll find free versions for both. Restart at least once after uninstall. Install again, but right-click on SETUP and choose Run as Administrator (even if you are)
I installed that way, and I'm running W10pro x64, US eng with Norwegian settings and display for most programs.

Alan Wiseman, LOL. Not to be disrespectful, Alan. But, so many things could go wrong and it could take hours and maybe days to fix but a BU fixes it all the way it was and worked with no thinking or worrying.

Alan. and yes, save all your original work on NAS or similar, but OS mis-adjustments can not be there..

Alan Wiseman, The software's primary use is in case of a HD/SSD failure (that can happen at anytime) or if you want to move to a larger HD/SSD. It restores everything, included the OS.

Morgan Pierce, I know one thing, this Windows Home boots faster than before. Even PhotoStory 3 that previously didn't work on the previous version of Windows 10 Home works now. And, there is an external storage of 64MB and 2TB. More should not be.

OK, I've found it out myself: You need to go to the registration page mentioned in the registration dialog, there you can enter the activation code and the machine code and you'll get the offline key which you use for the input field of the registration dialog. Voila - pro version activated!

M. H., Can you show me how to go to the registration page? I could not find it.
Please help.
Quan Nguyen

M. H., I am unable to find the registration dialog either. Would you mind sharing where you found it?

QUAN NGUYEN, Scherry, sorry, I can't tell you anymore because as soon as you register, the option to register seems to be removed from the interface. But it should read "register" or "buy" somewhere (at the bottom of the screen).

Abu, Technically yes, but depends on the licence of Windows you have. If it came with the laptop (so an OEM licence) then no - Windows is licenced with the hardware. If its a retail copy (you bought Windows 10 in a shop) then yes you can.
Aomei Pro allows restoration to dissimilar hardware which is a useful feature in an office environment - build a 'gold image' copy of a PC with all installed software, and use that to set up other PCs.

Win10 searches for any drivers missing on startup, and installs the ones it finds. Usually this works, but there are devices with some one-off components where drivers are not in any Microsoft database. So in theory any copy of Win10 will run on any Win10 compatible hardware. One gotcha is that some, usually OEM software that's installed can be incompatible with other hardware -- possibly one reason Microsoft discontinued support for Windows to Go. Another gotcha is that Win10 can continue to use some old drivers that it shouldn't -- check Device Mgr. carefully afterward.

In large part because of those 2 gotchas, the preferred way to set up a universal image, and as used with a Windows to Go drive, is to use DISM [or an app that uses DISM] to *apply* an image from the .wim file contained on a setup ISO. That puts all the files in place with zero drivers or OEM add-ons. For custom images, i.e. including drivers &/or software plus updates, Microsoft recommends creating / mounting an image, adding whatever as needed, then re-compressing into a .wim file.

Abu,

Windows is a finicky operating system. If you are moving to another laptop which has the same motherboard, then you might be able to restore this to another laptop. You will have to go through Microsoft and have them reauthorize your Windows by calling them on the phone.

If your laptop does not have the same motherboard, then no, this will probably not work.

hjbreese, Not true. Aomei Backupper allows restoration to dissimilar hardware - that's the point of the software.

Chris,

What hjbreese was meaning is that unless the system board in identical, you are most likely going to run into problems. Yes, the software will happily restore to the hard drive of a different machine, because it doesn't care about the hardware, only splattering the image onto the drive. Once you try to boot from that drive is when the problems will start.

If the hardware is similar, you might get lucky and Windows will be able to boot and then install the proper drivers for the new hardware. The most likely result will be in a system that doesn't boot at all, and just crashes or bluescreens because the drivers that windows is loading (from the old hardware) isn't compatible with the new hardware and it hasn't a clue how to "talk" to the new hardware.

FeMaster, No. With normal software, yes. Aomei Backupper restores to dissimilar hardware. This means it restores to dissimilar hardware. I understand to you that might be the same thing, but it's not. It means it restores to dissimilar hardware. When you restore it to dissimilar hardware, it's like you've installed it on a new box - it has no drivers from the previous installation. This is restoring to dissimilar hardware. Hardware that is dissimilar. I can explain it again using the words 'dissimilar' and 'hardware' again if you'd like.

Chris,

You may be right, I may be wrong. One thing I can say is, if it isn't backing up your ENTIRE system drive, OS Install, etc., including the currently used hardware drivers, then it isn't a backup at all.

I know that I wouldn't want to run a backup solution designed to keep all my personal documents, pictures, etc. safe, if it didn't back up EVERYTHING. Why would I want a backup solution that backups up only certain parts of what I told it to backup?

FeMaster, It does backup everything - it creates an image. However, on restoration, it sets a flag in Windows which tells it not to use the current drivers, so everything is redetected. Everything else is restored as it was.
If you're reinstalling on the same box (or even a similar box) you don't tick the '[x] Restore using dissimilar hardware' option, and it'll restore exactly as it was.

Backup, Is that basically the same as making a portable version from the folder WinPE in the programme folder, as referenced by Eddie below?

Valid question,
after 1 year backups will be still on your PC, but useless ,without possibility to go back and mount them

Valid question,

What happens after 1 year

With the option tools you can make a bootable version of aomei-backupper (option make bootable media) and this can then be used indefinitely.

Valid question, After one year you can use the free version, that I've used for years without problem.

Valid question, The program will just revert to the Standard/FREE version. Still a VERY useful program!

Beatrice,

The license term depends on the publisher. Some offer 6 months, others 1 year, some give forever(without upgrades), etc. I assume when this particular 1-year license expires, the program will revert to the "standard" free version. You can see the differences between editions on the chart on their site. ( https://www.ubackup.com/edition-comparison.html )

I hope that helps.

krypteller, is that the winpe64 folder?

monolake, if you had a previous pro install, it will be lifetime.