Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Acronis Bootable Agent Management Console frustration (crtl+m is the answer)

I decided a long time ago my blog is here to help me and whoever shows up (both of you). This morning I have been reminded of something that is annoying about Acronis' recovery disc and I spent all of five frustrating minutes looking up things I've looked up before.

I've whined about Acronis before, and over all I am satisfied with their business products. In my opinion they get the hard parts of backup and recover done so well that the shortcomings of their UI are more noticeable. Here is a short list of my complaints with Acronis Bootable Agent Management Console.

  • Tabbing through text boxes don't always show a flashing cursor, so I have no idea where I am
  • Tab navigation doesn't make sense on some screens.
  • Tab navigation doesn't scroll the screen (and most of the time I'm in recover mode the screen is 1024x768 or less)
  • Not all menu items are accessible with the keyboard
That last one is solvable through a lame implementation of using the mouse through the keyboard, but it creates it's own list of nitpicks. I end up in the recovery console regularly enough without mouse support it becomes annoying, but I never remember crtl+m. That's why it's so big, next time I can't remember it I can come here and find it in less time than looking it up from scratch.