Symantec has taken great pains to make Save and Restore user-friendly by removing the concept of images from the interface--you'd hardly know this program created them for all the talk about recovery points. But it is indeed an imaging program, with a wide range of features such as full and incremental imaging, file and folder backup, scheduled backups, encryption, and compression. There's also a unique (among imaging programs) housekeeping facility that automatically culls previous backups to keep scheduled jobs from failing due to lack of space.

Advanced users might find tunneling down for advanced options like raw imaging (copying all sectors) a tad wearying, but they are there. Unfortunately, tunneling down also reveals--completely integrated with the options dialog--a pane with a download link to Google Desktop. I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't spend $50 on a program to find ads in my options dialog. Symantec should be ashamed.

But the real fly in the Save and Restore ointment is that you can't create an image using the install/boot disc, only restore one. There is a file copy utility, but that?'s much slower process that leaves room for user error when you?'re trying to save data from a failed Windows installation. The boot disc is Win PE 2.0-based so you can load drivers as needed and provides a virus scanner--an extremely handy item in case of a malware attack.

Note: This link takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Jon L. Jacobi