Backup software ready for Windows Server 2025 with Hyper-V backup, cloud backup, VMware backup, disk cloning & imaging, P2V/V2V/V2P, and FTPS server
Backup software ready for Windows Server 2025 with Hyper-V backup, cloud backup, VMware backup, disk cloning & imaging, P2V/V2V/V2P, and FTPS server

Release Notes

General Info

Please always download the latest version of BackupChain after checking your license software maintenance period. Please contact sales for details.

If you use the Centralized Management feature, please update the computer that acts as the centralized console first, then update the connected computers. This avoids potential incompatibilities with the backup configuration. In addition, the software update can be distributed from the console itself.
To take a copy of your backup configuration, exit the BC Monitor app, shut down BackupChain Service in the Service Manager, and copy the entire folder C:\ProgramData\BackupChainService.

Version 4.5.5578

This is a major update and requires a v4 license and the features are documented in the new user guide.

New features:

  • Hyper-V Resilient Change Tracking Backup: back up Hyper-V VMs on Windows Server 2016 as well as Windows 10 and later with change tracking. Speeds up incremental and differential backups tremendously by eliminating the virtual disk scan.
  • Improved deduplication compression algorithms for smaller and faster VM backups. Set the compression rate to ‘faster’ or higher to switch to the new algorithm. This can be changed in existing backups without issues.
  • Deep Verification feature for RCT backups: This new feature tests each sector of the current VM to the corresponding block in the backup chain and basically ensures that the backup is guaranteed identical to the current VM disk state.
  • Exclusion of VHDs in RCT backups. The Hyper-V VM selection screen now offers a new ‘options’ link in RCT mode. In the new Hyper-V VM Backup Options screen you select the VHDs you would like excluded.
  • Option to use production or standard checkpoints In RCT backup mode
  • Options tab: Run utility or script after snapshot creation
  • Single pass restoration of deduplicated RCT backups (from local and LAN storage)
  • Basic CLI interface

Improvements:

  • Deduplication now reports type (full/inc/diff) along with speeds when possible
  • Log archive in displayed in reverse order
  • More aggressive RAM usage on systems with plenty of available RAM offers speed gains during backup and verification
  • More efficient CPU usage gets more work done with fewer CPU cores
  • Improved logging
  • Improved disk imaging, cloning, and verification speeds.
  • Improved file verification speeds.
  • Improved deduplication speeds.
  • Prevent BC Monitor closure when recovery is active (such as when another user session logs on)
  • Mouse wheel movement does no longer affect drop down lists to prevent accidental backup configuration changes
  • Default FTP/S timeout is now 30 secs for new tasks.
  • More robust handling of potential WMI issues

Bug fixes:

  • Cleanup handling in TLS 1.3 (Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11)
  • Hyper-V VM list sizing issues on some monitors
  • Log archiving was not cleaning up older archives properly in some settings.
  • Test cycles (number of existing backups in backup folder) are now counted properly.

Changes in functionality:

  • BC no longer permits parallel VM backups of the same VM due to potential issues with RCT.
  • BC now waits for VM to be in a ‘good’ state before attempting a backup and waits if another backup is taking place.

Breaking changes:

None. However, a new deduplication file format version is now used which means if you downgrade to an older BC version, you won’t be able to restore backups taken with v4.5.

Version 4.1.5507

Removes two false error messages.

Version 4.1.5506

Please upgrade from 5504 at your earliest convenience.
Bug fixes: Zero-length files may cause unnecessary error counts with deduplication.
Improvements:
Sorted VM List in New Task Screen
Better handling of VM lists on hosts with more than 100 VMs
Cloud restore operations (full and increment/differential) now no longer need temporary files. Exception: ZIP and similar archive formats.

Version 4.1.5504

This version adds a new feature OS Disk Clone to a Bootable USB Drive. This allows the OS disk of a PC or Windows Server to be cloned to USB drive, which then is made bootable, so that you can boot your system directly from USB without having to restore anything. Cloning to USB was available before but this new feature prepares the USB drive to ensure it’s bootable.
Major speed improvements when using low-latency storage, such as NVMe, SSD.
ACL backup bug fixes: If you are backing ACL at the file level, please upgrade immediately as there were critical bugs fixed regarding ACL backup and restore.
Detection of potentially incompatible VSS providers.
Fixed unnecessary ReFS warnings.
ZIP verification improvements.
Bug fixes in error counts.
Bug fixes in ‘Run external utility after snapshot’.
‘No VMs selected’ warning bug fix
Max speed settings are now default in New Task screen.
Alphabetical ordering of Hyper-V VM list.
Privileges are required when connecting to a network share.
Mouse wheel: mouse wheel scrolling was leading to unintended changes in backup config. Now the mouse wheel is no longer affecting drop down lists.
Faster deduplication speeds for full backups (over 800MB/sec on low-end hardware)
Faster, single-scan incrementals (over 1.4 GB/sec on low-end hardware).
Faster speeds through more aggressive RAM caching, when sufficient RAM and CPU cores are available.
New deduplication file format (.FastNeuronDelta) version
Breaking changes: none

Version 4.0.5466

This installer requires a version 4 software license. License upgrades and renewals are available at a discount, please contact sales.
This new patch installer adds Windows Server 2025 support, TLS 1.2 / TLS 1.3 support, improves some UI portions with network folder/file access, and includes FIPS support.
Critical bug fixes are also included for Hyper-V restore operations (affecting Secure Boot, TPM) and parallel file server backups. Includes fix for FTP User list sort bug. If you use the built-in FTP server, or Hyper-V or file server backup with multiple files in parallel, please upgrade asap.
Additional bug fix in 5464: Delayed deletion period, if set to ‘0 sec’ will clean up immediately.

Simply install this build over your existing installation. There are no breaking changes.