Altiris® Local Recovery 6.2 SP2 Release Notes

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Installation and Upgrade

Local Recovery will only work on systems running Microsoft Windows* 2000 Professional SP3, Windows XP Home and Professional Editions, Windows 2003, and Windows Vista. The local recovery products support all IDE hard drive controllers, Serial ATA controllers, some RAID controllers, and standard Adaptec* and LSI Logic* series SCSI controllers currently shipping from Altiris OEM partners. Other supported controllers are listed in the last chapter of the Local Recovery help. During the installation of Local Recovery, if an unsupported device driver is detected, the user will receive an installation error indicating that unsupported drivers have been detected. If these drivers have been loaded as part of an existing factory image and there is not a dependent device in the system, removal of the driver from the Device Manager in Windows should correct the problem and allow installation to occur normally.

New Features in this Release

New Features for Local Recovery 6.2 SP2

Feature Description

1. Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit Edition) Support

Local Recovery Agent can be installed and run on Windows Vista operating system 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Note: For Windows Vista support, Local Recovery Pro 6.2 SP2 must be installed on the Altiris® Notification Server™ 6.0 SP3 R4 platform. For details, see article 27859, "Notification Server 6.0 SP3 R4."

2. Support for Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and 2003 Server x64

This release of Local Recovery Pro supports 64-bit versions of Windows XP and 2003 Server operating systems as client platforms. For that, the new Win64 Recovery Agent Package has been created for installation on client computers running 64-bit version of Windows.

Fixes in this Release

The following issues were resolved in this release. For additional information regarding a fixed issue, click on the Article ID link.

Fixed Issue

A number of fixes were made for Recovery Solution since the previous release (6.2 SP1). The following fixes are included in 6.2 SP2:

Recovery Solution 6.2.2332—Hotfix 2

Article 31403, "Snapshot fails on a computer having large number of disks or partitions (Hotfix 2)."

Recovery Solution 6.2.2332—Hotfix 7

Article 32729, "System variables do not work on Microsoft Windows XP French."

Recovery Solution 6.2.2332—Hotfix 10

Article 32731, "Snapshots take a long time on folders encrypted by Microsoft EFS."

Recovery Solution 6.2.2332—Hotfix 15

Article 34759, "LR partition creation hangs for HP DC7700P."

Recovery Solution 6.2.2332—Hotfix 18

Article 34761, "Restored EFS encrypted files are corrupted after Full System Recovery."

Recovery Solution 6.2.2332—Hotfix 20

Article 34763, "Environment variables are not allowed for partial snapshot."

For more information about all released hotfixes, see article 29505.

Known Issues

The following are unresolved issues and workaround instructions for issues in this release.

Known Issue

Recovery Agent Installation on VMware Vista Client

Altiris Partition creation may fail with "unsupported hardware" error during Local Recovery Agent setup on VMWare Windows Vista computer which system partition occupies the entire disk. This is a current VMware limitation. The workaround is to have, modify, or initially create the Windows partition to be smaller than the total disk size by ~100 MB (free unused space) before creating the Altiris Partition.

Changing System Partition Size or Altiris Partition Size using Vista Causes Recovery Failure

Using Microsoft Vista, you can change the size of a partition without reformatting it. However, changing the partition size of the system drive partition or the drive hosting the Altiris Partition will cause the F11 function to reformat the Altiris partition and cause recovery tasks to fail.

You cannot change the size of the Altiris Partition itself because it is hidden to Windows.

Encrypted Files Cannot Be RFE’ed to Same but Non-Encrypted Files

Due to encryption keys being user specific, it is not possible to gain the benefits of redundant file elimination when comparing two identical files if one is encrypted and the other is not. The issue appears only once a file is decrypted or encrypted. Note that redundant block elimination (RBE) works fine with both encrypted and decrypted files.

Different Wallpaper Screen Appears During System Rollback

During a system rollback, a different wallpaper screen, such as the default wallpaper screen, may appear. This is normal and all settings will be restored after the rollback is completed.

Firewall Settings Not Restored On Windows XP

After performing a network settings rollback on Windows XP computers, firewall settings may not be restored. In these cases, firewall settings must be restored manually.

Dynamic Volumes are not supported

The current release of Local Recovery Pro does not support dynamic disks on protected computers.

No support for TPM security chip

Protected computers using the TPM* security chip are not supported with this release of Local Recovery Pro.

User Logon Screen Changed To Classic Windows Style While Installing Altiris Local Recovery

When a Windows XP computer is restarted during the installation of Local Recovery, the classic Windows logon screen is displayed even if the Use Welcome Screen (icons) and Use Fast User Switching options are selected. The selected logon screen will be correctly displayed after the installation and first snapshot is completed.

Local Recovery Drive Controller Support

During the installation of Local Recovery if an unsupported device driver is detected the user will receive an installation error indicating that unsupported drivers have been detected. If these drivers have been loaded as part of an existing factory image and there is not a dependent device in the system, removal of the driver from the Device Manager in Windows should correct the problem and allow installation to occur normally.

Altiris Embedded BootWorks Partition

Local Recovery places the contents of snapshots into a hidden Altiris partition. Altiris® Deployment Solution™ 6.1 and earlier Embedded BootWorks (EBW) partition and the Altiris partition cannot reside simultaneously on the same physical drive. If you have an EBW partition and you attempt to install and/or create an Altiris partition, the installation will fail with an error message instructing you to remove the EBW partition prior to creating the Altiris partition. If you wish to keep an EBW partition and have computer backup and recovery capabilities, you must upgrade and use Altiris Recovery Solution in network mode only.

Note: Deployment Solution 6.5 EBW partitions are supported.

Using Third-Party Imaging Tools on a Computer Containing Altiris Partition

If you need to image a computer that has an Altiris partition on its drive, you will need to use Altiris RapiDeploy from Altiris Deployment Solution 6.5 Hotfix 2. You cannot successfully image and preserve an Altiris partition using some older versions of RapiDeploy or by using the products of another company.

Issues with Dual-Boot

Local Recovery requires that the operating system should be installed to the same disk from which the BIOS boots. This especially can be a problem in a dual-boot environment. In order for Local Recovery to work correctly in a dual-boot environment, it must be installed under an operating system that is installed on the booting disk.

The Following RAID Adapters are not supported

NVIDIA* SATA RAID (Compaq* xw9300)
Promise FastTrak* TX2000
Promise FastTrak* TX2200
Silicon Image* 3112A RAID

System Restore Doesn't Work When DISK0 is a Removable Drive

Rollback will fail if the Altiris Partition was created on a removable hard disk drive (FireWire* or USB) that is set as Disk0 in computer’s BIOS.

Issues with Intel 945G Express Chipset

Altiris partition creation fails on a Parallel ATA IDE* hard disk drive attached to Intel® 945G Express* Chipset with Standard ATA\ATAPI Dual Channel controller.

Snapshot Excludes with Wildcards May Not Work

If you use wildcards to specify an excluded folder (example: C:\Folder*) and add exceptions to it, a folder with a matching name and its files will be backed up nevertheless. To work around the problem do not use wildcards to specify excludes with exceptions or do not add exceptions to excludes with wildcards.

BitLocker Drive Encryption is not Supported

Local Recovery Agent does not support Microsoft Windows Vista's BitLocker drive encryption.

See article 35458, "It is impossible to create a Local Recovery Partition if Microsoft Windows Vista's BitLocker drive encryption is turned ON on 'ALL' volumes on the computer."
See article 35459, "It is impossible to create a Local Recovery Partition if Microsoft Windows Vista's BitLocker drive encryption is turned ON on the Operating System volume of the computer."

Full Disk Encryption is not Supported

Local Recovery Agent is not compatible with third-party full disk encryption software.

See article 35484, "What are the known compatibility issues for Recovery Solution 6.2 SP2 related to Disk Encryption software?"

Additional Documentation

Altiris product documentation is available in Microsoft HTML Help* (.chm) and Adobe Acrobat* (.pdf) formats. To view Altiris product documentation in .pdf format, use Adobe Acrobat Reader* (available at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html).

You can access documentation from the Altiris Console by clicking the following icons in the upper-right corner of the console:

Access the contextual online help by clicking the online help icon.
Access an index of all installed help by clicking the index icon.

Altiris Information Resources

Source	What Information it Includes	Where to Find it
Altiris Documentation	Information about new features, update instructions, and known issues for each release. Includes Altiris formal documentation such as Release Notes, Help, Reference Guides, Best Practice Articles, and Technical Reference Articles.	http://www.altiris.com/support/documentation
Altiris Knowledgebase	Comprehensive collection of articles, incidents, and issues for Altiris solutions.	http://kb.altiris.com/
Altiris Juice: an online magazine for Altiris users	Best Practices, tips and tricks, and articles for users of Altiris solutions.	http://www.altiris.com/juice
Online Forums	Forums for Altiris solutions and suites.	http://forums.altiris.com/

Document History

Date	Changes
6/14/2007	Document Published on Altiris Knowledgebase.
6/07/2007	The Initial 6.2 SP2 Version of Document Posted

DOC1228 Local Recovery Pro 6.2 SP1 Release Notes

DOC1225 Recovery Solution 6.2 SP1 Release Notes

Legacy ID

27638

Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC1227

Altiris® Local Recovery 6.2 SP2 Release Notes

Description