Acronis Snap Deploy 5 is a comprehensive deployment solution that enables IT organizations to deploy or restore laptops and desktops quickly and easily. With Update 5, the product offers enhancements and addresses issues found in the previous release.
What's new in Update 5
Sector-by-sector imaging mode
If this option is enabled, the master image will contain all sectors of the selected disks or volumes, including unallocated space and those sectors that are free of data. During the deployment, these disks or volumes will be copied to the target machine "as is", without volume resizing.
Support for the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 10, version 1903
You can use the latest Windows ADK versions for Windows 10 to create WinPE-based bootable media with the Acronis Snap Deploy 5 PE Builder wizard.
Support for Windows Server 2019
Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Update 5 now supports installation of its components, including OS Deploy Server, PXE Server, and other, onto Windows Server 2019 as well as capturing and deployment images of this OS.
Issues fixed in Update 5
This section describes issues that have been fixed in Update 5.
[ASD-4217] Local disks become initialized right after booting into Standalone Media tool.
[ASD-4169] Deployment of the master image to a non-initialized disk may fail when using Standalone Deployment tool in Linux-based bootable media environment.
[ASD-4149] Deployment of the master image spanned across multiple removable media (multiple CD/DVDs) is not possible via Standalone media.
[ASD-4041] Deployment of the master image to a non-initialized disk may fail with the "Failed to assign volume" error.
[ASD-4035] Deployment of the GPT-based Windows 10 image may result in the change of partition order on the target system (MSR partition is always placed first).
[ASD-4031] Deployment of the GPT-based Windows 10 image onto the GPT disk onto the disk of the same size as original fails when using deployment “as is” (without resize) method.
[ASD-4020] When enabling the "User-initiated deployment" mode, the "Start operating system" (upon timeout) option settings are not applied to the machines booted from Acronis PXE server.
[ASD-3875] The "User accounts" settings specified in the deployment template incorrectly override the "User accounts" parameters from the individual settings defined for this machine.
[ASD-3869] Linux-based bootable media fail to boot on Gen2 Hyper-V virtual machine.
[ASD-3833] Deployment to the target system booted into Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Agent via a USB flash drive, with the default settings may fail with "Failed to resolve target disk" -> “Cannot deploy to bootable media” errors due to improper detection of disk order caused by presence of the USB media.
[ASD-3820] The Ubuntu source system which contains the ‘ext4’ file system may become unbootable after deployment to the same machine.
[ASD-3819] Deployment of the Ubuntu system which contains the ‘ext4’ file system shows improper deployment progress.
[ASD-3616] ISO images created by Acronis Media Builder cannot be saved to the USB flash drives by 3rd party tools (for example Rufus) due to the incompatible ISO image format.
[ASD-3366] The master image captured from systems which contain the ‘ext4’ file system is always performed in the sector-by-sector mode, while it should not.
[ASD-3350] The "Run file on target machine" checkbox setting under the "Files to transfer" deployment setting is not saved in GUI when trying to edit this setting.
[ASD-3155] When performing standalone deployment or deployment via ASDCMD utility of a master image split on 2 or more CD/DVD discs, the discs need to be swapped multiple times.
Known issues
This section describes issues that are currently known and provides solutions to avoid the issues where possible.
[Windows 10 specific] Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Management Agent can be remotely installed on a target machine running Windows 10 only when the built-in administrator credentials are specified or UAC is disabled on the machine.
The Acronis bootable media may incorrectly detect a machine’s hardware.
Solution: Use the WinPE-based bootable media instead.
The "Access is denied" message appears when trying to remotely install Acronis Snap Deploy 5 components if UAC on a target machine is enabled and the machine is not a member of Active Directory.
Solution: Disable UAC on the remote machine to be able to use remote installation or use a domain administrator account if the remote machine is in a domain.
A machine’s security identifier (SID) does not change after deployment of Windows Small Business Server 2011.
Acronis PXE Server of Acronis Snap Deploy 5 conflicts with the one of Acronis Backup & Recovery or Acronis Backup if they are installed on the same machine.
Solution: Install PXE servers on different machines.
If you start the Master Image Creator wizard and then connect or disconnect one of the USB drives, there will be multiple errors related to all drives, such as "Failed to read from the sector 0 of the hard disk 1. Sector was skipped."
Solution: Do not plug or unplug any USB drives while a master image is being created.
The Applications to run setting does not work after deployment of Windows 7 or Windows 2008.
Solution: To run an application or a script automatically under the operating system, use the Files to transfer setting to copy the file, the script, or the link to the script to the Startup folder of the target machine, such as the folder C:\Users\USER1\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.
Deployment fails and the "Host 'X.X.X.X' has failed the deployment" error appears if the Jumbo Packet property of the network adapter is enabled on OS Deploy Server.
Booting Hyper-V 3.0 virtual machines from Acronis PXE Server is very slow.
The "Deployment has failed" error appears after successful deployment from an external network via a VPN connection.
It is impossible to update or reinstall Windows Store applications after deployment if the Generate a unique SID for each deployed machine check box was selected in the deployment template.
The Use PXE server for booting into agent check box does not work if the Start operating system option was selected under When booting from the media, automatically start when uploading Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Agent to Acronis PXE Server.