Background    

This program, from Genie-Soft , an independent software development company, is often overlooked by the big computer magazines. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s not sexy enough or maybe the company isn’t spending its advertising dollars in the "right" places. In any case, this program takes the top spot in this series of reviews. When the chips are down, you’d be happy to have this program working for you.

Features

Genie has one of the most complete feature sets of any product on the market. Check out the table at the bottom of this page and you'll see what I mean.

Genie has the capacity to run scheduled backups or on- demand. It can backup to just about every conceivable storage device including floppy, Zip and Jaz drives, hard disk, network drives, CD-R/RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM.  Backups can be full, differential or incremental, They may be compressed or not. And the list goes on and on ...

Usage

Genie is a great product with one small weakness; the initial task of setting up backup tasks could be a bit daunting for beginners. This stems in part, from the wide ranging capabilities of the product. But the design of Genie's user interface plays a role as well.

The opening screen is clear enough but once you press "Backup Now" you are lead to a backup job screen and a series of subsequent screens that are stacked with multiple options.

Raw beginners may initially find this myriad of options somewhat overwhelming. Yet, as you will see, they too will benefit from having these options.

For example, there are multiple options to allow you to backup your email files depending on whether you use Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora or other email program. Similarly you can elect to backup the Windows Registry, Internet Explorer favorites, your Outlook data and much more.

All backup programs allow you to backup this data but with most, you have to tell the backup program  exactly where the files are located on your computer. Many users wouldn't have a clue where this data is located.

With Genie, it's simply a case of ticking an option box.  And frankly, that's exactly the way it ought to be.

So in the end, the Genie's initial setup complexity ends up simplifying things for beginners. So don't be daunted by all the options, just wade your way through and you'll be amply rewarded.

And you'll only have to do it once.  Once set up, you can run future backups (or restores) with the press of a single button. If you elect to use Genie's automatic scheduled backup feature, you won't have to do anything at all. 

Unlike most other backup programs, Genie's backup sets are compressed in standard ZIP format rather using a proprietary format. That means that the backup can be read by any Windows program capable of handling compressed files. This is a very useful feature because it means that you do not need to have a copy of the backup program on hand, just to examine (or recover) your backed up data. Of course, you can encrypt the backup files if you want to keep them from prying eyes.

The recently released version 4 of Genie further expands the capabilities of the product. It includes the ability to back up to DVD devices, a scripting language to handle complex backups, the ability to backup Internet Explorer settings and a number of other enhancements. These improvements further consolidate Genie's position as having one of the most comprehensive feature sets on the market.

Performance

Genie is one of those products that feels rock solid.  And that folks, is a very good quality in a backup program.

And it's not only a question of "feeling" rock solid. It was rock solid throughout our tests. It performed flawlessly backing up and restoring perfectly with every different backup storage media we tried.

It's an impressive performer too.  It was the fastest program we tested for making backups and the fastest in restoring. Not only that, it also produces the smallest compressed backup files. (see table below)

Help & Support

This program’s help and support is as solid as the product itself. The main interface between publisher and user is by e-mail, which they promise to answer within 24 hours for a registered user and 3 days for those who have yet to purchase.

We anonymously tested out this promise and Genie-soft passed with flying colors.

There is a Windows help file and online FAQ’s for primary help, but this company goes a step beyond the usual, supplying an actual online LIVE support tech who can be contacted by using ICQ instant messaging. That has to make registered users feel very comfortable with their purchase!

There is no support via phone, but in light of the ICQ access, this is not a minus.

We note that Genie-Soft offer a 21 money back guarantee. This will provide considerable comfort to buyers.

Summary

The bottom line is that this is a very fast, full featured and reliable backup program which has the capacity to back up the Windows Registry, Favorites, Outlook data and other system files in addition to the normal user data.  It's only downside is a somewhat complex interface for creating new backup jobs that may initially throw some raw beginners.

Overall we were mightily impressed with Genie and felt that overall, it had the best combination of features and performance of any product tested.  Anyone who is looking for a backup program should seriously consider this product.

Table of  Features

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