Windows FLR UI suggestions

[mattdwyerva]

Jose, have you checked file-level recovery functionality in Veeam B&R?

This is arguably off topic, but fwiw, I wish the restore wizard was more intuitive. I would expect most noobs to stop in a small panic trying to use it, if they do not RTFM.

When you select Restore->VMWare, the next windows form has a default radio button of "Entire VM (including registration)" selected. IMO, there should not be any radio button selected here - make the user pick something. Good lord willing and the creek don't rise, I would not pick Entire VM very often. Mind you, if you all insist on a default, I would vote for Guest files (Windows).

If a user selects Guest files (Windows), then after picking the Restore Point, the next screen is inaccurately titled "Summary" with a Finish button. I am definitely not finished, since I have not selected any files. In addition the "Summary" suggests you are restoring EVERYTHING, and lists the GB of the Restore to exactly equal the entire VM. Wait!! Noooooo.... Once you gulp and click the FINISH button, you get a Folder View with no prompts. I know what to do at this point, but a prompt here would be good. Maybe a preliminary msgbox saying to please select items to Restore.

The function itself works fine, but the windows forms could be significantly improved when doing guest file restore, even though it is documented elsewhere.

[foggy]

Thanks for reasonable feedback, Matt. I've split your suggestions into a separate thread, since it was indeed slightly off topic there.

[alanbolte]

If a user selects Guest files (Windows), then after picking the Restore Point, the next screen is inaccurately titled "Summary" with a Finish button. I am definitely not finished, since I have not selected any files. In addition the "Summary" suggests you are restoring EVERYTHING, and lists the GB of the Restore to exactly equal the entire VM. Wait!! Noooooo.... Once you gulp and click the FINISH button, you get a Folder View with no prompts. I know what to do at this point, but a prompt here would be good. Maybe a preliminary msgbox saying to please select items to Restore.

If I recall correctly, in an earlier version of the software we heard this complaint very often. For whatever reason we didn't bother changing the "Finish" button, but we did add the instructions across the top of the page that say "click Finish to exit the wizard and open Backup Browser, where you will be able to select the files to restore." This reduced complaints somewhat. I would be a terrible person to ask about ideal UI design, but lately I've been thinking that page should also make clear that what's about to happen on the back end is that the backup file will be mounted for reading, given that this can take a while for large files or slow storage. I haven't looked at the page in v9 yet...

[mattdwyerva]

Well, I suggest you change FINISH to say NEXT. If you don't like Waitcursor by itself, perhaps add a progress bar, although I find them to be a bit unpredictable as a tool.