O&O DiskImage 23 Premium – What’s new

23.1.26049 - released on October 21, 2026

Changed

• Scheduled backups now generate new file names without spaces or quotation marks; existing backup plans retain their current file names
• When an update to a new major version is offered, download and installation prompts now identify the new version
• Improved keyboard and screen-reader accessibility: the Tab key enters the side navigation and the settings page list only once; arrow keys navigate between entries, and setting descriptions are read aloud
• Storage estimates for VHD/VHDX backup plans now account for excluded files; a note clarifies that exclusions apply only to O&O's own image format
• More detailed error messages when a USB startup medium cannot be created

Fixed

• Restored files retain their original creation and modification timestamps rather than receiving a later modification date
• VHD/VHDX backups no longer fail on their first run after changing the file format in a backup plan
• GPT-partitioned data disks are once again available as restore targets while Windows is running; previously, system backups only offered restarting into the recovery environment for every drive
• The notice that Windows cannot be restored while running is now shown only for backups containing Windows
• USB startup media can now also be created on USB sticks without a partition table or on devices that reject conventional partitioning
• In the recovery environment, an older Windows installation on another disk no longer receives drive letter C:; the original Windows installation retains its drive letters
• The creation date in a startup medium's information file now follows the date format of the application language

23.0.26039 - released on October 13, 2026

Added

• Automatic second backup copy to another drive, network share, S3-compatible storage, or WebDAV server
• Verification, progress tracking, and retry options for second copies, with warnings when destinations are unavailable
• Second copies preserve complete backup chains and respect the selected history settings
• Background cloud transfers with automatic retries and resumable S3 uploads
• Recovery from a second copy, including downloading versions stored only in the cloud
• Time-based backup history presets and custom retention periods with storage estimates
• Weekly or monthly full backups for the selected history, with cleanup after successful backups
• History overview showing planned deletions, retention reasons, and options to keep individual versions permanently
• Home screen showing backup status, recovery readiness, and guidance for the first backup
• Central management of backup destinations with priorities, availability, and free space
• Change the sources in an existing backup plan; the next backup will be a full backup
• Run a one-time full backup without changing the backup plan
• Pause and resume backup schedules directly in the application
• Monthly schedules and optional wake from sleep for scheduled backups
• Backups, restores, and cloning continue after the application closes; progress is shown again when it is reopened
• Scheduled background backups with progress, cancellation, reports, and automatic history cleanup
• Email and Windows notifications about operation results, configurable per backup plan or in settings
• Progress tracking and cancellation when deleting or moving backups
• Pin backup plans and reports and view each plan's execution history
• Restore entire drives to smaller targets if the backed-up data fits
• Restart into the recovery environment with the selected backup already loaded
• Create bootable media and use the recovery environment during the trial period
• Tools to create VHD/VHDX images from physical disks and restore them to physical disks
• Choose fixed-size or dynamically expanding virtual disks when creating or converting images
• Customizable recovery defaults and folder-naming templates
• Option to let the display turn off during backups
• Additional languages: Czech, Dutch, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Turkish, Ukrainian, and Traditional Chinese

Improvements and Changes

• Redesigned interface with collapsible navigation and separate views for backup, recovery, cloning, and reports
• Create and edit backup plans on one page, including the option to verify backups afterward
• Unified settings dialog and clearer scheduling options
• Improved keyboard navigation, screen reader support, dark mode, and layout in small windows
• Faster startup and smoother browsing of network destinations and backup contents
• Simpler file selection for backup and recovery, with search and filters
• Direct access to the latest backup and clearer actions for individual versions
• Guided import and verification of existing backups
• Expanded context-sensitive online help for the new views and options
• More accurate storage estimates, write speeds, remaining times, and progress indicators
• Compact progress window and redesigned system tray display with status, results, and cancellation
• Clearer reports showing scheduled and actual start times, results, and reasons for full backups
• Virtual disks included in backups by default; O&O DiskImage's own backup images remain excluded
• Whole-PC backups exclude drives used only as backup destinations
• Extended support for Hyper-V checkpoints (.avhd/.avhdx), mounting, and file recovery from VHD backups
• Smaller VHD/VHDX images by omitting unused space; mounting on the original PC is supported
• VHD/VHDX drive backups require unused source volumes and a destination on another physical disk
• Unsupported ZIP compression is no longer offered for drive images
• Improved drive-triggered backups and catch-up after reconnecting an external backup drive
• Scheduled network backups wait for temporarily unavailable destinations
• Improved handling of incomplete backups, source read errors, and lost snapshots
• Clearer distinction between missing backup files and temporarily unavailable storage
• Improved recovery and cloning target selection, including disk changes, free space, and partition assignments
• More accurate free-space checks for file recovery and verification of restored files
• Clearer mounting errors and detection of backups already mounted
• Improved cancellation and coordination of running operations with shutdown and sleep
• Improved bootable media creation, recovery environment startup, and drive-letter assignment
• Recovery environment can be rebuilt or removed, with clearer notices when updates are needed
• 'Fortress Mode' renamed to 'Recovery Environment'
• Improved installation, migration of existing backup plans, and trial notices
• More consistent handling of folder exclusions and existing filename templates after language changes
• Improved file recovery into the backup folder and license detection in the recovery environment

22.6.1231 - released on April 21, 2026

Added

• NAS/network credential management: Permanently store NAS credentials in Windows Credential Manager for seamless access to network backup locations
• NAS/network credential management: Dedicated network credentials dialog to enter and verify credentials when accessing network shares
• NAS/network credential management: Automatically reuse credentials when mounting or restoring backups from NAS/UNC paths
• NAS/network credential management: Interactively request NAS credentials when opening backup files on network shares
• Backup reports now show how a backup was initiated (for example, manually, by schedule, or by hotplug) for better traceability
• Support for more than 10 partitions and disks during backup and restore operations
• Pre-check of BitLocker readiness to detect locked drives before a backup starts
• Detection and appropriate handling of exhausted disk quotas
• Automatically remove orphaned backup-set entries when no valid backup files or reports remain

Improvements

• System tray application: Native implementation for better system integration
• User interface: Debounced, asynchronous path validation in file and folder selection controls
• User interface: Restore buttons are now disabled when a deleted backup is selected
• User interface: Improved display of estimated remaining time for lengthy operations
• Scheduled tasks: Improved compatibility with User Account Control
• Scheduled tasks: Improved handling when recreating expired one-time tasks
• Performance: Shorter delays after backups and optimized background processing
• Localization resources reviewed and harmonized
• Localization: Improved translations of completion progress messages in all languages
• Architecture: Improved component structure and reusability
• Recovery environment: Ensure that the temporary path exists in WinPE/RE environments

Fixes

• Restore operations: Fixed a crash when restoring VHD images
• Restore operations: Fixed errors when navigating between VHD images
• Fixed an incorrect partition list in the restore dialog for selected backup files
• Fixed loss of folder structure when selecting files to restore from OBK file backups
• Backup operations: Fixed loading errors with USB backups
• Backup operations: Fixed errors caused by an incorrect dependency version
• Licensing: Fortress Mode no longer overrides normal license settings
• Improved drive detection: Label-based fallback is used only when drive identification is ambiguous
• Fixed crashes in browse dialogs when NAS/UNC paths are inaccessible
• Improved error messages for invalid backup drives
• Extended logging when filtering RAW or unknown drives

22.5.1214 - released on March 10, 2026

Added

Backup scheduling

• Hourly backup schedule for automatic backups every hour
• Continuous backup schedule with configurable intervals (from immediately to 24 hours)
• Preset intervals for continuous backups: Immediately (0 s), 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 h, 2 h, 4 h, 8 h, 12 h, 24 h
• Catch-up backups with an extended grace period for scheduled tasks

Restore operations

• Restore to a smaller partition using a custom target-size dialog
• Choose a custom partition size when restoring to smaller drives

Installation and maintenance

• /removetasks command-line option to automatically clean up scheduled tasks on uninstall
• Final-task dialog is shown before software updates or uninstallation

Drive detection

• Improved hotplug detection using multiple drive identification criteria
• Improved USB drive detection for more reliable backups

Changed

User interface

• Improved interval selection for continuous backups with a drop-down menu instead of free-form text
• Improved layout and alignment in the scheduling dialog

Localization

• More consistent German terminology throughout the application

Fixed

Scheduled tasks

• Execution policy is no longer blocked by retention policy validation
• Full backups now start correctly when required by the execution policy

Security

Scheduled tasks

• Extended validation to prevent conflicts between execution and retention policies
• Improved handling of permissions for scheduled tasks

22.4.1206 - released on February 4, 2026

Added

Backup scheduling

• Hourly backup schedule for automatic backups every hour
• Continuous backup schedule with configurable intervals (from immediately to 24 hours)
• Catch-up backups with an extended grace period for scheduled tasks

Restore operations

• Restore to a smaller partition using a custom target-size dialog

Drive detection

• Improved hotplug detection for drive identification
• Improved USB drive detection for backups

Fixed

Scheduled tasks

• Execution policy is no longer blocked by retention policy validation
• Full backups now start correctly when required by the execution policy
• Extended validation to prevent conflicts between execution and retention policies

Information

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

22.3.1149 - released on January 20, 2026

Added:

• Backup management
  • Rename backup sets
  • Copy-to-clipboard button in the backup information dialog
  • Save and open report files directly from the Reports tab
  • Rename backup sets next to the backup-set name
• Scheduled tasks
  • Validation warnings when deleting backup folders invalidates scheduled tasks
  • Validation of retention and execution policies for scheduled tasks
  • User-visible error status for invalid scheduled tasks
  • Automatically detect missing base backups before a task runs

Fixed:

• Backup operations
  • Fixed unhandled exceptions caused by invalid drive paths (UNC paths and subdirectories) in backup destination collections
  • Changing the filename template now updates the backup filename in advanced settings
  • Fixed background backups being blocked during license verification
  • Fixed drive backups failing due to an invalid destination folder
  • Changes to template path and filename now regenerate filenames correctly
• Scheduled tasks
  • Fixed hotplug backup errors
  • Fixed scheduled tasks stopping after 1–2 minutes
  • Fixed partition list initialization in background mode
• Task scheduler
  • Improved validation of scheduled tasks to prevent errors
  • Extended detection of missing backup files before tasks run
  • Improved handling of tasks with missing base backups
  • Added warnings about conflicts between retention and execution policies
• User interface
  • Fixed formatting of partition names and dependency columns
  • Improved clipboard operations with retry logic and error handling
• Security
  • Drive path validation
    • Added comprehensive drive path validation to prevent errors
    • Improved exception handling for drive operations
    • Improved error logging
  • Scheduled tasks
    • Added validation to prevent tasks from running when critical backup files are missing
    • Improved documentation of permission requirements for scheduled tasks
• Information
  • Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
  • Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

22.2.1142 - released on January 13, 2026

Added:

• Clipboard management
  • Support for clipboard operations in remote desktop sessions

Changed:

• Task scheduling
  • Improved caching of task status, with proper reset after operations
  • Improved detection of orphaned tasks to avoid flagging running or upcoming tasks
  • Improved handling of tasks scheduled in the past (moved to the next valid execution time)
• Error handling
  • Specific handling of task creation failures
  • More detailed error messages with guidance for users
• Logging
  • Comprehensive logging of task scheduling operations
  • Detailed diagnostic information for troubleshooting scheduling problems
  • Extended logging for clipboard operations and retries
• File system
  • Corrected handling of file and folder exclusions during backups

Fixed:

• Clipboard operations
  • Fixed the "OpenClipboard failed" error when using remote desktop software
  • Clipboard operations now work with remote desktop tools
• Task scheduling
  • Tasks scheduled in the past now advance to the next valid future date
  • Fixed premature deletion of one-time tasks before execution
  • Fixed failure to reset cached task status after task deletion
  • Valid tasks are no longer incorrectly identified as orphaned
  • Fixed missing user notifications when task creation fails
• Error handling
  • Fixed missing error dialogs when creating scheduled tasks fails
  • Users now receive clear error messages when task operations fail
  • Clearer guidance on required administrator privileges
• Information
  • Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
  • Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

22.0.1122 - released on November 25, 2025

Added:

• Mounting and managing backups
  • Mount backups as drives in Windows
  • Unmount backups previously mounted in Windows
  • Convert backups to virtual drives in VHDX format
  • Define retention policies limiting the maximum number of backups
  • Manually delete individual backup files from backup sets
  • Automatically assign available drive letters when mounting backup images
  • Improved handling of encrypted images with stronger password protection
  • Streamlined mounting process with fewer steps
• Report management
  • View and manage all backup reports in one place
  • View detailed information about backup operations
  • Delete old or unnecessary reports with confirmation
  • Automatically load reports at application startup
  • View reports for each backup set in backup management
  • Generate reports for failed or cancelled backups
• Startup medium
  • Startup media can now be used independently of the original hardware
• Fortress Mode logging
  • Automatically record logs when running in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
  • Store logs on the RAM disk (X:) during recovery operations
  • Automatically copy logs to their original location on exit
  • Comprehensive troubleshooting documentation for recovery scenarios
• Backup validation
  • Improved validation dialog that automatically detects the file type (VHD/VHDX or backup file)
  • Validation now uses the correct method for each file type
• Backup set management
  • Detect incomplete backup sets (missing base backup)
  • Disable recovery options for backup sets without a complete base backup
  • Clear status indicators show backup-set validity
  • Allow viewing backup information even when restoration is not possible
• User experience
  • Warnings when a drive is too large for the recovery destination
  • Suggestions for alternative file-based recovery options
• Settings management
  • New tracking system for changes to settings
  • Confirmation dialog when applying backup settings globally

Changed:

• Backup strategy
  • Backup strategy can now be changed later in saved tasks
• Compression
  • Automatically replace ZIP Deflated with standard compression for drive images
  • Changed the disk-image compression algorithm to LZNT1
• Hardware detection
  • More reliable detection of external USB drives
• Performance
  • Optimized startup sequence
  • Faster application startup, especially with slow USB devices
  • Background scanning to prevent interface freezes
  • Improved responsiveness during backup and recovery
• User interface
  • Dark mode optimizations
  • Improved legibility of headers in dark mode
  • Improved visual feedback
  • Improved layout in management views
• Translations
  • Corrected French translation errors
  • Improved handling of localized text
• Licensing
  • Updated licensing system with improved validation
  • Improved handling of different machine IDs in recovery mode
• Installation
  • Improved installation process with optimized component selection
  • Updated installation packages for the Windows Recovery Environment
  • Corrected company name for Laplink OEM builds
• Backup operations
  • Improved calculation of required storage space
  • Improved handling of excluded files and folders
  • More accurate storage requirements before starting backups

Fixed:

• Fortress Mode
  • Fixed creation of the recovery environment
  • Fixed licensing
• Updates
  • Update checks previously failed under certain circumstances; fixed
• Critical fixes
  • Fixed application freezes with slow USB devices
  • Fixed crashes caused by missing backup files
  • Improved error handling
• User interface
  • Fixed incorrect backup size information
  • Corrected layout issues
  • Added missing links in help documentation
  • Improved display of deleted backups
• Domain users
  • Fixed detection of backup permissions for domain accounts
• Resource issues
  • Corrected inconsistent text
  • Fixed typos
  • Fixed issues with the application title
• Installation
  • Fixed errors during custom installation
  • Corrected Windows shell integration issues

Removed:

• Optical drives (CD/DVD) are no longer offered as backup sources

Security:

• Improved password security for encrypted backup images
• Improved authentication checks for domain user accounts

Information:

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

21.0.1094 - released on July 3, 2025

Added:

• New online help system
• Accessibility improvements

Changed:

• Target directory now updates when backup destinations are changed in settings
• Scheduling is no longer available in Fortress Mode because it is not applicable

Fixed:

• Fixed recovery issues in Fortress Mode
• RAM disks are hidden in Fortress Mode
• Fixed failure to shut down the computer automatically after a backup
• Fixed duplication sometimes requiring two attempts to start

Information:

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

21.0.1074 - released on May 28, 2025

Fixed:

• Changed drive assignments in Fortress Mode no longer prevent license recognition
• Shutdown or restart in Fortress Mode no longer causes an error message
• Enlarged the Fortress Mode loading screen

Information:

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

21.0.1073 - released on May 27, 2025

Added:

• Removable drives can now be selected immediately when creating startup media

Changed:

• The application opens in full-screen mode in Fortress Mode
• Closing Fortress Mode now offers an immediate restart or shutdown
• Improved opening of the main application from the system tray application

Fixed:

• Backup drives are identified as unavailable more quickly
• Corrected handling of the exclusion list for drive backups
• The notice about an installed Professional Edition now appears after updates
• Invalid drives can no longer be selected for duplication

Information:

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

21.0.1061 - released on May 13, 2025

Added:

• Added backup of individual files
• A welcome screen is shown when the application starts
• O&O DiskImage Professional and Premium Editions can be installed side by side
• Added a notice when O&O DiskImage Professional Edition is installed
• Added selection of *.avhd and *.avhdx files
• Detect and remove orphaned tasks from Windows Task Scheduler

Changed:

• Redesigned the backup management view
• Only one instance of the startup media creation application can run at a time
• Backup method is hidden for file backups
• Startup media is no longer offered in Fortress Mode
• Backups are synchronized between the main system and Fortress Mode

Fixed:

• Corrected calculation of the next backup time
• Special drive types (such as RAM disks) are now correctly recognized
• Fixed errors when deleting backup tasks in Fortress Mode
• Unrealistically high write speeds are now filtered out
• Corrected the amount of processed data shown when restoring file backups
• Fixed errors caused by missing DLLs in Fortress Mode
• Corrected license management in Fortress Mode

Information:

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

21.0.1031 - released on April 16, 2025

Changed:

• O&O Syspectr can now optionally be integrated into the startup medium
• Unified and redesigned the layouts of O&O BuildPE and O&O ShellConfig

Fixed:

• O&O BuildPE now starts in the selected language and respects dark mode settings
• Fixed startup medium creation
• Fixed extraction of files from VHD/VHDX backups
• Fixed cloning: occupied drives are now offered as targets

Information:

• Compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10; x86 and x64 architectures
• Available in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

21.0.1021 - released on April 9, 2025

First public release