Acronis today announced the launch of Acronis True Image Home 10, the latest version of its file and system disk imaging backup and restore software for home and home office users. Building upon existing capabilities, which allow for both the imaging of an entire system or file-based backup of individual files and folders, the new version goes one step further to enable users to back up specific music, photo and video files, entire applications and email files.

?With Acronis True Image Home 10, individuals and small office users gain more control than ever before in their ability to backup and restore the data that is most meaningful to them,? said Walter Scott, CEO of Acronis. ?In keeping with our commitment to make restoring files as quick, easy and cost effective as possible, this release includes wizard-based controls that walk users step-by-step through the backup and restore processes.?

Acronis True Image Home 10 gives users two options for backups and restores. The original disk imaging backup option enables users to create an image of their entire hard disk drive, including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data. They can use the image to restore their PC to a known working state without any reinstallation.

The new application-based file backup option enables the software to backup and restore individual files that match pre-defined file extensions for music, videos, photographs, finance, email and other applications.

Additional updates to Acronis True Image Home 10 include:

Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express Backup – Dedicated backups of an entire Outlook installation, as well as specific backups of calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, signatures, news folders, e-mail rules and user settings.

Application Backup – Back up settings from specific applications, including browsers, business and productivity tools, developer tools, instant messenger settings and history, Windows settings, and more

Backup Rules – Users can now create rules that define how long stored images will be saved, location size quotas, and the maximum number of backups saved

Backup Policies Users can set policies that define when the system will create full backups only, full backups with incremental backups, and full backups with differential backups

Password Protection for Secure Zone – Provides extra security for laptops and other remote devices should they be hacked or stolen, yet still guarantees that the computer can self start in case of a crash or loss of data.

Backup Notifications – Acronis True Image can notify a user using Microsoft?s WinPopup service or e-mail when a backup or restore operation is completed.

Acronis True Image 10 will be available from UK retailers including Amazon at £39.99 from October 30th.