Quote Originally Posted by Acorn View Post
browj2 and I decided to join forces and explain to the best of our outsider knowledge how the Xara Update Service works and how you can make the best of it.

Here is our document that we hope puts a positive view of the Update Service: http://acorn.xara.hosting/xda/.
As TG has a low file size for PDFs, I have included a PDF download within the website's pages.

Here is the design file for you to keep and add your own insights:Xara Desktop Applications & Update Service.xar.

It just shows how versatile your XDA is: the design file is 361 kB; the PDF is 3.76 MB and the website clocks 0.47 MB (discounting the PDF).

Acorn & browj2
Thanks much, great job.
I run programs like Xara in a virtual machine. To back it up is to just copy the VM's folder. I keep a couple of the latest versions on a NAS. I do some program development, so use VMWare's Workstation Pro ($$) so I can have snapshots. Their Player version is free and, after a learning curve, easy to use. They even have a stand alone program to make a VM from a system. There are other VM programs, mostly free. I prefer to host on a Linux system but that is not a requirement. The only advantage of that is that Linux breaks stuff with updates less often than W10 does.
If I decide not to renew the upgrade service, I can just back up the latest VM in case of a failure.