Acronis is giving away copies of Acronis True Image 10 Personal Edition because its got a new version out. That means you (or backup-needing friends) get whole disk image backups from a friendly interface.
The give-away of Acronis' cloning software, normally $50 per license, is intended to inspire users to get familiar with Acronis' backup systems, and possibly upgrade to Acronis True Image Home 2009. For most folks planning to re-install Windows, or just create one-file backups of entire drives, True Image 10 Personal will probably fit the bill. Its interface and step-by-steps don't seem to give you as many options and geeky switches as DriveImage XML, which we featured in our guide to hot-imaging a hard drive. But True Image does offer backup archive validation, a recovery disk creator, a startup interrupter that can re-apply a backup image, and other tools for those shaking their fists at the Windows gods.
To grab your copy, hit the registration link below, fill out a minimum of the First Name, Last Name, email, and other magazines read sections (along with the privacy policy checkbox), and be patient (click back if you get a timeout). You'll get a registration email, then be asked to log in and download, and have to enter a serial number after installing. The giveaway was launched for users of Personal Computer World, a UK tech magazine, so grab it sooner rather than later if you don't want to chance losing the offer after this month's PCW leaves the overseas shelves.
Update: At the request of Personal Computer World, we've removed the link. Apologies to PCW and Acronis if they've been inconvenienced.