B E . I N V U L N E R A B L E . T O . M A L E W A R E

This post was prompted by member issues with malware
and virus trojans.


I don't have these problems any longer because all writes
to disk are directed to a scratch folder and all the rest is
write protected. This " sandbox " emulates and masks the
real locations of files so nothing is permanent, reboot and
all changes and installs vanish.
I no longer care what went wrong or why and try to fix it,
I won't spend my time playing that game,
because the rules are always changing.

To deal with such incursions piecemeal is futile and unavailing,
even if you do back up your registry. The only way to keep
from spending interminable time cleaning everything out is to
write protect your drives - period. There exits ample hardware
and software solutions for this.
< www.cyic.com/howit.htm ( good overview of both hardware
and software solutions )

P C I Bus cards variously referred by their manufacturers

as 'restore cards', 'recovery cards', 'reborn cards', 'HDsafe card'

* Warning - I know of none that will work with Raid and only
some support extended partitions.


M Y P I C K at $20
< http://www.elstonsystems.com/prod/ha...very_card.html >
Distributed by: < www.winter-con.com >
< www.winter-con.com/productlist.html#rc-0010

OTHER GOOD PICKS
-- some are OEM others are resellers.

< www.lenten.com/Products.asp

< www.eksitdata.com/guard

< www.bluegeckogroup.co.uk/wdog3.htm

< http://www.recoverystar.com/productd....aspx?id=10002

< www.hdsafecard.com

< www.hddguarder.com



Alternatively Microsoft Windows XP Embedded developer's
distribution contains a feature called ' Enhanced Write Filter'
overlay that writes everything to a 'scratch file' that is simply
deleted upon reboot. Unfortunately only available with XP embedded.

Motherboard manufacturers, A O P E N for one, already provides
free the 'Pro Magic v.6.0' utility for supported motherboards
that possess the necessary 'EZ restore' bios chip.


There is third party software applications that will do this.


M Y P I C K at $ 30 ( Shadowstor )
< www.shadowstor.com/products/ShadowSurfer >
This is able to protect any or all partitions on all your Hard Drives
http://store.storagecraft.com/acb/st...r-25-P2C1.aspx

ANOTHER at $ 30 ( Buffer Zone )
< www.trustware.com >

ANOTHER at $ 50 ( Drive Vaccine )
< www.horizondatasys.com/231846.ihtml >
AND ALSO at $ 70 ( Roll Back )
< www.horizondatasys.com/169614.ihtml >


I also run a trim 2 gigbyte Windows XP installation on a separate partion
of it's own. this is copied on a write protected 2 gigabyte USB flash thumb
drive as a compressed 1 gigabyte file that I can re-install back in it's partition
in 5 minutes by using a skeletal Windows XP install on a bootable BART CD.
See my POST here for instruction _
http://facialforum.net/showthread.php?t=2908


No Joke , newer ways and means of infecting your computer are frightening
in the speed and extent of damage done. Read my experience here _

http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,99239,100601#msg-100601

http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,99239,101548#msg-101548

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Thank you very much franklyn.

Very interesting thread. Helped me a lot!

interesting,I understood most of it,sooo,how about windows vista,any ideas there? :D

my opinion is "STAY AWAY FROM VISTA IT SLOWS DOWN YOUR PC", ive not looked into it too much, but when someone comes to me with a vista machine i xp pro it straight away, amazing how much quicker it is....

also be aware... some manufacturers are no longer supporting XP, Compaq for one, i got XP on a compaq, but failed to find a couple of drivers.


Just my humble opinion
FA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by facialadmin

my opinion is "STAY AWAY FROM VISTA IT SLOWS DOWN YOUR PC", ive not looked into it too much, but when someone comes to me with a vista machine i xp pro it straight away, amazing how much quicker it is....

also be aware... some manufacturers are no longer supporting XP, Compaq for one, i got XP on a compaq, but failed to find a couple of drivers.


Just my humble opinion
FA

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This confirms something I had always thought would be the case.
I use XP Pro on my notebook and XP on my PC and will be continuing to do so until such times as I feel I need to change. I am sure "Ole Billy Boy" won't lose much sleep about not getting extra cash from me for his new OS!!

P.S. Cheers for all these tips Franklyn, but I am a miserly old Scot who hates paying for anything so I will be looking for these apps. on various torrent sites, I might get lucky, who knows :D

U P D A T E

This is a general edition of Microsofts own XP Embedded Enhanced Write Filter
that directs all hard disk writes to a buffer which is deleted on reboot to preserve
your systems original integrity. Copy and paste the URLs into your browser address bar

Windows SteadyState Web site
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/whatis/diskandsystemprotection.mspx

Windows SteadyState Handbook.pdf
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/6/d261b347-2f03-4bcf-8240-8b7a66beef8a/Windows SteadyState Handbook.pdf

Windows SteadyState 2.5 Technical FAQ
http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/6/fc6955de-0765-46fc-b2a9-47b4d4bcd160/SteadyState_2.5_Technical FAQ_updated.pdf

You may be able to bypass genuine windows validation to download from Microsoft using the following link
but I do not guarantee that this link will work for you.

Windows SteadyState 2.5
http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/4/af4fca6d-1202-4c30-a1bc-853e9a166695/SteadyState.msi

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