FirstDefense-ISR Technology Wish List

[Leapfrog Software]

Greetings All,

We are constantly entertaining roadmap ideas for our technology. Here is a wish-list thread for folks to post features they would like to see in the future version of the FirstDefense-ISR technology.

[Acadia]

Hmmmm, that's a hard one, Leapfrog, because FD does so much already. The only thing that I can possibly think of is to make bootable Snapshots that can be stored on other hard drives. There is one other company that can do something like this, Farstone with their Casper program, but that program lacks so many of FirstDefense's other features. If FD could create bootable Snapshots on another hard drive, it would be even closer to perfection than it already is! 8)

Acadia

[ronjor]

{QUOTE-> bootable Snapshots that can be stored on other hard drives. <-QUOTE}
I'll second that suggestion.

[Blackspear]

{QUOTE-> I'll second that suggestion. <-QUOTE}I'll 3rd it ;D

[Rui]

Support for non-English versions of Windows!!!

Rui

[starfish_001]

Snapshots stored in a more secure hidden way - perhaps partition based?

I could then exclude them from antivirus sacns if not in use?

[Atomas31]

Make it useable and support for French Windows language!

[TonyW]

I think it would be nice to be able to store snapshots elsewhere, and I don't mean the archives.

[ElPapyo]

{QUOTE-> Support for non-English versions of Windows!!!

Rui <-QUOTE}

I second that

[TonyW]

Another suggestion: I dunno if it would be technically possible, but how about a way for the program to reduce the size of snapshots somehow? I think the fact snapshots are as big as the drive being copied is a sticking point for some.

[Acadia]

{QUOTE-> Another suggestion: I dunno if it would be technically possible, but how about a way for the program to reduce the size of snapshots somehow? I think the fact snapshots are as big as the drive being copied is a sticking point for some. <-QUOTE}
From the Technology Information Session that Todd just hosted:
"[Attendee]
Can you compress the snapshots so they don’t take up so much space?

[Todd]
All I can say on this subject is to make sure you stay tuned for our next release."

8) 8) Acadia

[TonyW]

I know Acadia, I've seen that, and commented already! :P Sounds exciting eh.

[gergy]

I was mainly interested in FDISR for creating a frozen system. However, the amount of disk space required is really too huge. I suggest you create a light freeze option as implemented in WinRollBack: no space required a priori, and temp. data being written on the available space + option to commit the change made during the session (without a reboot).
At the moment, I'm using a combination of FDISR + WinRollBack, and they play very well together and make a powerful combination.

[^Ale]

{QUOTE-> I second that <-QUOTE}

I'll 3rd it!

[sukarof]

How about being able to freeze more than one snapshot?

[Peter2150]

Tonight again FDISR did it's thing for me. I booted to a secondary snapshot, and restored primary from an archive.

What would be neat, would be if I could have restored the primary from the archive while in primary. Might require a reboot, but thats better than two reboots.

[Acadia]

... the ability to somehow EASILY use Archive Snapshots to restore a totally crashed system ... (thanks)

Acadia

[ppllkk]

I can think of a couple of things that I would like.

I would like to be able to designate a group of snapshots, and the first time that I boot the computer each day, automatically copy the primary snapshot to the oldest of that group.

I would also like to have different data anchoring options for my snapshots and for my archives.

Phil King

[starfish_001]

How about a mechanism to mount a Snapshot or Archive from within windows so that files could be extracted and moved between snapshots - True Image style.

Useful for testing

[wilbertnl]

{QUOTE-> From the Technology Information Session that Todd just hosted: <-QUOTE}

Acadia, is that session still available somewhere? I'm interested.

[Acadia]

Don't know if it will still work, but here is the thread that Todd mentions it:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=119407

Acadia

[wilbertnl]

I would like to see better compression of archives, independent of NTFS.
Farstone Restore-it and Acronis TrueImage are able to create disk images that are 40% smaller than ISR.
Independance of NTSF would be great for storing archives on DVD, would you not agree?
(maybe two types of archive: 1. NTFS - updatable, 2. Highly compressed - fixed)

Also, why not exclude by default pagefile.sys and hiberfile.sys? (Maybe even c:\windows\temp)

And.. Rename this software to 'Virtual Partition Manager'.
Because I feel that this describes the features better.

And then, maybe most important: ability to restore archives into an empty disk from a bootable external medium (floppy, CD).
Because that is what I associate with "system restore".

[Acadia]

The pagefile and hibernate files are NOT copied into other Snapshots. They are two of four files that are not copied, the other two being the .tmp files and the Recycle bin. Even the exceptions in this program make sense!

Acadia

[wilbertnl]

{QUOTE-> The pagefile and hibernate files are NOT copied into other Snapshots. They are two of four files that are not copied, the other two being the .tmp files and the Recycle bin. Even the exceptions in this program make sense!

Acadia <-QUOTE}

It does make sense, but are these files also excluded from archives then?

[Acadia]

Todd would be best at answering that, but I can't imagine why they would possibly be included; your system just recreates them, if they are needed, the next time that you use Windows.

Acadia

[wilbertnl]

When I add '*\Temporary Internet Files' in the exclusion list, I would like to see that any folder with this name is excluded. Same way for '*\Temp'

Patern based lists, please.

[wilbertnl]

This is what I know about the size of one of my archives:

Uncompressed: 1.58 GB
NTFS compressed: 1.00 GB
zip compressed: 0.75 GB

[wilbertnl]

It seems to me that currently I'm only able to restore from an archive by first booting into a copy snapshot.
I wish for the feature that enables me to restore from an archive (residing on external device:thumb: ) while in the pre-OS screen.

What do you think?

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> It seems to me that currently I'm only able to restore from an archive by first booting into a copy snapshot.
I wish for the feature that enables me to restore from an archive (residing on external device:thumb: ) while in the pre-OS screen.

What do you think? <-QUOTE}

I think that's a grand idea.

[crofttk]

{QUOTE-> I think that's a grand idea. <-QUOTE}
Why didn't I think of that ? Hell yeah, it's a grand idea, wilbertnl !

[Longboard]

1) As noted elsewhere a Bootable CD would be nice. (Even Boot floppy?)

2) Failing that BartPE plugins?

3) POST #3 and #28 are great ideas.

At the moment I think these three variables are what keep me using BING as primary back-up option.

FWIW I think that If these could be implemented then within limitations of size of snapshots, could be close to perfect solution ;D

Thanks.

[Longboard]

see here

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=132140

[ErikAlbert]

Concerning the processing screen where you are copying a snapshot to another snapshot for example.

1. The button "Hide Details" is an unnecessary gadget IMO, just show the whole screen with all its possibilities.
2. The box "Close when task has completed" is always marked and I couldn't find a setting to change the default value of this box. I like to see the results when the job is done and I always have to unmark this box, if I don't forget it.

3. FDISR mentions two elapsed times, when the job is done : main screen and detail screen and both times have a small difference, which is a bit ridiculous.
This difference causes all kinds of unnecessary questions or reactions of users :
- some users will laugh at it, because the computer can't count, after all both times should be equal.
- some users will think, which one of both times is correct and ask for it?
- some users will think, if both times don't match, what else could be wrong?
A small detail, but I would correct it, because a program doesn't stop two times, only one time.

[Longboard]

Control Panel option for automatic archive refresh at shut down.
8)

[Brian N]

Not a request, but the new 'compressed snapshot' feature is awesome.
My snapshot went from 7GB to 3.2GB. That's really nice :)
Can't see any decrease in performance either when booting from the snapshot.

Simply amazing!

[TonyW]

Another suggestion: creating/updating MBR to another media other than floppy disk, such as a CD. They are a dying breed, and many newer computers don't even have floppy disk drives.

[wilbertnl]

{QUOTE-> Another suggestion: creating/updating MBR to another media other than floppy disk, such as a CD. They are a dying breed, and many newer computers don't even have floppy disk drives. <-QUOTE}
You want this?
http://www.geocities.com/wilbertnl/images/FD-ISR_mbr.jpg

[TonyW]

I think I have misunderstood the term "network path" thinking that browsing to the D: drive wouldn't come under that category.

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> I think I have misunderstood the term "network path" thinking that browsing to the D: drive wouldn't come under that category. <-QUOTE}

You aren't alone Tony.

[crofttk]

This may have already been posted. If so, tough. Consider it seconding the motion.

In the task progress dialog, bytes are being abbreviated as "b". As long as I've been involved in personal computing, since 1980 or so, "b" has been the abbreviation for bits and "B" has been the abbreviation for bytes.

Using "B" for bytes and "b" for bits is not merely a personal preference. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1541

It's admittedly not a capital crime but it really sticks in my craw. Since this is a wish list, let it be known that I wish that were fixed.

[Longboard]

If there is a log for errors during copy/update, i assume there is a finite number of error types?

How about providing a list of and explanations of errors and how to correct them if possible. Perhaps a Knowledge base type search.

If not, then a list to rate severity of errors, potential ramifications and pointers about which need referral to tech help.

Thanks

[cthorpe]

How about a way to compare two snapshots to see what the differences are between them? Granted I've made way to many snapshots since I installed FDISR to play around and see how it works, but sometimes I forget which snapshot I want to keep as is, and which I want to update. It would be great if I could see which snapshot has Office installed, for example, without having to boot into them one by one.

[Peter2150]

One thing you can do is when you name them you have room to put in a pretty complete description. That should help.

Pete

[cthorpe]

{QUOTE-> One thing you can do is when you name them you have room to put in a pretty complete description. That should help.
<-QUOTE}

Yes, that does help. Unfortunately, I haven't been remembering to go update the description as I use it. Last night, I had booted into a snapshot and installed Office 2003 with all of the recent updates. I booted back into another snapshot to check some settings and configurations, and while in that snapshot, I did an update to get the Office installation copied over to a third snapshot. Unfortunately, I got the first and thrid snapshots switched in my mind and ended up copying the Officeless snapshot over the Office snapshot. >:(

Another wishlist item: Ability to update multiple snapshots from one without having to do it manually each time. For example, I have Clean1, Clean2, CleanUntouched. If I want to reset Clean1 and Clean2 back to the Untouched state, I would like to be able to select more than one target for the update.

C

[LokiLoki]

I wish I can:

- right click the tray icon and choose the "Boot to snapshot" without going into the gui

- enter password for groups even if we are log in to windows

- make snapshots frozen other than current

[ErikAlbert]

The scheduled tasks of FDISR require more options to make them more usefull and to meet more wishes of the user.

The suggested 10 options are :
01. On Demand
02. Daily
03. Weekly
04. Monthly
05. One time only
----------------------------
06. When my computer starts
07. When I logon
08. When my computer shuts down
09. When I log off
10. Once a day

The "On Demand"-option (#01) allows you to run a scheduled tasks "on demand" and these are also usefull, because you can't make any MANUAL mistakes anymore in the source and/or destination (archived) snapshots.

The "Once a day" (#10) option is required for options #6, #7, #8 and #9 to run or not to run a scheduled task one time or each time, when you log off/on or reboot/shutdown your computer.

[Longboard]

{QUOTE-> 08. When my computer shuts down
09. When I log off <-QUOTE}
As previously noted: yes please.

Heh, remove useless user with brain slow down at end of day from loop. :D

[cthorpe]

{QUOTE->
06. When my computer starts
07. When I logon
08. When my computer shuts down
09. When I log off
10. Once a day

The "On Demand"-option (#01) allows you to run a scheduled tasks "on demand" and these are also usefull, because you can't make any MANUAL mistakes anymore in the source and/or destination (archived) snapshots.

The "Once a day" (#10) option is required for options #6, #7, #8 and #9 to run or not to run a scheduled task one time or each time, when you log off/on or reboot/shutdown your computer. <-QUOTE}

You can make XP perform some of these tasks for you using Group Policies. To get to the GPE, run Gpedit.msc. Under Computer Configuration you can find startup and shutdown scripts in the Windows Settings branch and you can find logon/logoff scripts in the User Config/Windows Settings branch. You can use batch scripts for the commands to make copies. I am still working on how to dynamically get the name of the currently active snapshot, but it works fine with static snapshot names.

[ErikAlbert]

{QUOTE-> You can make XP perform some of these tasks for you using Group Policies. To get to the GPE, run Gpedit.msc. Under Computer Configuration you can find startup and shutdown scripts in the Windows Settings branch and you can find logon/logoff scripts in the User Config/Windows Settings branch. You can use batch scripts for the commands to make copies. I am still working on how to dynamically get the name of the currently active snapshot, but it works fine with static snapshot names. <-QUOTE}
Unfortunately, less-knowledgeable users (the majority) don't know anything about batch scripts.
Such users need to be guided by a wizard to make a schedule and that's what FDISR does.
I'm just expanding the possibilities of FDISR-schedules for those who want to use them. Those aren't my ideas, I stole them from other softwares with scheduled tasks. Why would I invent the wheel, when it is already invented. :)

[cthorpe]

Of course. I would like to see FDISR offer that kind of scheduling in the wizard as well. I was just throwing the scripting idea out there for anyone who would like to be able to do it now. I think that a lot of people who are running FDISR in the first place know a little more than the average user about how to get things done in Windows. :)

C

[wilbertnl]

{QUOTE-> Unfortunately, less-knowledgeable users (the majority) don't know anything about batch scripts. <-QUOTE} ...and they may not need these specific schedule options either. :)

My first reaction to these wishes was also: this can be done if you create some scripts. The howto is documented by Microsoft and available online.

[ErikAlbert]

{QUOTE-> ...and they may not need these specific schedule options either. :)

My first reaction to these wishes was also: this can be done if you create some scripts. The howto is documented by Microsoft and available online. <-QUOTE}
I'm not going to discuss this any further, because I know I'm right and this is not the right forum to talk about it.

[Defenestration]

1) Support for Incremental/Differential backups. While this is not always wanted, it should be optional during snapshot creation stage (as well as on settings dialog so the default can be set). This would allow much faster snapshot creation, whilst still having the benefit of being able to make full archives from these incremental snapshots.

It should also be possible to convert an incremental/differential snapshot to a full snapshot.

2) Support for many more snapshots will be especially needed when (1) is implemented.

3) Optional ability to data anchor ANY file/folder, although this should be disabled by default for security reasons.

4) Ability to have multiple frozen snapshots.

5) Tray icon menu item to Copy/Update snapshot, Boot to snapshot, Data anchor

[Defenestration]

6) More informative error messages. For example, I disable all services unless they are absolutely necessary. Because of this, the VSS service was disabled but when I tried to make a snapshot I just got an error saying something like "Cannot create snapshot". Surely it wouldn't be a lot more work to check if the VSS state was disabled and mention this to the user.

[Acadia]

One thing I realized tonight. It would be nice if the icon in the System Tray would also have a blue star to tell you that you are in Freeze. :) Thank you.

Acadia

[Defenestration]

{QUOTE-> One thing I realized tonight. It would be nice if the icon in the System Tray would also have a blue star to tell you that you are in Freeze. :) <-QUOTE}Good idea, but I'd like it to be a blue snowflake :P ;D

[Acadia]

Heh, heh, this probably isn't even technologically possible, but it sure is fun to dream: You know how you can create a "fresh install" of an NTFS operating system; how about having the ability to create a "blank" Snapshot that will be able to handle a "fresh install" of Linux ... 8)

Acadia

[silver0066]

Now that Vista Business is out, how soon do you think that Leapfrog Software will update the program to support it?

[Acadia]

I don't remember which thread where I read it, but it was somewhere at Wilder's, we were told that FirstDefense will be ready for Vista when it is released publicly.

Acadia

[aigle]

I will suggest an option for a Rescue CD to restore my system in an extreme scenario where I can,t get FDISR pre-boot screen or can,t access my snapshots or there are no good snapshots on internal HD to restore. This feature might include an option to make a bootable image( on rescue DVD) or an image on an external disk that will be used in extreme cases to restore the system just like imaging software.
There might be multiple reasons that can put anyone in this extrme scenario, like messing up with MBR and unable to get FDISR preboot screen.
This feature might obviate the need for an imaging software to be used with FDISR.

Sorry if this has already been sugested.