FD-ISR ~ ShadowUser -> engaged!

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by wilbertnl, Jun 7, 2006.

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  1. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    I'm not really happy with the freeze function of FD-ISR.
    It requires double the size of a snapshot for reference purpose and it takes a while to index and restore at boot time.

    So, for the heck of it, I decided to play with ShadowUser and installed it in a test snapshot.
    Well, I learned soon enough that ShadowUser maintains an exclude list. I added the anchored data folders and c:\$ISR to that list.
    That makes the 'leave-alone data' equal for ShadowUser and FD-ISR.

    Now, that makes for a perfect marriage!
    ShadowUser is swift with restoring the status, compared to FD-ISR.
    And I'm able to boot to a different snapshot without disruption from ShadowUser at all.
    There is actually no sign of ShadowUser at all in the other snapshots.

    This means that I still have all the features of creating test snapshots, while my wife can play all her spyware enabled games in the ShadowUser protected snapshot.

    I hereby pronounce FD-ISR and ShadowUser husband and wife!
     
  2. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    ROFL. Between you and Dallen, the imagery is fantastic:D :D
     
  3. dallen

    dallen Registered Member

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    ...but what for my love for FD-ISR?
     
  4. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Paul, quick, help, they're tyring to turn Wilders into a porn site!! :eek:

    Acadia
     
  5. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    Well, I always wondered why FDISR restricts freezing to ACTIVE snapshots (green with a blue star).
    Why not for an INACTIVE snapshot (yellow with a blue star) ?

    If that was possible FDISR and ShadowUser could end up in a divorce. :D
     
  6. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Erik, why would you want to Freeze a Snapshot that you are not even using? o_O

    Acadia
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    What you want rational in this thread??:D
     
  8. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    Well I'm wrong you can indeed create a frozen inactive snapshot, that remains it status.

    Copy a frozen snapshot to another snapshot results in an unfrozen snapshot, but that's not entirely true : the snapshot is prepared as a frozen snapshot, but it has not a blue star. Freezing such an unfrozen snapshot takes lesser than a minut instead of 10 minutes.

    This could be considered as a bug : the missing blue star after copying a frozen snapshot to a new snapshot.

    EDIT :
    Another thing that is wrong is the "Freeze" and "Unfreeze" option in the "Actions Menu", both were available which is abnormal, because one is always greyed out and that was not the case with a copied frozen snapshot (without blue star).
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2006
  9. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    A frozen inactive snapshot loads much faster than an unfrozen snapshot that needs to be frozen (takes 10 minutes in my case).
     
  10. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    The bottom line is that you don't really need ShadowUser.
    Normal snapshot for wilbertnl
    Frozen snapshot for wilbertnl's wife to play with spyware infected games.
    Rebooting in both snapshots = normal boot time.
    You only have to freeze ONE time.

    @Peter
    That could be considered as "rational" :)
     
  11. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    You're right, Peter, I'm lost by this logic?! o_O

    Acadia
     
  12. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    Sorry don't agree. Test it yourself. :)
     
  13. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Erik

    I don't do frozen, but I do agree, you can probably do it all with FDISR as opposed to mixing and messing. I am for divorce.:D
     
  14. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    Read post #8.
    Because you don't freeze, it doesn't mean that the freeze doesn't have to work properly.
     
  15. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    It looks like I found a way to screw up FDISR on purpose by just doing normal activities.
    FDISR doesn't work properly any more on my machine. I can't even remove inactive snapshots.
    Freeze and unfreeze are both available in my primary snapshot, while only the freeze option is allowed and the unfreeze option should be greyed out.

    I'm going to test this again and if it goes wrong again I report this to Raxco.
     
  16. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    No Argument. I was just refering to mixing FDISR and Shadowuser
     
  17. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    Well Raxco is lucky, I couldn't reconstruct what happened yesterday, at least not with copied snapshots with the same contents.
    Yesterday I worked with snapshots with different security setups and that is not the same situation.
    But I could recover these different snapshots with ATI, because my backup is now full automatic.
    So I can test it again, but not today, because these tests were very irritating (more waiting, than working).

    One thing is certain, I corrupted FDISR very badly with copying frozen snapshots and what bothers me the most is, that I don't know exactly how it happened.
    At least I learned something more about freezing.

    Concerning wilbertnl's experiment with ShadowUser, which was an interesting combination of course, but you can do the same thing with FDISR only.

    First the rules of freezing :
    1. You can NOT have more than ONE frozen snapshot.
    2. The frozen snapshot can be an ACTIVE snapshot (green with star) OR an INACTIVE snapshot (yellow with star), but only ONE.
    3. You can only freeze or unfreeze an ACTIVE snapshot.
    4. If you freeze an active snaphot and there is a frozen INACTIVE snapshot, than this frozen INACTIVE snapshot
    will lose its frozen status immediately (you can see on the screen that the blue star disappears).
    5. The options "Freeze" and "Unfreeze" are both available, but the next screens decide that it has to be an ACTIVE snapshot.

    So what wilbertnl can do is :
    1. Copy an existing Husband-snapshot to a Wife-snapshot.
    2. Reboot with Wife-snapshot.
    3. Freeze the active Wife-snapshot
    4. Reboot with Husband-snapshot and continue with his hard work.
    5. If his wife wants to play with spyware-infected games, he reboots with Wife-snapshot, which is already frozen
    and she can start playing.
    6. If wilbertnl freezes the Husband-snapshot, the Wife-snapshot will lose its blue star and become a normal snapshot.
    In that case he has to freeze the Wife-snapshot again.

    Wilbertnl doesn't have to do this of course, it depends on how long the combination FDISR & SU will last without troubles.
    Let us hope it lasts forever. :)
     
  18. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    Why is everyone so upset when software that has redundant features seems compatible? :rolleyes:
    My experience is that a frozen snapshot takes more space and more time to boot.
    And what are users who never worked with a frozen snapshot trying to tell here? o_O

    So, yes, you are right. You don't need another solution with FD-ISR.
    But here are some advantages:
    - Smaller footprint of the protected snapshot
    - Faster restore to defined status at boot time
    - Unlimited amount of protected snapshots

    A couple times I read a question like "Is FD-ISR compatible with ...?" and here is one clear example of a working combination. :)
     
  19. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    wilbertnl,
    For me it was a theoretical alternative within FDISR, nothing more than that.
    I'm more worried about my FDISR-crash yesterday and how it happened.
     
  20. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Gang

    Wilbertnl, nothing at all wrong with what you are doing, in fact I am glad to hear it works. Only possible issue is increasing the probablity of conflict.

    Erik, it is clear to me what you did wrong, and you should know this.

    This is bad bad bad:

    3. Freeze the active Wife-snapshot

    Any husband should know this.

    :D :D :D :D :D


    In all seriousness, I am sure if you can reproduce a problem Raxco will be glad to hear about it. They are serious about having bug free software.

    Pete
     
  21. tobacco

    tobacco Frequent Poster

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    Another advantage is to protect data files,etc on other partitions of the active drive.Saves having to restore from backup.
     
  22. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    ErikAlbert,

    I noticed similar behaviour when I tested the antivirus software Viguard, which doesn't rely on signatures.
    Could it be possible that your problems are caused by some similar test installation?
    Do you notice these problems in all your snapshots?
    Do you notice these problems in both build 166 and build 169?
     
  23. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Build 169?? Raxco as of yet doesn't have a build 169. No Support from Raxco if you install the Leapfrog Version.
     
  24. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    The Leapfrog version is in fact a beta version and it doesn't matter to me, if people say that it works properly or not.
    I'm not a beta-tester. At work we don't even use the expression "beta".
    We simply say "We are testing it." and those tests are done in a test machine.
    As far as I can see the word "beta" doesn't mean anything anymore nowadays.
    I test softwares of course at work, but these tests are done inside the computer department and never by our users.

    Concerning my troubles yesterday, I don't know what happened.
    I was trying to find an alternative solution for FDISR + SU with the same results.
    That doesn't mean I don't like wilbertnl's combination.
    It's not my goal to find better solutions than wilbertnl or anybody else, I only see possible alternatives.
    Theoretical solutions that are technical possible aren't always practical solutions and when wilbertnl says that his combination is faster and more convenient, than freezing snapshots, I believe him until I can prove he's wrong. I didn't test ShadowUser in combination with FDSIR, wilbernl did.

    In general everybody uses software in a different way. He uses a specific group of functions and as long these functions work properly, he is happy and calls the software reliable.
    But nobody uses ALL the functions of a software, because he doesn't need all of them.
    All users together will use ALL functions of a software, but not as an individual.
    A tester is an individual that tests ALL functions of a software and it doesn't matter if he needs them or not. A tester does these tests in order to find errors in a software.
    That's the main difference between "using" and "testing" softwares.

    FDISR takes snapshots and allows you to refresh snapshots. During refreshing, objects are added, removed, replaced and this should work no matter what softwares are installed in both snapshots.
    In other words there shouldn't be any compatibility problem in theory.
    FDISR doesn't work with software names, it does the SAME JOB for all softwares.

    Yesterday I was "using" FDISR, not "testing" FDISR and FDISR failed, but I don't know where because I wasn't paying attention enough to what I was doing.
    Was it freezing or refreshing or the combination ? Was it caused by certain software objects?
    One thing I know already, it won't be easy to nail the problem, because too many softwares are involved and a system partition is too big to control.
    Is FDISR 100% reliable? Probably in most circumstances, but not always.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2006
  25. dallen

    dallen Registered Member

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    ErikAlbert,
    As always, I appreciate everything that you do. I think that you do a lot for this forum and add considerable value to it. You are correct in saying that no software is perfect and I believe you when you say that FDISR failed. However, without being able to say what triggered the failure, your finding is not as helpful as it could be. Without even being able to say what the software was doing when the failure occurred, your finding is of even lesser help.

    Is there any way you can set up the software to do the same exact tasks? If so, the only hope that you have is to do that and see if you get another failure. Absent the ability to produce the failure, your experience is of little use in my opinion.

    If I came to you and said that your product was bad, you would ask why. If I said because it failed, you would ask when and what were you doing with it. If I said I don't know it just failed, you would ask me to show you. If I said I cannot do that, what could you say or do with my concern?
     
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