Tips and Tricks

[cthorpe]

There is a thread like this over on the Processguard forum. I thought it might be helpful here. Post things that you do with your copy of FDISR that make the program work for you.

I did a clean install on a blank snapshot to facilitate a rebuild of my system while having quick access to a working build in another snapshot. As soon as I had the clean install up and running and FDISR installed, I exported an archive of the clean snapshot. That way, any time I want to do a clean install, I just have to import the archive and skip all the Windows installation.

This one is probably common knowledge, but it might help someone new to the program. As you know, copying the active snapshot to a new shapshot takes a little time. On my machine, a 5 gig active snapshot takes close to 15 minutes to copy. Once you have a secondary snapshot, do your copying from an inactive snapshot to a new snapshot instead. Copying the same 5 gig snapshot when it is inactive only takes my machine 6-7 minutes.

[ErikAlbert]

Originally Posted by cthorpe

There is a thread like this over on the Processguard forum. I thought it might be helpful here. Post things that you do with your copy of FDISR that make the program work for you.

I did a clean install on a blank snapshot to facilitate a rebuild of my system while having quick access to a working build in another snapshot. As soon as I had the clean install up and running and FDISR installed, I exported an archive of the clean snapshot. That way, any time I want to do a clean install, I just have to import the archive and skip all the Windows installation.

This one is probably common knowledge, but it might help someone new to the program. As you know, copying the active snapshot to a new shapshot takes a little time. On my machine, a 5 gig active snapshot takes close to 15 minutes to copy. Once you have a secondary snapshot, do your copying from an inactive snapshot to a new snapshot instead. Copying the same 5 gig snapshot when it is inactive only takes my machine 6-7 minutes.

Yes all activities, where an active snapshot is involved are slower.
Archive/Restore are faster than copy/update.
Refreshing snapshots are usually the fastest operations.

I do most of my FDISR-activities and image backups in a special snapshot without any security software and windows disconnected from the internet.

[cthorpe]

Put your snapshot name on your desktop...

With a small batch file and Systernal's BGInfo program, I have come up with a way to dynamically put your currently active snapshot name, last update, and last boot info on your desktop so you know what you are running at a glance.

Get BGInfo here: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/BgInfo.html

The batch file:

echo off
c:\$ISR\$APP\isrcontrol list | find "*" > snapshot.txt
if ERRORLEVEL==1 c:\$ISR\$APP\isrcontrol list | find "#" > snapshot.txt
Bginfo.exe snap.bgi /TIMER:0

I put it in a Batch folder inside of $ISR\$APP along with BGInfo.

Create a text file called snapshot.txt in the Batch folder

Run BGInfo once, and set it up to your liking, but before you quit out of it, hit Custom and create a new field called FDISR that points to the snapshot.txt file.

Add the FDISR field to your BGInfo setup

Click File, Save As..., and save it to a file called snap.bgi in the Batch folder.

Now you can run the snapshot.bat file to put whatever info you setup in BGInfo on your desktop along with info about the currently running snapshot.