Dealing with problems caused by Virtual protection

I am using Returnil on my computers which of course stops changes, however this proves a problem with Opera bookmarks, passwords, site specific changes etc. Does anyone know how to get around this?

 

You can take a chance with Opera and go online un protected to update bookmarks and sites, or if its just for book marks save the book marks while protected to external storage or other partition and do the update after reboot while protection is off and offline if you want to be a little safer about it.

 

Yeah thanx for that, in my lazy way that's not unlike what I was doing with the bookmarks just copy links to notepad save on data partition and then add them when protection was off, but it's a bit ham fisted

 

Yeah, thanx Pete, looks like that is probably the only solution, without moving them and editing configuration files to point to them.

OK! there's a trick with the bookmarks......if you open Manage bookmarks, then in an empty space in the left hand column right click, select File from the menu and save as, then save to wherever on your data partition. This saves not only a copy of the Opera6.adr (bookmark file) but marks it as the active one and Opera I think will save bookmarks here. When you restart Opera if you look in About Opera you should see the file path to the Opera6.adr has changed to where you saved it.

 

This is what makes Sandboxie convenient. It has default settings allowing you to save favorites for browsers if you wish to do so. You can enable or disable that feature for the individual browser.

 

with Firefox there is the option to move Profiles to another drive. Is there not such a feature with Opera ?

I would look for something like this http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile

 

Yes Sandboxie is a good program, use it also, have sussed out the bookmarks problem with Opera and Returnil, it's all the other things and I don't think Sandboxie has an answer for them either.

 

Not that I am aware of, was hoping for someone more knowledgable to present the solution, if indeed there is one. The method I have used to move the bookmarks is actually considered a bug in Opera from what I have read.
Erik said he had part of Firefox on his data file, but that included the browser cache, I could probablly move Operas whole profile folder and edit the filepath in the Opera directory, but that would also put it's browser cache outside Returnil, not sure I want a browser cache in my data partition.

 

Hello,
As an user of this type of software, I've solved the problem by creating 2 profiles for Firefox. I leave 1 profile in the frozen system and point another profile to a normal partition. When I want to save a bookmark, I just drag it to the unfrozen profile's window and continue browsing. This way, when I reboot, the frozen profile will be back to the way it was and the unfrozen profile will have an additional bookmark. To sync them, I use Karen's replicator. Additionally, there is a Firefox extension that allows the user to rightclick and save an html of the page to any directory. After rebooting, the user can click on those applets and open them, then bookmark them.


Hope that helps.

 

Thanx Ragzarok, that's an interesting possability, will look at that

 

If your Returnil is on and you're using your browser, can't you turn it off momentarily to save a bookmark, then re-activate it? If you're on a questionable or dangerous site, you probably won't want to bookmark it any way. What's the odds you will get infected if your Returnil is off for 60 seconds? I'm asking because I'm not a user yet and just don't know.

 

Turning off this type of software requires a reboot, but thanx for the effort

 

I thought I read that you could turn Returnil on and off at will. It takes a reboot to wipe clean. Am I right?

 

Session lock / protection can be turned on without reboot, but not off, and yes the system is reset during reboot

 

Another possible solution with Firefox is storing your bookmarks on the internet with the extension "delicious bookmarks".

 

How about using Roboform ? www.roboform.com primarily intended to enter passwords, account number, credit card and bank details.... but can be used for any site. My roboform data is kept off C: and so doesn't get frozen.

Having worked all day and every day with Returnil and Deepfreeze6 now for about 4 months now I wouldn't consider going back. Turn off all the updates, remove all the security ..... move the outlook pst to your data drive, move the firefox profile, clean up with a few reg cleaners, defrag with Perfect disk and then freeze. Every so often unfreeze to update firefox add ons, windows etc and then defrag and freeze again. At every reboot all the junk is gone and even old machines think they are young again.

 

Thanks for that - I have been wanting to do that for some time but been too lazy to work it out. Such an easy way to do it.