How do "You" use FD-ISR

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by screamer, Jan 3, 2007.

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  1. screamer

    screamer Registered Member

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    I was just wondering how different folks use FD-ISR. For instance: do you run in Secondary SnapShot, Primary SnapShot, a Created Run SnapShot??

    Here's my method:

    Run in Primary SS. This copies/updates to Daily SS every day. The Primary SS also copies/updates to Second Day SS every two days, and to Third Day SS every two days (one day after Second Day SS) Then there is Fourth Day SS which copies/updates every third day and finally there is Archive SS which copies/updates every Sunday from the Primary SS.
    With this configuration I'm able to go back to yesterday, the day before yesterday, the day before that, or the previous Sunday. I also have an Archive of Primary SS on an external HDD that has a copy of a clean Win XP install.
    I don't have a Test SS since I really don't test much SW. However if I -do install something and it goes wrong, I can go back several days to a clean SS.
     

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  2. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    How do "I" use FD-ISR?

    At the moment, carefully! I tend to work in primary, have a secondary and now (thanks to Peter) have an external archive.
    Just learning about this software and loving it.
     
  3. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

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    I have a primary snapshot that I use daily. One backup snapshot of the primary (and one archive updated weekly) I have one test snapshot that I use when i test software or sometimes malware. One snapshot (and archive) for games, a very basic configuration to avoid performance loss to run the games smoothly.
     
  4. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I have pared down to a simple setup. I do a lot of imaging in conjunction with FDISR. Also I am a single partition person. My objective was first ability to recover or undo an install. Speed of both FDISR and imaging is very important. Speed for imaging, implies keeping the drive space minimized.
    Also I don't care about going back to yesterday, the day before, etc. So....

    On my c: drive I have my Primary which of course has everything I run. Then I have a secondary which is a stripped All it contains is Windows, and enough to feel safe online. It's only purpose is to provide a bootable snapshot.

    I also keep an Archive on my primary, both on my second internal drive, and one on my external drive. These are update frequently. Update time is around a minute. I also keep an archive of the secondary snapshot

    So if I want to test a program, I first update my archive, and then install in the Primary. If I don't like it I boot to my secondary and update my primary from the archive. I

    This setup also means that even if I have to restore from the image I took when I bought the system(which has FDISR), I can load the secondary from the archive, boot to it, and the bring the primary update from the archive.

    I have thoroughly tested this approach and it works beautifully. Also if i want I can keep several different configurations in archives and switch back and forth easily.

    Pete
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I have pared down to a simple setup. I do a lot of imaging in conjunction with FDISR. Also I am a single partition person. My objective was first ability to recover or undo an install. Speed of both FDISR and imaging is very important. Speed for imaging, implies keeping the drive space minimized.
    Also I don't care about going back to yesterday, the day before, etc. So....

    On my c: drive I have my Primary which of course has everything I run. Then I have a secondary which is a stripped All it contains is Windows, and enough to feel safe online. It's only purpose is to provide a bootable snapshot.

    I also keep an Archive on my primary, both on my second internal drive, and one on my external drive. These are update frequently. Update time is around a minute. I also keep an archive of the secondary snapshot

    So if I want to test a program, I first update my archive, and then install in the Primary. If I don't like it I boot to my secondary and update my primary from the archive. I

    This setup also means that even if I have to restore from the image I took when I bought the system(which has FDISR), I can load the secondary from the archive, boot to it, and the bring the primary update from the archive.

    I have thoroughly tested this approach and it works beautifully. Also if i want I can keep several different configurations in archives and switch back and forth easily.

    Pete
     
  6. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    Peter & sukarof have got it down.

    I keep a couple of different config extra archives
    There is little reason to move beyond 2 working snaps on disc and a couple of archives.

    @sukarof: I have been trying out VMWare rather than FDISR, for some testing.
    I have been a bit uncertain about "sandboxing" between different snapshots/boot options and malware .exes

    Have you had anything "infect" snapshots other than the current working snap?

    Regards.
     
  7. Horus37

    Horus37 Registered Member

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    I'd be interested to know if the data anchoring leaves one open to infections if all you anchor is your my docs folder and favorites. It would be strange indeed if you could get infected from a vm running inside a snapshot to the point all the snapshots are bad.
     
  8. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    oooppss
    that wasn't entirely clear:
    I was asking about "cross infection" between FDISR snaps and overwriting any changes made to a test snapshot.
    :doubt:
     
  9. asyland

    asyland Registered Member

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    One Primary snapshot for everyday use and testing software. One Secondary snapshot the I update about once every two days from the Primary (provided all's well) or restore to the Primary should something go wrong.
    One Gaming snapshot with minimal programs, services.
    2 Archives of Primary on external HD: One made right after XP and FD-ISR install before I connected to the internet, and one I update about once a week.
    1 Archive on external HD of Gaming snapshot also updated about once a week
    No anchored files
     
  10. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    @asyland
    Nice.Just add Fox of Fire (i hope);) And nice rational FDISR useage. :thumb:
     
  11. asyland

    asyland Registered Member

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    Thanks. Firefox, absolutely, with NoScript, AdBlock Plus with G Updater, Form Fox, Cool Iris, and Shazou and a few others for fun.
     
  12. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Longboard

    About the only way I can see would be something like what happened to me with KAV. Notice one day after a reboot, my system was a total flake. Booted to my secondary snapshot, and after reboot there it was bad. Hmm. Then I restored a tested good image from two days ago, and same thing with it. Same thing with my external archives. Talk about going nuts.

    THen I figured the common demoninator. KAV was asking for a restart which mean it had downloaded a driver update. So I restored the image again, and this time turned off the modem, and rebooted. Set KAV to manual update, and problem was solved. They had a bad driver update it turned out.

    So nothing is impossible, although for this to happen it would have to be something you universally use like KAV, and it would have to go bad.

    Pete
     
  13. cthorpe

    cthorpe Registered Member

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    I run a frozen snapshot most of the time with setting modifications and some hacks to get certain applications to write settings to another partition. My computer has never been so clean and so fast and responsive.

    Ct
     
  14. Rilla927

    Rilla927 Registered Member

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    I have never done this yet myself.

    You have to modify some settings in order to use a frozen snapshot.
     
  15. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

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    I work in Primary mostly with data anchoring set. There is a Test snapshot for beta-testing and a backup of the Primary. One other snapshot is a minimalistic OS setup that gets updated every second Tuesday of the month as well as the Primary.
     
  16. Horus37

    Horus37 Registered Member

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    What settings do you have to modify in order to use a frozen snapshot for daily web browsing etc??
     
  17. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Horus

    I would suggest you read, reread, and reread again the users manual. We all have done this, and I think it will answer many of your questions.

    Pete
     
  18. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    LOL
    Ihope so
    No offence intended :)
     
  19. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    What acctually put me off FDR was the fact that each snapshot reduces your hard drive capacity by the size of the primary snapshot each time, for instance Primay = *GB Secondary takes another 8GB and so on, so in effect a primary and secondary snapshot use up 16GB of space Far too much in my opinion,and they arnt as flexible with being able to defrag like with Rollback Rx
    Just my personal experience,but each to his/her own :)
     
  20. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    No, very valid points.

    I trialled Rollback ages ago and couldn't get it stable.
    I think I still have a licence somewhere.

    Apparently the newer versions are better. ??

    On desktop With current HD 320G, and external 320G: little problem with space. !!

    On a laptop with smaller HD options: if it really is OK now I think it would be a great option.
     
  21. chrome_sturmen

    chrome_sturmen Registered Member

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    I use first defense to confuse the **** out of myself- I leave myself messages that are half complete, with an annotation saying"boot to snapshot 3 and read the text document on the desktop" then when I do so, that document tells me to boot to snapshot number 2 to continue- so I boot around from snapshot to snapshot reading the message, then the last message tells me to boot back to the original snapshot, boot in my virtual machine, boot the third snapshot of isr, and read the end of the message, by which time im out of my mind ;(
     
  22. Horus37

    Horus37 Registered Member

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    I've read the manual. It doesn't say what settings you are supposed to change in order to browse the internet while in a frozen snapshot. If so I'd like to know where in the manual it talks about that. I've been over it 3 times now.
     
  23. kennyboy

    kennyboy Registered Member

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    Please dont let that put you off trying FDR. I have to say that it is a quite amazing program and I have come to depend on it so much, I just dont know what I would do without it. It is quite startling what you can achieve, (or get away with in my case) and still end up with a usable machine.

    I dont see defrag as a problem at all. I dont use the recommended Perfect disk but use Diskeeper, and just exclude ONE FILE, and have no problems AND a perfectly defragged disk.
     
  24. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Horus

    Get comfortable using the program in regular mode first. You don't need frozen snapshots to do that. But you do need to really understand the workings.
     
  25. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    You have an overly complicated setup. I have 1 primary snapshot, and an archive of this primary snapshot, which I keep updated frequently. I also have only one secondary snapshot, which is a stripped down system. It's only purpose is to provide a place to boot to, so I can update the primary from the archive. Oh so simple, and oh so effective.

    Pete
     
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