First defense vs Rollback Rx

Hello Pete,

I am, of course, naturally gratified to learn your (and probably everyone else's) installation of Rollback Rx was blissfully problem free.

I just heard from Rollback Rx's tech support. They said my trouble was caused by my not using an administrator account and/or Rollback Rx being blocked from accessing my system registry. [...sigh...] The only account on my PC is as administrator (I have no limited or guest accounts) and I turned off all my running security programs (even NOD32) before installing Rollback Rx. Their instruction on how to uninstall Rollback Rx from the subsystem console was (as is so often the case with suggestions from tech support experts) impossible to perform as the option I was told to select isn't one of the two listed.

Fedex just delivered my FD-ISR CD a day early. My plan to return the CD package unopened/unused if I prefer Rollback Rx may be spoiled as the CD container isn't sealed. Hmmm... There's no license key code either. I always received license/registration keys with other installation CDs. I hope I'm not looking at another problem.

As far as my "ditching" ProcessGuard, that's always an option, albeit a last resort. I hate to abandon software I paid good money for. I'm nothing if not ... ah ... frugal.

 

I just used this feature myself-when rebooting, strike the "HOME" key at the same point you would use F-8 for the Safe mode. This will bring up a console where you can select the snapshot you want, plus perform a few other tasks.

Rob

 

Hi RobZee,

That mean that F8 is the "home" key is that right? I have a french keyboard wich mean I have no key on wich is indicated "home"...

Thanks,
Atomas31

 

I realize I wasn't clear - use the "HOME" button on the keypad next to "INSERT".
My reference to F-8 was meant to show at what point in the bootup to hit the "HOME" button.
Sorry for any probs...

Rob

 

I see, except that my french keyboard doesn't have any "home" key!!! But after talking this problem over with technical support of Horizon Datasys, they will come up (probably next week) with a special version of rollback RX for those who have keyboard with no "home" key... Talk about a bug ;-)

Best regards,
Atomas31

 

Hi Pete,

It is maybe a classic except that, you realize that bug only when you needed the most...

Best regards,
Atomas31

 

By the way Pete,

Did you try HDS clone (free) from Horizon Datasys? If so, what do you think of it and did you have any problem installing it?

Thanks,
Atomas31

 

Thanks, Peter.

Acadia

 

Yeah, I have a "tough choice" to make regarding Rollback Rx, too. I don't know whether using Eraser to overwrite/delete my Rollback Rx installation file 35 times is sufficient or whether I should also try to drive a wooden stake through it.

After not hearing back from Rollback Rx's tech support, I decided to click the "uninstall" icon in the Rollback Rx folder in All Programs. The uninstallation wizard appeared to run fine and said Rollback Rx was now uninstalled. Great. I rebooted my PC even though I wasn't instructed to do so. The first thing I saw was Rollback Rx's screen similar to FD-ISR's. Hmmm... So much for the program being uninstalled. Then appeared the black WindowsXP screen telling me there had been a disaster on the system and giving me a choice of options. Current configuration didn't work. Last good configuration didn't work. Oh, well; there's always Safe Mode. Ack... Safe Mode won't start up. Curse all shills for Rollback Rx!

Rebooting, I hit the Home key to enter (uninstalled) Rollback Rx's subsystem console. Pressing the uninstall button, I was given two alternatives (neither being the one tech support previously told me to use). It was hard to read about these alternatives as their descriptions are so short. One appeared to be to uninstall to the snapshot when Rollback Rx was first installed; the other seemed to be the current snapshot. My quarter landed on "tails" so I clicked on the latter. A wizard ran then declared Rollback Rx was now uninstalled (where did I read that before?).

Rebooting, the first thing I saw was the Rollback Rx screen again. What does it take to get rid of this spawn of Satan? After repeated attempts, I finally made it into Safe Mode. I'm saved! I made a True Image full backup of my C drive just before installing Rollback Rx (I only look stupid). I activated True Image, the recovery wizard screen appeared, but it was mostly blank. There was no way to proceed. Curse all software programmers!

Then I remembered my True Image bootable rescue CD. Hmmm... Rollback Rx probably messed up my Master Boot Record, but what do I have to lose? I inserted the CD, rebooted, and praise all nonexistent Gods the TI recovery wizard worked. It inexplicably showed my second internal drive as labeled E instead of K, but that quirk seemed inconsequential. I restored my C drive using the full backup image stored on K/E and I was back in business. I hereby take back ah ... 50% ... of the bad things I've said about Acronis True Image v9.

My system seems back to normal, although there's one detail I can't quite fathom. The backup image I restored was made before I installed Rollback Rx. Running a Windows search revealed 15 Rollback Rx files. Other than the User's Guide and installation file, I can't understand why any other Rollback Rx files should be present in my PC. I don't know why experimenting with new programs should (at least in my case) so often result in Twilight Zone experiences, but I'm going to resist any further urge to play with Rollback Rx. Now, where did I put that FirstDefense-ISR CD?

 

That best describes my intended use for Rollback RX. So far so good, as mentioned here:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=679795&postcount=47

Rob

 

I have used their Drive Vaccine program and was favorably impressed. I eventually went with Deep Freeze, but Drive Vaccine was a quality product. In fact, they were two of the first of these kinds of programs, joined soon after by Shadow products. Now there are a dozen or more.

 

Hmmm, based upon everything that I've been hearing, I would go with FirstDefense, unless you are low on disk space or using Win98 ... the older product appears to be more reliable at this point ... who knows about the future? Also, it will be interesting to see which one of these two products more quickly and smoothly makes the transition to Windows Vista.

Acadia

 

I have now been playing around with Rollback for a couple of hours.

Installation went fine. I disabled Appdefend and Tiny firewall (which I am trialing) so I wouldnt get all the popups needed to be answered.
I archived my Firstdefence snapshots to another drive and then uninstalled Firstdefence completely, I let Firstdefence erase the snapshots.
Installed Rollback.

Peter has already mentioned many of the advantages, but the main advantage, for me, over Firsdefence is something that I noticed right away: Rollback works with two partitions (maybe more?) on the same drive! I have windows installed on C. My main drive is partitioned in two (C and D)
On D I install most of my applications and I try to keep C free of applications (mainly because I can keep my self better organized this way)
It´s great that I can uninstall applications that are installed on my D partition in some of my Rollback snapshots but they are still alive in the D partition in the other snapshots. This is a feature that I love. But maybe that can be done in Firstdefence too? I never dared to try that....

First I didnt grasp the concept of this program; I spent almost an hour to try to find in the help file how to freeze a snapshot. Then after a couple of reboots I realized that Rollback does this by default, not as an extra feature
I dont mind the built in defragger as long as it does its job well.

I still dont know the program too well so I feel a bit unsecure, because in Firstdefence you have these snapshots clearly visible as files (or maps on the hardrive, and archives) but Rollback works in the background so one cant see the behind lying files, if you know what I mean..
It doesnt feel like I have the control (well, imaginary control so to speak) but that is just me I guess because I dont fully understand the technique behind it. But then again I really dont need to know that as long as the program is stable. When they impliment the feature to make backup of snapshots on other drives, then this will be a killer app.
But this far I like this software! The desicion between Rollback and Firsdefence will indeed be a hard one

 

Yeah, one thing that I am wondering about. With FirstDefense, even though it uses up gobs of disk space, at least every thing is clean and neat: YOU KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING IS.

With RollBack, let's say I have 6 Snapshots, and let's say that inside all 6 Snapshots is an old Word doc; if I understand the technology correctly, all 6 Snaps will be using the same one word doc, because it has never been changed. Now let's say that while in Snapshot number 4, I decide to bring up that old Word doc and make some changes, Snapshot 4 will now have a different Word doc then the other 5 Snaps which will still have the old doc. Where is the new Word doc being stored? And how about the Registry? In all these different Snapshots, if you have different configurations of AV, etc, you are going to have to have different Registries. Where are they being stored? Rollback doesn't use isolated, hidden folders like FirstDefense does. This RollBack sure is confusing ... but looks like a ton of fun.

Acadia

 

sukarof, sorry I cannot answer your question, I am not familiar with how FirstDefense would handle a partitioned hard drive.

Acadia

 

It sure would be nice to have someone from the Rollback team explaining things. Couldnt it be some hidden space on the hard drive? Of course it somehow has to be flexible. I mean they claim Rollback only uses 0.7% of the hard drive to maintain the (possible 60 000 in PRO version) snapshots, but surely that can not be the case after been using RB for, lets say for arguments sake, a year and 50 snapshots. Then there must be thousands and thousands of modified files that require space. atleast on my system.

Sure looks like it. But hey, as long as it does the job

 

Bingo. And every though it would still be using MUCH, MUCH less space than FirstDefense, inquiring minds would like to know: just where the heck are these files being stored?

Acadia

EDIT: My guess is that it may not really matter where they are stored, because whenever you are in a particular Snapshot, the algorithms for that particular snapshot will only let you see the "c:drive" files and folders for that particular "c:drive", just like FirstDefense only lets you see the files for that particular Snapshot. This would also probably be part of the reason why RX needs its own defragger because a hard drive with these alogirthms just isn't going to make any sense to a "normal" defragger.

 

Multiple partitions on drive - I have been trialing with 5 partitions on one of my drives without problems. I can drill down and restore a single file or a folder or the entire partition.

- my feelings on this topic. I have been using the defrag intermittently as Peter suggests, rather than all at once.

As far as being able to "see the files", it might be nice to know, but as long as it works (as others have commented) and there is no interaction that I could perform in any event, I am satisfied. Actually most of what happens inside the computers case is beyond my comprehension, but if it works, it's good. Similarly, I can troubleshoot a malfunctioning program or system without really understanding all (or any) of the details. However, understanding how to setup a FW or AV program to maximize protection is different IMO. There I can do something, but I still wouldn't be able to do anything involving the operations of Rollback even if I was told the "MAGIC".
Perhaps this is somewhat along the lines of... "Ignorance is bliss, when 'tis folly to be wise".

Rob