Returnil

No problem, if your protection is set to automatically start at boot up, then you will have to change that setting so you can boot with protection off. You can see how to do this when you r-click the icon and view the user's manual. In the manual, it is under 'Using the program', 'System protection mode'. I think one of the pics is wrong though, but you should get the idea.

Cheers, innerpeace

 

Two observations:

- After installing Returnil, I was not able to unhide hidden folders via Folder options?

- For some reason Acronis version 7 failed to image from within windows.

Uninstalled Returnil and still the problems remained. Had to do a repair instal of Acronis to make it work. However I am not sure if these issues were really caused by Returnil or by some registry cleaner etc or something else. Anyone noticed such issues?

 

Hi there,some bit off topic though,excuse me, but with any virt. env.you later can destroy after reboot is it necessery to have layered protection ? i dont think so,in returnil session i have minimalist setup,only firewall(windows),boclean and nat-router also firefox with the restriction plugins,thats all,no resident av,am and stuff ,except for boclean for memory protection.maybe i am dumb but for the moment it comforts me well.

 

i run similar setup. minus boclean and a nat router. I do use no script . also as an aditional comfort I have taken a liking to KeyScrambler http://www.qfxsoftware.com/

 

if anyone knows how to update avira and keep the updates without turning off reurnil that would be great?

 

Hello,
Was away this weekend so missed the latest posts…

Blue said:

To everyone having issues with off-line defrags, PD has a feature that allows you to exclude content when doing this so please exclude the Returnil root folder %S:\Returnil. Your reports lead us to believe this is related to PD not being able to access these files…

Please try doing a two step defrag here. First mount and then defrag the VP while in Windows then do an off-line defrag that excludes the root folder as above.

[New question] Erik Asked:

What we need to look at here first is what RVS is doing; that is, RVS is cloning your System Partition in memory. By including other partitions in the protection, you are looking at the following:

1) More memory is used to create the additional clone(s) in question so your overall resources are reduced. Both in available memory and CPU cycles needed to maintain the clones simultaneously.
2) Content on an alternate partition has to be intentionally activated, regardless of whether it is the user or a nasty that tried to install to the System Partition, the result is the same. With Protection ON this becomes a moot point because RVS System Protection/Session Lock does not allow the changes to remain after reboot.
3) We have a better idea for handling sensitive, questionable, and/or risky content that we will be introducing very soon…

Secondly, though we could do this, there seems little if any real incentive from a user perspective to do this, as it could become both resource hungry and overly complicated.

Hyatt69 asked:

The best idea here is to change the default settings for Avira to save and load it’s signature file updates on an alternate data partition. You can use the VP for this, but as has been discussed previously you will need to ensure that the VP is always mounted so your AV will have access to where the updates are stored.

 

Hello Huupi and solarpoweredcandle,
I would caution that you should have some sort of AV protection OR strong process control as part of an intelligent layered approach. The very least would be a scanning capability that you should have to scan incoming files and e-mail attachments.

 

Hi
I can confirm that excluding the folder from PD Boot Time Defrag did NOT solve the problem. The error still exist..
Maybe you can enquire with the lead developer on the cause of the problem and what harm, if any, did it cause?

Thanks

 

I talked with him before posting my reply and from his responce and the reports of the other users, there is no harm.

If the root folder is excluded, PD should be passing over the DAT and the VP files. To better understand your error, please provide a step-by-step description so we can try to reproduce them...

Thanks
Mike

 

Question : is there anything that can circumvent memory to make outgoing connections ? i think thats the greatest concern in virt. env.

 

You are missing something important here: RVS and similar will not block or restrict what applications do if they are installed, even with Protection ON.

This is better dealt with by behavioural control or in your FireWall. The thing to remember is that virtualization is not a silver bullet...

 

Hi!

To reproduce the problem is simple.
Simply do an offline defrag on the system partition with RVS installed.. Then after the reboot before the defragmentation starts, you will see the error... Excluding the d:\RETURNIL folder in the excluded folder did not solve the problem.

 

Yes Mr Coldmoon,but if anything can't be done to the real system while in virti.,my only concern then is about the phoning home thingy and sure i have to prepare for these, having softwares in virti who blocks unsollicited outbound conn.is this that simple or am i missing something. still the feeling there is more under the skin so to speak than i can see,so clear my doubts please.

 

Thanks WindBlade

Can everyone else experiencing this also confirm that exclusion of the root folder did not solve the issue?

Mike

 

Hi Huupi,
First, you can call me Mike. I don't mind, really...

RVS will not affect the functioning of your blocking/filtering solutions. The way the program works is to ensure that unwanted/Malicious changes are lost at reboot with System Protection/Session Lock on. If I misunderstood your original question I apolgize for any confusion...

Mike

 

Coldmoon,I have no VP loaded ,excluded Returnil folder from defrag, ran off-line defrag. I got blue screen ,two Returnil errors,then screen went black and defrag proceeded. Maybe something to do with screen color?

 

Hi Peter,

Actually there is good reason to suspect and investigate this as RVS is the only file that can "open" the DAT and VP. And the VP can be defragged from within windows, so one is naturally going to suspect an issue where attempted access outside of Windows could be a culpret...

I will be talking with the lead this evening and will ask him for some further guidance.

Mike

 

coldmoon would you have any idea how i get avira to save and load its signatures fron vp?would it work if i installed avira on the vp?

 

Hi Mike, yes I can confirm for you the exclusion of the root folder did not solve the PD issue.

 

Hello hyatt69,
I am not familiar with Avira so would suggest asking how to change the default directory in thier product support forums...

The VP will act like any other alternate partition or drive on your system. Just understand the following:

1) Only computer Administrators can access the root of the VP
2) RVS is required to open the file
3) You will need to ensure that the VP always loads with Windows boot

If you do not have an alternate data partition, then this should not be an issue. I would however suggest that creating and using an alternate data partition is recommended.

 

i posted in avira forum but nothin yet and i tried installing it in vp but when rebooting avira did not show up in system tray or task manager?

 

Have the same offline defrag prob here with PD 7.

A simple solution for me is to hook the drive up as a slave then perform the offline.

Returnil is installed on both the Vista and XP drives.

This new pc I setup on the weekend with a sata drive and Vista Ultimate rendered most of my maintenance apps such as Partition Magic,Perfect Disk 7 and Paragon HD Manager as unusable on Vista.

The new mobo had one ide slot so I installed XP onto an ide drive with all my maintenance apps.

Now I can hook the XP ide drive as master with the Vista sata drive as slave and use all my maintenance apps from the XP drive to defrag and do image backups of the Vista sata drive.

There are no jumpers to move on the sata drive so it's a simple matter of plugging - unplugging the ide drive set as master.

Note:
NortonGhost 2003 doesn't seem to like sata drives and locked up on me hence why I'm using Paragon which seems to work fine.

 

Hello hyatt69,
Is the AV installed in the root of the VP or in a folder within the VP?

 

Hi Pete,
I am posting this to reply to your PM and to provide some information on the errors with PD using offline defrag.

What you are seeing is an RVS error due to the fact that it cannot access the DAT file. This is because PD has interupted the boot process but only after RVS has already started loading.

As has been posted, though these errors occur, PD completes its task and then immediately reboots. When the system restarts, RVS restarts normally.

Mike