This post was prompted by member issues with malware
and virus trojans.
I don't have these problems any longer because all writes
to disk are directed to a scratch folder and all the rest is
write protected. This " sandbox " emulates and masks the
real locations of files so nothing is permanent, reboot and
all changes and installs vanish.
I no longer care what went wrong or why and try to fix it,
I won't spend my time playing that game,
because the rules are always changing.
To deal with such incursions piecemeal is futile and unavailing,
even if you do back up your registry. The only way to keep
from spending interminable time cleaning everything out is to
write protect your drives - period. There exits ample hardware
and software solutions for this.
< www.cyic.com/howit.htm ( good overview of both hardware
and software solutions )
P C I Bus cards variously referred by their manufacturers
as 'restore cards', 'recovery cards', 'reborn cards', 'HDsafe card'
* Warning - I know of none that will work with Raid and only
some support extended partitions.
M Y P I C K at $20
< http://www.elstonsystems.com/prod/ha...very_card.html >
Distributed by: < www.winter-con.com >
< www.winter-con.com/productlist.html#rc-0010
OTHER GOOD PICKS
-- some are OEM others are resellers.
< www.lenten.com/Products.asp
< www.eksitdata.com/guard
< www.bluegeckogroup.co.uk/wdog3.htm
< http://www.recoverystar.com/productd....aspx?id=10002
< www.hdsafecard.com
< www.hddguarder.com
Alternatively Microsoft Windows XP Embedded developer's
distribution contains a feature called ' Enhanced Write Filter'
overlay that writes everything to a 'scratch file' that is simply
deleted upon reboot. Unfortunately only available with XP embedded.
Motherboard manufacturers, A O P E N for one, already provides
free the 'Pro Magic v.6.0' utility for supported motherboards
that possess the necessary 'EZ restore' bios chip.
There is third party software applications that will do this.
M Y P I C K at $ 30 ( Shadowstor )
< www.shadowstor.com/products/ShadowSurfer >
This is able to protect any or all partitions on all your Hard Drives
http://store.storagecraft.com/acb/st...r-25-P2C1.aspx
ANOTHER at $ 30 ( Buffer Zone )
< www.trustware.com >
ANOTHER at $ 50 ( Drive Vaccine )
< www.horizondatasys.com/231846.ihtml >
AND ALSO at $ 70 ( Roll Back )
< www.horizondatasys.com/169614.ihtml >
I also run a trim 2 gigbyte Windows XP installation on a separate partion
of it's own. this is copied on a write protected 2 gigabyte USB flash thumb
drive as a compressed 1 gigabyte file that I can re-install back in it's partition
in 5 minutes by using a skeletal Windows XP install on a bootable BART CD.
See my POST here for instruction _
http://facialforum.net/showthread.php?t=2908
No Joke , newer ways and means of infecting your computer are frightening
in the speed and extent of damage done. Read my experience here _
http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,99239,100601#msg-100601
http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,99239,101548#msg-101548
.