The purpose of this version is to provide a self-sufficient package that requires neither additional download nor even installation.
ProxyCrypt can now load the imdisk driver automatically, if imdisk.sys is located in the same folder.
Of course, without installation, there is no context menu entry, so you have to dismount the volume with either the "imdisk -D" command, or with imdisk.cpl (administrative privileges recommended to ensure the flush to the disk of the last written data).
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Hello @w77. Just logged to send congrats for the project AND a bug report. I used this tool a looong time ago with a XP installation and it was flawless, perfect, but in Windows 7 the tool is not realiable anymore - just created a container using v 2.30, mounted it, formated it, copied a large number of plain text files to it (like big GIT repositories), everything seems fine, then you unmount it and mounts it again, and when you open some of the files, now they are blank, corrupt. This makes it impossible to use this great tool
Last edit: Felipe Daragon 2019-09-13
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Code changes in this version are very limited, just 10 lines added to detect and load the driver, and nothing else modified.
I use the published version every day and have no data lost.
Have you dismounted the volume with administrative privileges?
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Yes I agree that the problem did not start with this release - reproduced the same issue with version 2.05. I mounted the volume with admin privileges and dismounted using the "Unmount imdisk virtual disk" Explorer context menu option
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You didn't answer the question, but I assume this is no.
The imdisk driver was initially designed for XP, where you are admin by default. On Vista and later, a volume cannot be properly dismounted without administrative privileges (some data can remain in the system caches). To flush all data, you need either to wait some time (usually a few seconds are enough, but more if you just have copied a lot of data), or dismount with administrative privileges.
So you can:
- dismount from an elevated command prompt
- use the ImDisk Toolkit which fixes that issue by modifying the Explorer context menu
It seems I underestimated this issue. But the author of the imdisk driver wants to maintain this design because some users absolutely want to dismount their volumes without administrative privileges.
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Some good news: ImDiskTk.exe, as you pointed out, appears to fix the issue. I also tried to restart the OS -without- unmounting the newly created volume and the data was intact after rebooting and mounting it again. "It seems I underestimated this issue" users are risking losing data so IMO some big warning about this should be added to the documentation
Last edit: Felipe Daragon 2019-09-21
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I also tried to restart the OS -without- unmounting the newly created volume and the data was intact after rebooting and mounting it again.
Yes, it works because at system shutdown, the volume is unmounted by ProxyCrypt, which has administrative privileges.
users are risking losing data so IMO some big warning about this should be added to the documentation
This is not something new, and I think that in most cases, users don't dismount the volume right after a large copy.
But yes, a data lost is unacceptable, so I will take care of that.
Last edit: v77 2019-09-21
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Disk Encryption: it's yes. This is one of the main features... You can encrypt a full hard drive, or just a partition (or even half a partition, thanks to the -o option).
In a computer I have often a "application not responding windows 10 freeze" when i launch IronPortable from a crypted disk or when i play music located in crypted disk with fb2k.
How can i investigate if it depends on ProxyCrypt64 2.4.0?
I not see any button to open new tread in this discussions.
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ProxyCrypt is not supposed to answer messages, it's neither a service nor a GUI application, even if it creates an invisible window (which still processes messages in a separate thread).
So, even if ProxyCrypt uses 100% CPU, it's not an issue, unless it blocks a read/write request. But in this case, it's the whole system that can be stuck. And as you can see, the ProxyCrypt process uses a normal priority, so it does not prevent other processes from running.
That said, if another process uses a priority below normal, and if ProxyCrypt uses 100% CPU for a long time, it can prevent these processes from running.
Perhaps you could try to lower the priority of the ProxyCrypt process with the task manager, or use a lower number of threads with the -t switch.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
The purpose of this version is to provide a self-sufficient package that requires neither additional download nor even installation.
ProxyCrypt can now load the imdisk driver automatically, if imdisk.sys is located in the same folder.
Of course, without installation, there is no context menu entry, so you have to dismount the volume with either the "imdisk -D" command, or with imdisk.cpl (administrative privileges recommended to ensure the flush to the disk of the last written data).
Hello @w77. Just logged to send congrats for the project AND a bug report. I used this tool a looong time ago with a XP installation and it was flawless, perfect, but in Windows 7 the tool is not realiable anymore - just created a container using v 2.30, mounted it, formated it, copied a large number of plain text files to it (like big GIT repositories), everything seems fine, then you unmount it and mounts it again, and when you open some of the files, now they are blank, corrupt. This makes it impossible to use this great tool
Last edit: Felipe Daragon 2019-09-13
Code changes in this version are very limited, just 10 lines added to detect and load the driver, and nothing else modified.
I use the published version every day and have no data lost.
Have you dismounted the volume with administrative privileges?
Yes I agree that the problem did not start with this release - reproduced the same issue with version 2.05. I mounted the volume with admin privileges and dismounted using the "Unmount imdisk virtual disk" Explorer context menu option
You didn't answer the question, but I assume this is no.
The imdisk driver was initially designed for XP, where you are admin by default. On Vista and later, a volume cannot be properly dismounted without administrative privileges (some data can remain in the system caches). To flush all data, you need either to wait some time (usually a few seconds are enough, but more if you just have copied a lot of data), or dismount with administrative privileges.
So you can:
- dismount from an elevated command prompt
- use the ImDisk Toolkit which fixes that issue by modifying the Explorer context menu
It seems I underestimated this issue. But the author of the imdisk driver wants to maintain this design because some users absolutely want to dismount their volumes without administrative privileges.
Some good news: ImDiskTk.exe, as you pointed out, appears to fix the issue. I also tried to restart the OS -without- unmounting the newly created volume and the data was intact after rebooting and mounting it again. "It seems I underestimated this issue" users are risking losing data so IMO some big warning about this should be added to the documentation
Last edit: Felipe Daragon 2019-09-21
Yes, it works because at system shutdown, the volume is unmounted by ProxyCrypt, which has administrative privileges.
This is not something new, and I think that in most cases, users don't dismount the volume right after a large copy.
But yes, a data lost is unacceptable, so I will take care of that.
Last edit: v77 2019-09-21
I just published a comparison between ProxyCrypt and other encryption tools. Link: http://www.syhunt.com/en/?n=Articles.EncryptionToolsComparison
Last edit: Felipe Daragon 2019-09-22
Disk Encryption: it's yes. This is one of the main features... You can encrypt a full hard drive, or just a partition (or even half a partition, thanks to the -o option).
Wikipedia already has a good page about that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software
In a computer I have often a "application not responding windows 10 freeze" when i launch IronPortable from a crypted disk or when i play music located in crypted disk with fb2k.
How can i investigate if it depends on ProxyCrypt64 2.4.0?
I not see any button to open new tread in this discussions.
There is "Create Topic" in the left panel.
ProxyCrypt is not supposed to answer messages, it's neither a service nor a GUI application, even if it creates an invisible window (which still processes messages in a separate thread).
So, even if ProxyCrypt uses 100% CPU, it's not an issue, unless it blocks a read/write request. But in this case, it's the whole system that can be stuck. And as you can see, the ProxyCrypt process uses a normal priority, so it does not prevent other processes from running.
That said, if another process uses a priority below normal, and if ProxyCrypt uses 100% CPU for a long time, it can prevent these processes from running.
Perhaps you could try to lower the priority of the ProxyCrypt process with the task manager, or use a lower number of threads with the -t switch.