System Restore Keeping Only One Restore Point

Why use ERUNT a non Microsoft program when system restore does the job??????
wrote in message
...

Putting my oar in G - why not use the ERUNT system ; I use it all
the time and have turned SR off .




On Sun, 25 May 2008 13:09:26 GMT, "Danno" wrote:

That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a computer.
Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money for. I
declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about
ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather did.
Not burning and screaming like his passengers.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Or OldTurkey forever saying "what does this have to do with WindowsXP?
Do you see that in the title? It doesn't belong here." LOL.

Gerry wrote:
Kayman wrote:
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

People who forever want to debate the merits of top v bottom posting!


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Sun, 25 May 2008 10:52:07 -0300, Vincent wrote:

snipped to reduce excessive quoting
snipped make believe security expert drivel

I feel honored... but I am not a security expert and never claimed to be
one, though I think of myself as reasonable 'informed'.

If you think that my post was meant as a ringing endorsement of third
party firewalls and their marketing hype you misunderstood what I said.

You're quite right, I haven't read you response very thoroughly - mea
culpa. Nevertheless, I trust you enjoyed reading the quoted text.

I think that 75% or more of the third party firewalls out there are
nothing more than junk being marketed and sold with rather dubious
claims.

Given the old adage that 75% of quoted statistics are made up on the spot,
I dare to say that the 75% is a conservative estimate.

If you think that my post was meant to say that the Windows
firewall isn't a good firewall you also misunderstood my view of the
Windows firewall, the Windows firewall does what it was designed to do
very well.

It does it even better when closing a variety of ports etc.

Third party software vendors who make claims that the
Windows firewall is insecure are engaging in deceptive marketing, I do
not dispute this and I agree with you that these companies are engaging
in shoddy practices.

Yes, user don't realize that 3rd party firewalls are rendered virtually
useless after the introduction of the NT system (to the disgust of the
makers of these 'Phony-Baloney Ware' aka 'Illusion Ware'). Which btw also
applies to (so-called) Registry Cleaners (yuck).

On the other hand, would you fail and discredit all anti-virus programs
because viruses or other malware foiled them? Why not? Anti-virus
software programs are foiled and fail every day of the week,

It happens mostly when the (quality) software isn't updated to its most
current definitions/signatures.

why do you not froth at the mouth and tell users to stop using these
programs?

Hold your horses and don't jump to conclusions which appears to be your
preferred way communicating. I wouldn't discredit AV apps entirely, they
have their place and are not as deceptive as the makers of 3rd party
software fw's. But (after removing the [beer] froth from my mouth) I have
indeed communicated on numerous occasions to this and other groups that one
can safely operate without AV app (so much for your research). As usual, I
provided pertinent links (authored by *experts*) in relation to this
subject and effective alternatives; This kind of advice is expectedly not
very well received; It is perceived as too 'outlandish' by the
inexperienced user, which is quite understandable (even users much more
experienced than I am have their reservations to do without AV app). Heck,
you just have to look at responses when suggesting that 3rd party fw apps
are of no beneficial use and are incapable of functioning usefully.... It
boils down that *Marketing* does a great job and is very effective! The
user gets blinded by all the hype! Unfortunately, not many are interested
reading publications/websites opposing what marketers instill to the
public.

No one ever said that firewalls cannot be foiled, that is not the point,
nothing is fail proof and that includes Microsoft products!

We're living in an imperfect world...say no more.

What you
and others fail to understand is that outbound filtering can foil "some"
malware and as such it can alert users of potential problems, a firewall
that monitors outbound traffic can be another tool in the fight against
pests, get off your high horse with your claims that firewalls can be
foiled, we all know that and no one disputes this,...

Who is *we*? And which company product/company you are representing?

...your argument is nothing but a red herring!

What is that supposed to mean?
(Stepping down from my high horse). I understand pretty well how things
work without claiming to be an expert knowing the innards of an OS. (Common
sense plays a significant part which unfortunately is not so common
anymore, so it seems,) oh well.

Door locks don't stop all home intrusions,yet few homeowners would do
without them!

Closing ports is *impressively* more effective than you think.

If you say that firewalls are 0% effective at outbound monitoring you are
wrong...

Don't put *your* words in my mouth, I've never claimed this, re-read my
post, carefully! But be that as it may, who cares, the game is lost anyway
[PERIOD]

...and you are no security expert!

Never claimed to be one, never stated such! (You repeated baseless
assertions are boring!)

If you say that egress traffic is a non issue you truly lack in basic
security concepts!

Now, getting back on my high horse; My security concept *is* working, I
know so because I do as I say! And how would you know what security concept
I have in place anyway?

But, as I said earlier, that is not the point, the point is that
customers have asked Microsoft for a method, via the firewall or by
other means, of detecting and controlling egress traffic be it malware
related or not. Not all customers want all of their applications to be
allowed to send data outside,...

There is nothing wrong for *trusted* applications sending data outside. Why
would anybody in his right mind download/install a 'chancy' application?
How would the user know if the apps is risky? Education! But suggesting
this raises resentment (you don't have to look far in this thread).

some customers want to control outbound traffic, they want to know what
is sending data outside and that is not an outrageous demand!

I don't speak for MSFT. You and other readers have the choice to ignore my
suggestions. Some will others won't, c'est la vie. So save your energy
Vincent...'nuff said.

It is none of yours, or Microsoft's business to
be telling customers that they don't need to monitor or control egress
traffic, be it malware related or not!

See above comment. Nobody is telling anything to anybody. You appear to
have a challenging comprehension issue on your hands coupled with
disturbing opinionated tendencies.

If Microsoft doesn't want to supply such a tool that is fine, customers
will look to others for solutions,

Wouldn't expect anything different in a free and open society!

stop berating customers just because they make a simple
request for a useful tool to help them with their computing needs!

I couldn't give a flying fart how *you* or anybody else for that matter
perceive my posts. This is usenet, get it?

You or Microsoft and others who rant about firewall hypes have not
supplied any easy useful solutions to the egress filtering request.
Instead, anytime that a Microsoft customer has asked for a way to
control egress traffic what you and Microsoft have done is automatically
froth at the mouth and engage in a tirade about third party firewalls
and the fact that they are not 100% fail safe! No one disputes this and
no one has asked or insisted for a 100% fail proof solution, if they did
they wouldn't run any Microsoft products because not a single Microsoft
product has a 100% mark! Some customers want to control egress traffic
for reasons that are completely unrelated to malware, they have a need
for egress traffic control, what business of yours is it to tell them
that they shouldn't be concerned with egress traffic?

Customers have made a simple request, it isn't for you or Microsoft to
dictate to customers what they should or should not want to do with
their computers. If you cannot supply any useful solutions to that
simple demand STFU and stop telling customers what they should want or
not want. I repeat once again, anyone who claims that people should not
concern themselves with egress traffic and that it should be allowed to
go on unchecked is no security expert!

You're repeating yourself... you're not ranting, are you?

Have a great day
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

Kayman wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 10:52:07 -0300, Vincent wrote:

snipped to reduce excessive quoting

Your point of view and opinions are well presented. We know that you
think that securing private personal data is unimportant.

You have made it known that you think that users should have no concerns
whatsoever as to what data flows from their computers or networks, users
should not concern themselves as to where their data flows to. Any and
all data can leaves your computer or network for unknown destinations
and that is perfectly normal, it is a good thing. No one should worry
about these things and the best way to not worry about the security of
your private personal data is to be completely oblivious as to what
might be flowing out, out of sight out of mind.

On Mon, 26 May 2008 17:59:30 -0300, Marianne wrote:

Kayman wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 10:52:07 -0300, Vincent wrote:

snipped to reduce excessive quoting

Your point of view and opinions are well presented. We know that you
think that securing private personal data is unimportant.

You have made it known that you think that users should have no concerns
whatsoever as to what data flows from their computers or networks, users
should not concern themselves as to where their data flows to. Any and
all data can leaves your computer or network for unknown destinations
and that is perfectly normal, it is a good thing. No one should worry
about these things and the best way to not worry about the security of
your private personal data is to be completely oblivious as to what
might be flowing out, out of sight out of mind.

Hello Vincent *and* (LOL) Marianne,

Evidently you're either a very immature person or you've got a serious bout
of split-personality. When you keep the Dissociative Identity Disorder
untreated it can worsen to multiple-personality. Now, that really would
confuse the hell out of us newsgroup participants.
You need help! Go to:
http://www.drphil.com/contact_main/
Good luck and speedy recovery.

What is your impression of what a firewall does?? I think you are
mis-informed.
"Marianne" wrote in message
...
Kayman wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 10:52:07 -0300, Vincent wrote:

snipped to reduce excessive quoting

Your point of view and opinions are well presented. We know that you
think that securing private personal data is unimportant.

You have made it known that you think that users should have no concerns
whatsoever as to what data flows from their computers or networks, users
should not concern themselves as to where their data flows to. Any and
all data can leaves your computer or network for unknown destinations and
that is perfectly normal, it is a good thing. No one should worry about
these things and the best way to not worry about the security of your
private personal data is to be completely oblivious as to what might be
flowing out, out of sight out of mind.

Kayman wrote:

Hello Vincent *and* (LOL) Marianne,

Evidently you're either a very immature person or you've got a
serious bout of split-personality.

???

Are you really that stupid? How many computer/internet users do you
think there are in Italy? Astonishing coincidence that two persons in
Italy use computers and even more astonishing that both of them should
agree that you are spreading misguided advice! I expect to see you here
soon telling us the virtues of One Care AV products and telling users
how all other AV products are not good. The depth of your ignorance
increasingly shows with each post that you make. I agree with the
previous poster, you have little knowledge of computer security and your
understanding of securing private data is laughable to say the least.

Vincent

In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System Restore
seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of those 11 SR
points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once again, there is one
restore point that is abnormally large at 462 Mb. And that one occurred
with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the other ten. And once again, that huge
file is filled with 100 .RDB files that are all the same size of 2.87 Mb
each. So far, we've suspected ZoneAlarm as being the culprit. But I don't
think we can say that now, considering that ZA was shut off when this big
restore point was created. If this keeps up (creation of huge SR points),
I'm gonna be back at stage one. I'd be concerned about that.

Any thoughts?

Danno


"Danno" wrote in message
news:ERd_j.164791$Cj7.160654@pd7urf2no...
Good morning!

This morning there were no new SR points, although I shouldn't necessarily
expect one. So I've created a new SR point and have turned off SR, and
re-started it. So now there is only the one new SR point. ZoneAlarm is
still turned off and will remain turned off for at least two weeks. I
have AVG on my computer but have kept it inactive while ZoneAlarm was
active. I can't see any harm in using AVG for the next two weeks (and
probably beyond).

For you fine folks who have so kindly contributed your thoughts in this
thread, it might be several days before I have the evidence I need that
things are back to normal. Or maybe they won't be back to normal and I
might have to resort to further measures like re-installing System Restore
as detailed by Daave.

But out of respect for your help, I'll keep posting here (for those who
are still interested), as time goes by. We're still in the investigatory
stage here. If Zone Alarm is truly the culprit, I'd like to be able to
provide the evidence so others won't have to deal with this.

Thanks very much for your determination and interest. I'm very impressed
with you guys.

Dan

"Danno" wrote in message
news:ayd_j.162924$rd2.119094@pd7urf3no...
That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a
computer. Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned money
for. I declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about
ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

Update to SP3 recently? SP3 creates restore point.
"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System Restore
seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of those 11 SR
points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once again, there is one
restore point that is abnormally large at 462 Mb. And that one occurred
with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the other ten. And once again, that
huge file is filled with 100 .RDB files that are all the same size of 2.87
Mb each. So far, we've suspected ZoneAlarm as being the culprit. But I
don't think we can say that now, considering that ZA was shut off when
this big restore point was created. If this keeps up (creation of huge SR
points), I'm gonna be back at stage one. I'd be concerned about that.

Any thoughts?

Danno


"Danno" wrote in message
news:ERd_j.164791$Cj7.160654@pd7urf2no...
Good morning!

This morning there were no new SR points, although I shouldn't
necessarily expect one. So I've created a new SR point and have turned
off SR, and re-started it. So now there is only the one new SR point.
ZoneAlarm is still turned off and will remain turned off for at least two
weeks. I have AVG on my computer but have kept it inactive while
ZoneAlarm was active. I can't see any harm in using AVG for the next two
weeks (and probably beyond).

For you fine folks who have so kindly contributed your thoughts in this
thread, it might be several days before I have the evidence I need that
things are back to normal. Or maybe they won't be back to normal and I
might have to resort to further measures like re-installing System
Restore as detailed by Daave.

But out of respect for your help, I'll keep posting here (for those who
are still interested), as time goes by. We're still in the investigatory
stage here. If Zone Alarm is truly the culprit, I'd like to be able to
provide the evidence so others won't have to deal with this.

Thanks very much for your determination and interest. I'm very impressed
with you guys.

Dan

"Danno" wrote in message
news:ayd_j.162924$rd2.119094@pd7urf3no...
That was a wee bit too condescending for my liking.

"Educating myself" is exactly what I'm doing with this long drawn out,
patient exercise.

If I had a thousand years to live, I still wouldn't have enough time to
"educate myself" about all the things that could go wrong with a
computer. Especially problems caused by software I paid hard earned
money for. I declare my innocence, not my ignorance.


"Kayman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 06:07:38 GMT, Danno wrote:

snip for brevity

...It will be interesting to see if any more of these gigantic
SR folders get created in the next few days.

You will Danno, you will! You really should be educating yourself about
ZA
and other 3rd party (so-called) firewalll applications.
--
Security is a process not a product.
(Bruce Schneier)

"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System
Restore seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of those 11
SR points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once again, there
is one restore point that is abnormally large at 462 Mb. And that one
occurred with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the other ten. And once
again, that huge file is filled with 100 .RDB files that are all the
same size of 2.87 Mb each.

What is the date of that point? What activity occurred at that time? Was
it after any updates were installed (Windows or Microsoft)?

Great question Daave! Have you ever considered a career as a detective? It
was the last restore point (created last night), and it's the only one of
the 11 that was an automatically created point. The other ten were either
created my me manually (for test purposes), or created when I was updating
drivers, etc.


"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System Restore
seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of those 11 SR
points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once again, there is one
restore point that is abnormally large at 462 Mb. And that one occurred
with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the other ten. And once again, that
huge file is filled with 100 .RDB files that are all the same size of
2.87 Mb each.

What is the date of that point? What activity occurred at that time? Was
it after any updates were installed (Windows or Microsoft)?

That might be it, then. Tuesday's the day for updates. :-) Did you
update Windows or Office yesterday (manually or automatically)?


"Danno" wrote in message
news:tqf%j.173850$Cj7.34779@pd7urf2no...
Great question Daave! Have you ever considered a career as a
detective? It was the last restore point (created last night), and
it's the only one of the 11 that was an automatically created point.
The other ten were either created my me manually (for test purposes),
or created when I was updating drivers, etc.


"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System
Restore seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of those
11 SR points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once again,
there is one restore point that is abnormally large at 462 Mb. And
that one occurred with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the other ten.
And once again, that huge file is filled with 100 .RDB files that
are all the same size of 2.87 Mb each.

What is the date of that point? What activity occurred at that time?
Was it after any updates were installed (Windows or Microsoft)?

No, I didn't.


"Daave" wrote in message
...
That might be it, then. Tuesday's the day for updates. :-) Did you update
Windows or Office yesterday (manually or automatically)?


"Danno" wrote in message
news:tqf%j.173850$Cj7.34779@pd7urf2no...
Great question Daave! Have you ever considered a career as a detective?
It was the last restore point (created last night), and it's the only one
of the 11 that was an automatically created point. The other ten were
either created my me manually (for test purposes), or created when I was
updating drivers, etc.


"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System
Restore seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of those 11
SR points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once again, there is
one restore point that is abnormally large at 462 Mb. And that one
occurred with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the other ten. And once
again, that huge file is filled with 100 .RDB files that are all the
same size of 2.87 Mb each.

What is the date of that point? What activity occurred at that time? Was
it after any updates were installed (Windows or Microsoft)?

"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System
Restore seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

"Turning off" ZA may not be enough (there's a chance that part of it is
still running without your knowledge). I would uninstall it to detemine
once and for all if it's responsible.

I'm not sure you need ZA anyway. :-)

Danno

Do you have any other rdb files elsewhere other in the System Volume
Information folder or a Zone Alarm. Zone Alarm is not the only programme
that generates rdb files.

Do you have Apache on your system?


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danno wrote:
No, I didn't.


"Daave" wrote in message
...
That might be it, then. Tuesday's the day for updates. :-) Did you
update Windows or Office yesterday (manually or automatically)?


"Danno" wrote in message
news:tqf%j.173850$Cj7.34779@pd7urf2no...
Great question Daave! Have you ever considered a career as a
detective? It was the last restore point (created last night), and
it's the only one of the 11 that was an automatically created
point. The other ten were either created my me manually (for test
purposes), or created when I was updating drivers, etc.


"Daave" wrote in message
...
"Danno" wrote in message
news:sYd%j.301973$pM4.210692@pd7urf1no...
In the past few days, ever since ZoneAlarm was turned off, System
Restore seems to be working properly, except for one issue.

There are now 11 restore points instead of only one. Ten of
those 11 SR points are a normal size of approx. 65 Mb. But once
again, there is one restore point that is abnormally large at 462
Mb. And that one occurred with ZoneAlarm turned OFF, as did the
other ten. And once again, that huge file is filled with 100 .RDB
files that are all the same size of 2.87 Mb each.

What is the date of that point? What activity occurred at that
time? Was it after any updates were installed (Windows or
Microsoft)?