What I’d love to see is for Lenovo to equip the Linux installation with Windows anti-virus tools and disk utilities so you can do off-line scans and repairs of the Windows installation even when it is so damaged that you can’t boot into Windows.

I did a lot of googling for a couple weeks without finding that suggestion. I was burned before using the Window 7 Beta trying to create a user account by the same thing, but even so I didn’t think of it.

With her gentle, calm, reserved nature, she won over several people, children as well as adults, who were scared of dogs or just didn’t like dogs. She was beautiful too. She got compliments from strangers on walks, and a few times cars pulled over to admire her.

Maddy was a great friend, companion and protector. We miss her a lot, and we’ll be telling her stories forever. She was the kind of dog you never forget.

Contemplative Maddy

Windows XP SP2 clone from image to larger HD wouldn’t boot, probably due to differences in drive geometry. There’s a new option, -e1, that I should try. “The option to use ntfsreloc (-e1 auto) to fix CHS based on the value of EDD was added.” I should see if it works better than -j0 -t1.

Update: It worked with the -j0 and -t1 options. I also unchecked the option to install grub if needed; I think it was -g.

I used the option to load the entire pup_412.sfs into RAM and that was a mistake. It took several minutes to load. To be fair, it is an old USB 1.0 flash drive.

The problem is that anti virus applications rely on information from the OS to operate. If the OS is compromised, the anti virus application can be fooled or disabled.

There is a solution. The anti virus should be run from self contained bootable media, i.e. a CD, DVD or USB drive. Ubuntu linux, for example, is excellent at  detecting hardware and loading the needed drivers when booting from a CD. If an anti virus application were included on the Ubuntu CD, and that CD were used to boot a PC, it would run on a secure OS and be able to detect and remove even the most deeply embedded rootkit on the hard drive. The hard drive based OS would be inactive and thus unable to mask or protect the malware.

The latest signatures could be added by USB key or network download through the Ubuntu OS.

It’s worth noting that ClamAV already exists, detects Windows viruses, runs under Ubuntu and can be added to a customized Ubuntu boot CD.

Microsoft could provide similar capability by including its Malicious Software Removal Tool on the bootable Windows install CD. “Scan for malware” could be an option in addition to the current “Repair” option.

There is also a definitive way to detect infection by previously unknown malware. Cryptographic hashes can be made for critical system files. An application on the boot CD can compare the known hashes with hashes made of the corresponding files on the hard drive. If the hashes match, the files have not been altered. There is an open source application that does this very thing, called Tripwire. There is also a commercial product by the same name. The hashes must be updated as updated system patches are released. It would be necessary to keep hashes of all released versions of the system files to avoid false alarms from unpatched systems.

I hope the commercial AV vendors add a boot disk option to their tools. There’s no reason they can’t do it.

I also thought it would be useful ergonomically to be able to adjust the size of the mouse and what do you know? — There’s a patent on that.

Wonder if anyone’s patented using a builtin pump (like the sneaker) or using a USB powered pump for inflation? Didn’t bother to check.