The World of Computer Software/The World of Computer Software.iso/i-m141.zip/HISTORY.DOC

Text File | 1993-01-19 | 10KB | 234 lines

Version 1.41a  (released 01-16-93)

1) Integrity Master will now display dates in a variety of formats to
   suit national preference.  Months can be displayed in alphabetic form
   and years are now displayed in full four digit (e,g,. 1993) format.
   This makes it more obvious what's happening when viruses like 4096
   set the year ahead by 100 years.  The advanced option menu in SetupIM
   allows you to change the date and time format to suit your own
   preference if you don't like the standard used for your country;
   otherwise, IM will select the format appropriate to your country.  By
   default, IM now uses an alphabetic format for months and a four digit
   format for years to eliminate any possible confusion between months
   days and years.

2) IM will now report any file with its date stamp set beyond the
   current system date as a suspicious file and will explain in more detail
   when it finds problems with a file's directory information.

3) We've added the extended file/directory checks formerly found in only
   IM iteself to IM's stand alone file checker (IMcheck) which now
   checks for corruption or suspicious values in the directory entries
   and supports IM's enhanced date format.  IMcheck (now version 1.4)
   also uses a new technique to compute the check values so it will
   produce different results than the prior versions (1.3 and earlier).

4) Integrity Master now supports the "/VM" command line option to scan
   multiple diskettes.  The corresponding option is also on the virus
   scan submenu.  This allows you to scan several floppies hitting only
   a single key between each diskette unless a virus or other serious
   problem is found.

5) IM now writes two separator lines with a date/time stamp at the
   beginning of each report it writes to make it easier to find the results
   of a particular run.

6) In order to help less experienced users, IM will now present the
   initialize menu rather than the check menu whenever it thinks you
   need to run an initialize.

7) You now have greatly expanded control over your integrity data.  Using
   SetupIM, you can ask IM to give these files the DOS read-only or hidden
   attributes and you have several new naming options.

8) IM now supports variably named integrity data files.  In addition to
   giving your integrity data files any name of your choice you can now
   ask IM to give each file it creates a different (and apparently random)
   name.  This makes it very difficult for someone to recognize your
   integrity data files if you keep them on your hard disk.

9) IM identifies over 150 new viruses by name and characteristic
   including: the following viruses:  99%, Scythe, Adolf,Anna, Angarsk,
   Arriba, Budo, Clonewar, Code Zero, Crazy Imp B, Dark End, Commander
   Bomber, Dedicate, Digger, Dima Dr. Qumak II, Geek, Gyro, Ice-9,
   Infector, Int86,Malmsey, Keypress-Chaos,Larry,Lydia, Kode 4 Matura,
   Meditation,  Nygus, Ondra, Power Pump, Proto-T, Tetris,Win Vir 1.4.


Version 1.31e  (Released 12-3-92)
   Special European version.

Version 1.31d  (Released 12-3-92)

1) We expanded the internal and external help information on documentation
   to make it more clear how to scan multiple floppies for viruses. NOTE,
   WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE INTEGRITY CHECKING IN ADDITION TO SCANNING.

2) We corrected a problem which could potentially cause IM to hang on certain
   386 or 486 systems.  This could only occur when scanning executable files
   with a strange configuration.  This bug is present in ALL prior releases.

3) The known virus scanning code is now slightly faster than in prior
   releases.

Version 1.31c  Limited European release

Version 1.31b   (Released 11-16-92)

We further enhanced the on-line help.

Version: 1.31a  (Released 11-13-92)

1) We rewrote and expanded the existing documentation.

2) IM identifies 95 additional new viruses by name including any virus
   generated by the Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL).

3) IM now allows you to assign a name of your choice to integrity data files
   which were formerly always called ")(.ID".  (SetupIM must be used to
   change the name from the default.)

4) We removed the old "primary options" menu which duplicates the options
   menu in IM.  This saved about 20K in compressed code size and allowed
   us to add substantially to our text without increasing the size too much.

Version: 1.24a  (Released 9-03-92)

Over 150 new viruses are identified by name and characteristic, including:
the following viruses: Ash, Astra, Atas, Banana, Baobab,  Black Peter,
BloodLust, Breeder, Busted, Chaos, Compiler, Cracky, Data Molester, Eastern
Digital, Enemy, Father, Funeral, HellRaiser, Horror, Mud, Penza, Pluto,
Quake, Siskin, Stahlplatte, Suicide, Tired, Vengence, Walker, Why Windows.


Version: 1.23a  (Released 7-14-92)

1) We added a new option to do nothing but scan programs in the current
   directory for known viruses.

2) The COMMANDS menu now contains an "uninstall" option to remove
   integrity data files from the directories on the current disk.  This
   allows you to easily remove protection from a disk.

3) We added three new command line options to scan files and system sectors
   for known viruses.  These parameters are:

  "/VA"  Check ALL files on a disk (not just executables).
  "/VO"  One time quick screening of programs on current disk.
  "/VR"  One time quick screening of programs in current directory.

  (REMINDER: Scanning by itself is not sufficient protection against viruses!)

4) 35 new viruses and variants are identified by name.


Version: 1.22a  (Released 6-22-92)

1) SetupIM now allows you to exclude specific disks from checking during
   install and within IM itself.  This allows tape drives and duplicate disks
   (such as those defined using DRIVER.SYS) to be excluded from the search
   when SetupIM looks for pre-existing parameter files and when it does
   a full capability analysis of each drive.

2) Two new vienna and two new Jerusalem virus variants are
   identified by name.

3) Corrected: Version 1.21a, in some cases, was not showing excluded
   files and certain suspect files in the correct format on the report.
   IMSETUP was reporting: "PWCB ln# bad" if keys hit during final part
   of plan processing while SetupIM was writing the plan to disk.

Version: 1.21a  (June 15 release mailed to all ASP vendors and BBSs)

1) Corrected specific (single) file checking bug which resulted in
   subdirectories being erroneously reported as deleted in some cases.

2) Files or directories may now be excluded.  Integrity Master will
   optionally report on what directories or files are being bypassed.

3) During a virus scan, lines are now inserted in the report window (and
   file) any time suspect or infected files are detected.  (This is in
   addition to the more lengthly description.)

Version: 1.20a  (Beta)
   Limited (non-public) release.

1) Bug fixes: IM tried to read some directory entries as files. If ALT-X
   hit on PRM file not found IM would repeatedly try to find file rather
   than quit.

2) IM now offers automatic virus removal. This can be selected for
   specific viruses or for all viruses encountered.

3) The detail virus report screen can now be suppressed, either globally
   or only for specific viruses.

4) Keyboard handling has been modified to be compatible with the "NEWKEYS"
   keyboard and buffer enhancer.  With prior versions there might be a long
   delay (or hang) on starting IM.

5) Over 90 new viruses are recognized by name including Chinese Fish,
   Starship, Creeper, Cannabis, Beast-N-Black, Gyorgy, Helloween, Enemy
   Leprosy-Busted, Scion and Intruder.

Version: 1.13a (Released April 13, 1992)

1) Over 90 new viruses are recognized by name.

2. Deleted directories are now reported even if checking is limited to
   programs.

Version: 1.12b (Released March 17, 1992)

1) A warning message now appears before you write an auto-named report file
   to a floppy which you are checking.  The message reminds you to wait
   until IM has finished processing before you insert a new diskette.

2) In addition to taking you back to your starting disk, IM now also brings
   you back to your initial directory when you exit.

Version: 1.12a (Released March 13, 1992)

1) For people who want to run totally unattended or who don't want to have
   to hit a key to acknowledge serious problems, we have added the /NE
   (Nonstop except for Emergencies) command line parameter and some other
   changes.

2) Over 50 new viruses are recognized by name.

3) IM does additional consistency checking between the files themselves and
   their associated directory entries.

4) Integrity Master will now automatically close the report file after it
   finishes a check or initialize on a disk.

Version: 1.11a (Released Feb 17, 1992)

 1)Over 100 new viruses are recognized by name.

 2)A summary display has been added to summarize the results of checking
   in detail.

 3)Improved recovery on hardware problems with integrity data files
   themselves.

Versions 1.03a/b/c and 1.10a/b were limited release beta versions.
   These versions are not for public use.

Version: 1.02b  (released 12/18/91)

  Minor text changes.

Version 1.02a:  (released 12/16/91)

 1)Forty-three new viruses are recognized by name and characteristic.

 2) The file viewing program ("IMview") is now our own 1K optimized
    assembler rather than the prior 3rd party written program.

Version 1.01A: 11/15/92

   First general release (non-beta test) version of IM mailed world-wide.

Versions prior to 1.01a were beta versions and should no longer be used.