home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
JCSM Shareware Collection 1996 September
/
JCSM Shareware Collection (JCS Distribution) (September 1996).ISO
/
uother__
/
guardian.zip
/
GUARDIAN.EXE
/
UPDATE.TXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-11-15
|
28KB
|
485 lines
T H E G U A R D I A N
U P D A T E
Version 1.93 - October, 1993, June, 1994
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This update contains corrections to the Reference Guide and provides
supplemental information which became available after the Reference Guide
was printed. Note that several file name changes have occurred in this
update. See the Version History below for more details.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * I m p o r t a n t N o t i c e * * * *
Version 1.93 or later of The Guardian cannot be used to unlock a disk which
was locked by Version 1.92 or earlier. For more details, read the section
on Version 1.93 in the Version History below in this Update file.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * Notice to Registered Users * * * *
Your registration serial number is contained in the master configuration
file, GUARDIAN.MRE. We recommend you replace the file that came with your
Shareware version. Be advised, however, that when you do this, all
installation parameters will be reset to their default values - including
the master password, "guardian". When you replace the file, you should
immediately change the password(s) to what you are currently using.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * Notice to Users of DOS Version 5 and later * * * *
4/92
The DOS installation procedure supplied in version 5 will normally create a
CONFIG.SYS file containing a SHELL statement which tells DOS to look for
its COMMAND.COM command interpreter in a directory called DOS. In
addition, it will normally set up entries for programs or device drivers
for such things as SETVER and possibly HIMEM and identify them as residing
in that DOS directory. In this kind of configuration, with versions of The
Guardian prior to 1.92, you would have to re-configure it if you wanted to
be able to boot your computer from your hard disk while it is locked. (You
would have to remove any references in the CONFIG.SYS file to the DOS
directory, plus any programs in that directory that are needed at start-up
time would have to be moved to the root directory.)
If your disk contains a directory called DOS, Version 1.92 does not lock
it. If you have a configuration like that described above, you can still
access the DOS directory while the disk is locked and therefore you can
still boot the computer. If you do want that directory to be locked, you
should change the name of it to something else such as DOS3, DOSS, etc.
Caution: Now when a disk is locked, all programs and/or files in the DOS
directory are available to use. Make sure there isn't anything in that
directory that you want to be "locked".
UPDATE.TXT; Page 2
It is a good idea to review the contents of the CONFIG.SYS file to make
sure you aren't calling in extraneous programs. For example, the program
SETVER allows you to "send a message" to any application program that makes
it think it is actually running under a different version of DOS. In order
to do this, you must make an explicit entry in the SETVER table. If you
aren't doing this, you don't even need the program, and since it is a
resident program, you are wasting memory resources.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * New Version 2 * * * *
Version 2 of The Guardian was released in June, 1992 and is available
directly from Marcor Enterprises (i.e. it is not available as shareware).
(As of November, 1994 the current version is 2.22) It has a windows style
"interface" with pull down menus, pop up message windows, and includes
mouse support. Among its many new features is the ability to selectively
leave unlocked any combination of files and/or directories, lock or unlock
multiple disks in one operation, customize the sign-on screen and the
"locked disk" message file, multiple security levels, automatically park
the heads of a disk after locking it, and control over several operational
parameters. It includes a new program which allows you to lock or unlock
disks directly from the DOS command line (and therefore from a batch file).
The registration fee for version 2 is $49.95 plus $4.00 s/h ($6.00 outside
the continental United States) plus applicable sales tax. For more
information on its other features, please contact Marcor Enterprises.
Version 2.22 also contains a stand alone program which allows you to
encrypt individual files for additional protection. It uses The Guardian's
configuration file to determine whether a password is required to encrypt a
file, and if so, the password used to encrypt any given file (or the
master password) is also required to unencrypt it.
* * * * Getting Started * * * *
3/93
The file named TG.OVL is, in reality, an executable program. It is named
this way to prevent a new user from running it before reading the
documentation, a situation which can have dire consequences. It is a sign-
on program which is designed to be invoked by the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (or the
temporary command interpreter, TGCMD.EXE, if you are a registered user).
When this program runs, it displays a sign-on menu and asks for a password.
If you don't provide a valid password within three tries, it automatically
locks your disk. (There are conditions described below in this update
document under which it does not lock a disk.) In order to use this
program, do the following three steps:
1. Run the main program, TGM.EXE, and select Change parameters, then View
all passwords. The program will ask for the master password which
should be "guardian" (without the quotes and all lower case or small
letters - passwords are case sensitive). DO NOT CHANGE THIS MASTER
PASSWORD YET. If you wish, you can add a password of your own at this
time. When the sign-on program runs, it will accept any of the
passwords that have been assigned.
If the master password is not "guardian", you have an ILLEGAL COPY;
YOU SHOULD NOT USE ANY OF THE PROGRAMS and should contact Marcor
UPDATE.TXT; Page 3
Enterprises immediately. We are in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A. and
can be reached at (317) 876-9376.
2. Be sure you have a copy of TGM.EXE and GUARDIAN.MRE on a separate
diskette, preferably one that is "bootable" (i.e. has a copy of DOS on
it). If you used the INSTALL procedure that is provided, it should
have made such a copy.
3. Rename TG.OVL to TG.EXE. Now that you are certain you know the master
password or have added your own, you can safely run the program. Once
you are familiar with how the programs work, you can safely change the
master password to anything of your own choosing. But DON'T FORGET
IT; WRITE IT DOWN and store it in a safe place.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
8/91
Anyone who registers The Guardian will receive a bonus program along with
the registered versions of the main programs. This program, TGCMD.EXE, can
be used as a momentary command interpreter (e.g. a substitute for the
COMMAND.COM that comes with DOS) which will further enhance the security
protection of The Guardian.
The documentation for The Guardian explains that if you add the command
TG.EXE to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, the sign-on menu will appear whenever you
start or re-boot your computer, thus forcing a person to enter a valid
password before he can use the computer. While most people don't realize
it, it is possible to interrupt the AUTOEXEC procedure and potentially
bypass the running of the sign-on program, even if the "TG" command is the
very first entry in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Of course, a person would only
have a reason to try this if he knew before he turned on the computer that
there was something in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that he wanted to override.
This temporary command interpreter, provided to registered users, offers a
way to safely prevent such an interruption. TGCMD.EXE can be specified in
the CONFIG.SYS file as the initial command interpreter in place of
COMMAND.COM. It will automatically execute the sign-on program, TG.EXE,
and, assuming a correct password is entered, then transfer control to the
"primary" command interpreter (normally COMMAND.COM). With this
configuration, it is not possible to bypass the execution of the sign-on
program.
This program is offered only to registered users because it is only of any
value to you if you are routinely using The Guardian, in which case, you
are legally obligated to register it anyway. It has no effect on the
functionality of the principle programs.
4/91
With version 1.8 of The Guardian, a modest restriction has been added to
unregistered copies of the system. Despite stern warnings about reading
the documentation BEFORE running any of the programs, many people have
simply copied the programs to their hard disk and run program TG.EXE to
"see what it would do" - and they got a nasty surprise when the program
locked their disk because they didn't know the default master password.
Effective with this release, when the master password is "guardian" as
UPDATE.TXT; Page 4
originally distributed, and you are using an unregistered version, the
program TG.EXE will not lock the disk as a result of an incorrect password.
It will tell you this and then proceed to go through its alarm procedure as
if the disk had been locked, but it won't actually lock it. Once you set
up your own passwords, the program is fully functional.
You can still intentionally lock a disk using program TGM.EXE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another important consideration .....
The paragraph below discusses where The Guardian looks on the disk for its
master configuration file, GUARDIAN.MRE. That paragraph applies only to
versions of The Guardian prior to 1.93, version 1.93 with a program file
date earlier than June, 1994, or if you are running a version of DOS lower
than 3.0. If you have DOS 3.0 or later and the program files have a date
of June, 1994 or later, then when you run a program, it knows where the
program is located and automatically switches to that drive/directory. By
doing this, the potential complications described below are avoided. When
the program ends, it automatically switches back to the drive and directory
which were current when the program was started. If the configuration file
really isn't there, the program displays a message that it can't find the
file and asks if you want to create one rather than doing so automatically.
It also displays the path to the directory where it thinks the file should
be. If you tell it you don't want to create a new file, the program simply
quits.
The reference manual states that The Guardian looks in its own directory
for its master configuration file, GUARDIAN.MRE. Under some circumstances,
this could be confusing. What it really does is look in the CURRENT
directory. This could have some very significant implications. If you
choose to leave all the programs in a sub-directory, such as SECURE, then,
when you want to add instructions to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to execute
program TG.EXE, do it this way: cd\; cd SECURE; TG; cd\. DO NOT put cd\;
SECURE\tg in this file. The Guardian would look for GUARDIAN.MRE in the
root directory, and, since it isn't there, would automatically create a new
one with default values - including a new master password of "guardian" -
NOT the one you assigned in the SECURE subdirectory. If you want to put
the program TGM.EXE in the root directory so it won't get locked, move BOTH
the program and the file GUARDIAN.MRE to the root directory. Then, what
you put in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to execute program TG.EXE is cd\;
SECURE\tg. (The uppercase/lowercase isn't important; also the use of semi-
colons in the examples is just for readability - in the actual file, you
would put each command on a separate line.)
5/90
Documentation clarification
Chapter 3, Locking/Unlocking a Disk, describes the process for
intentionally locking or unlocking a disk on any drive (program TGM.EXE).
After selecting a drive, you are asked for an authorization code and are
given three opportunities to provide the correct password (see the
documentation for more detail). If you fail in three attempts, the request
is denied, and you are returned to the master menu - nothing has been done
in terms of locking or unlocking the disk. It is important to understand
the difference between this action in this program, TGM.EXE, and the
actions in the sign-on program, TG.EXE. If, in the sign-on program,
TG.EXE, you fail to provide the correct password in three tries, the
UPDATE.TXT; Page 5
program automatically locks the CURRENT drive - which might not be the
drive where the program is located. (This is also described in Chapter 2,
Logging on to a System.) Also, remember that once the sign-on program has
been started, there is only one way out - provide the correct password
(unless, of course, you turn off your computer). If you don't provide the
correct password, the disk is locked and the keyboard is disabled.
* * * * Version History * * * *
Version 1.93 - 10/93, 6/94
This version contains some of the design technology originally developed
for the non-shareware version 2 of The Guardian. It results in a more
rigidly controlled environment during the actual process of locking and
unlocking a disk. The visible effect of this is that if files are added to
a disk while it is locked, or if a disk is only partially unlocked, then
when the disk is completely unlocked, the program is able to recognize what
has happened and ignore what in earlier versions was considered a
discrepancy. Those discrepancies would cause the program to issue messages
about the possibility of an error condition. Stated in simpler terms, this
program is "cleaner" than earlier versions. The control file which
contains the information for unlocking a disk is now called GUARD19.CTL
instead of !!!.###. Since it is a hidden file, you would normally not even
realize its existence. In addition, when a disk is unlocked, the
information in this file is saved in a file called GUARD19.BAK (also a
hidden file). If some sort of error condition arises, that prevents the
successful unlocking of a disk, this file can be reinstated as GUARD19.CTL
to make The Guardian think the disk is locked. In addition to being
hidden, these files are marked read-only. This BAK file is saved so it is
POSSIBLE to reuse it; it is NOT RECOMMENDED without the assistance of
Marcor Enterprises.
* * * C A U T I O N * * *
Because of these new locking techniques and different file names,
Version 1.93 or later cannot be used to unlock a disk which was locked
with an earlier version of The Guardian.
Also, if you add files to a disk while it is locked, you should take
care not to give them the same name as a file that was in the root
directory of the disk before it was locked. When the disk is
unlocked, you will end up with duplicate entries in your root file
directory. This greatly confuses DOS; if you tell DOS to delete a
file that has a duplicate entry, DOS will delete BOTH files.
If you need to add a file with a duplicate name, we recommend you
first create a directory which is known not to duplicate a directory
immediately below the root directory. Then add your file in that
directory. This way DOS will be able to distinguish one from the
other.
This version also contains instructions to force DOS to properly update the
file directory entry for the GUARD19.CTL file when it has completed locking
a disk. In some computers containing disk data caching, there is a remote
possibility that a timing conflict could arise and cause the control file
UPDATE.TXT; Page 6
to become corrupted. This has never been reported for any of the 1.x
versions of The Guardian, but there were a few reports of this happening
when version 2 was first released. You must be running DOS version 3.3 or
later for this feature to be in effect.
Finally, the program now automatically switches to the drive and directory
in which the program is located. This way it can always find its
configuration file (GUARDIAN.MRE) containing passwords. If it can't find
its configuration file, it asks for permission to create one and displays
the path in which it is searching.
Version 1.92 - 6/92, 3/93
The only change is that now when you lock a disk, if the program finds a
directory called DOS, it does not lock it, but does mark the directory
"hidden". This change was made to accommodate users of DOS version 5 and
later which normally depends on the availability of that directory to
"boot" from a hard disk. This change applies to all versions of DOS, not
just version 5 and later.
Remember that now any program or file in a directory called DOS is still
available for use while a disk is locked. If you don't want this directory
left unlocked, change its name to something other than DOS.
In addition, the program will not lock a directory called GUARDIAN if it
finds one. If you use the supplied INSTALL procedure, it will install the
programs in a directory called GUARDIAN. This way, if you inadvertently
lock a disk, you can still get to the programs to unlock it.
Version 1.91 - 1/92
This update corrects several minor errors.
If some problem were to occur while one of the programs is running and the
lock control file, !!!.###, gets created but has no data (i.e. has a length
of 0), the program would still read data off the disk and try to use it for
passwords and lock status. This usually resulted in the program rejecting
any password entered to unlock a disk even though it wasn't locked in the
first place.
When you deliberately lock or unlock a disk, program TGM forces you to
enter a valid drive letter by setting a range of letters based on the
number of drives installed or set by your CONFIG.SYS file. If the number
of drives is a multiple of 16 (it often is 32 if a computer is on a
network), the program, in doing some logical "masking", would calculate the
number of drives to be zero and would set the letter range to "A-@". (In
the ASCII numbering system the "@" character is numerically one less than
"A".)
If you change the master password and then attempt to lock a disk using
that new password without first quitting the program, the new password
would not be set properly in memory even though the program correctly
updated the master configuration file, GUARDIAN.MRE. Now it works
correctly.
UPDATE.TXT; Page 7
Version 1.90 - 8/91
Version 1.90 of The Guardian contains two changes which, individually are
fairly minor but, in conjunction with each other, provide for significantly
simpler operation. When combined with the temporary command interpreter
provided to registered users, it also greatly improves security protection.
When a disk is locked, The Guardian now leaves "unlocked" ANY of its own
programs/files that it finds in the root directory, which now includes the
sign-on program, TG.EXE, and the command interpreter, TGCMD.EXE. The other
change is that the sign-on program, TG.EXE, now checks the lock status of
the disk before it displays the sign-on menu. If it is already locked, it
accepts only the master password or the password that was used to lock the
disk and then automatically unlocks the disk. This means that, if you
register the program and use the new command interpreter, you can lock the
disk before you turn off the computer, and, when you turn it back on, the
disk is automatically unlocked as part of the normal start up process.
If you prefer not to have the "Installation" name displayed as part of the
sign-on menu, select the parameters option in program TGM.EXE and delete
the contents of the Installation field. Program TG.EXE will then not
display anything when it displays the sign-on menu.
C A U T I O N
Do not use version 1.90 or later of The Guardian to unlock a disk
that was locked with an earlier version. The name of the
"readme" file that is placed on a locked disk has been changed
from READTHIS.MRE to README.TXT. Also you should not have one of
your own files called README.TXT in the root directory. The
Guardian will successfully lock and unlock the file, but for an
instant during its processing, you will have duplicate entries in
your root directory. When The Guardian is all done, it issues a
command to DOS equivalent to "DEL README.TXT" and DOS will then
erase or delete BOTH files.
Version 1.8 - 4/91
This corrects an error which would only occur under very unusual
circumstances. If the contents of a disk are altered while it is locked
(such as adding a file - which should never be done), then, when you try to
unlock the disk, you will get an error message for each locked file whose
directory entry has been altered. You are given the opportunity to abort
the unlock procedure or continue - normally you would continue. If,
however, you press Esc to abort the process, the program would previously
go ahead and replace the control file (containing the information for
unlocking the remainder of the disk) with a control file indicating the
disk was unlocked. Now this control file is left untouched until the disk
is completely unlocked. As stated in the documentation, until a disk is
completely unlocked, The Guardian considers it locked - thus you cannot
lock a disk which has been partially unlocked.
In addition, several more cosmetic enhancements have been made.
Versions 1.6 - 1.7 9/90 - 11/90
UPDATE.TXT; Page 8
Version 1.6 contains some internal corrections which under very remote
circumstances could cause one of the programs to behave erratically.
Version 1.7 is primarily a technical upgrade. The internal structure of
the program building blocks has been rearranged and much of the source code
of the programs has been re-written for greater efficiency for both speed
and reduced program size. Also a number of cosmetic enhancements have been
added.
Version 1.5 - 3/90
Version 1.5 accommodates the enhancements introduced with DOS version 4
which allows you to format a logical disk larger than 30 mb. These same
capabilities exist in Compaq's version of DOS 3.3. Included on this
distribution disk is a program called DISKINFO.EXE. It merely reads a disk
and displays various technical parameters about the disk. If you have any
questions about the compatibility of your DOS or disk format with the
PC/MS-DOS format, run this program before attempting to lock a disk. If it
displays valid information, you will have no problems. If you are not
familiar with terms such as clusters and sectors, just verify the total
capacity. Also, the standard default number for bytes/sector is 512. If
the program displays any 0's or negative numbers, please contact Marcor
Enterprises.
With version 1.5, a slight change has been made in the way The Guardian
locks a disk. Version 1.5 does not lock any files in the root directory
that end in the extension .COM or .SYS. This way, if you lock your hard
disk, the system is still "bootable" even though all other files are
inaccessible (although it will not execute any commands in an AUTOEXEC.BAT
file). Also, if it finds its own master menu program, TGM.EXE, in the root
directory, it will not lock it. This way, you can, at your option, have
your disk set up so that, if or when it gets locked, it is possible to
restart your computer and unlock the disk without needing a another hard
disk or diskette. Read the reference manual regarding some restrictions
and cautions about using this technique.
CAUTION: Some large disks use their own software for handling hardware
features not supported by some versions of DOS. Frequently this means you
need a special file called a device driver which is invoked by your
CONFIG.SYS file. If this driver file does not end in an extension of COM
or SYS, and if it is not in the root directory, then it will get locked
along with other files and will not be available to CONFIG.SYS when you
start up your computer. Thus it is possible that you still will not be
able to boot your computer when the disk is locked.
(6/92 - Version 2 of The Guardian eliminates this potential problem.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
