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Autoexec.bat contains 2 lines: set temp=C:\TEMP set tmp=C:\TEMP Not sure what I needed the 2nd entry for. E:\<windows>\Temp\ nearly always stays empty; on rare occasions, maybe years ago, it contained some junk. I made System Commander, when loading WinXP, to load at boot time a dummy autoexec.bat, because WinXP processes SET and PATH statements of a left-over C:\autoexec.bat (e.g. of a prior boot into Win98), which in some circumstances causes problems under WinXP. To make double-sure I also have disabled the processing of autoexec.bat under WinXP with TweakUI. NDD probably does not save its settings file Ndd32.dat in C:\Temp under WinXP because the dummy autoexec.bat for WinXP does not contain the line: set temp=C:\TEMP In a multibooting environment it might be advisable to set different Temp folders for each opsys, to avoid a potential source of cross-infection between installed operating systems, as happened to me during infection with the Tenga virus. The Tenga.a virus is a most awesome virus, maybe developed by the military for the purpose of destroying software archives. The Stuxnet virus is just a well-publicized military virus, used against Iran. In Iran there appears to exist an outstanding software archive and one could imagine that it was also attacked by a military virus like Tenga.a, to delay recovery operations from the attack with the Stuxnet virus.

C:\Temp on my Win98 contains a file Ndd32.dat, which should not be deleted. It contains the settings of the standalone Norton Disk Doctor. No idea how to have standalone NDD read its settings from a different location. Under WinXP, however, standalone NDD does not use a Temp directory to store its settings. Having an essential file in C:\Temp is a sore in the eye. Any ideas on how to fix this? I am a little skeptical about the automatic deletion of stuff in Temp folders. Sometimes, esp. right after the installation of software and before rebooting, it contains interesting stuff like .msi files. Under Win98 I have a shortcut to C:\Temp on the desktop, to check what's going on in C:\Temp. Under WinXP I have several desktop shortcuts to the various Temp folders.

Hi Joe, The Kaspersky people are good with malware, but not good at writing software. I never liked their interface. As I wrote in the 1st paragraph: I have selected during installation only "Virus Scan", and KAV 6 is rock stable. I suspect that some left-over real-time protection components of your Symantec AntiVirus were interfering with the real-time protection components of KAV 6. Having 2 different installations of anti-virus software on the same instance of an operating system may cause major problems. As a general rule you can have only 1 anti-virus software installed on an opsys. The Kaspersky Removal Tool v1.0.162 kavremover.exe http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208279463 unfortunately does not seem to run under Win98. There is a "Norton_Removal_Tool_9x.exe" at http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&selected_nav=&pvid=&docurl=20080710130643EN which has worked fine removing other Symantec stuff under Win98, recommended by dencorso at posting #32 Trick 5: Do NOT select the "Protection components" during installation Looking back at the infection with the most vicious Tenga.a virus on my laptop/attached USB drive, plus 2 re-infections in the following 2 months, I doubt that Tenga's blazingly fast infection of .exe files could have been stopped by real-time protection. The best protection against malware under Win98 is frequent backups+restores of clean computer partitions plus 2 backups of stuff on external drives. BTW, if you really insist on run-time protection, the modules File Anti-Virus, Mail Anti-Virus, Web Anti-Virus and Proactive Defense of KAV 6, if not selected during the initial installation, can be added later on via Add-Remove -> Modify. Trick 6: In KAV 6, under -> Settings -> Update: Do NOT select "Update application modules" Eventually some newer application module may not run under Win98 anymore. About 2 years ago KAV v4.5 died on my laptop/wouldn't run anymore after a signature update when "Update application modules" was selected. I was not able to update from the Kaspersky server after a re-install of KAV v4.5 and I had not created a signature backup in an Update distribution folder. ADDENDUM: Selecting "Update application modules" does not cause any problems currently. I you have it selected, updating will end with the msg: "Update completed successfully". If you have de-selected "Update application modules", then updating will end with the msg: "Not all components were updated", but that's Ok too. Selecting "Update application modules" does not does change the build number 6.0.2.621. I did update Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition v8.1.1.323 Client with a .xdb file, see posting #2. Maybe it's an issue of a later build. Please do. Does SAV 9 have this activation stuff, or is the activation stuff only in the retail NAV?

Hi wsxedcrfv, First my best wishes for the new year to you and all the good folks here at msfn.org I have looked into the archive, but I don't seem to have Norton AntiVirus 2002. I tried and tested under Win98 2 versions, however, which come close to your Norton AntiVirus 2002: Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition v8.1.1.323 Client (corresponds to NAV 2002, has the initial virus definition file 6/19/02 rev.5) and Norton AntiVirus 2003 v9.0 Pro v9.00.68. I was able to update both versions under Win98 with the current virus definition files, so that they had today's virus signatures. For the Corporate Edition v8.1 I downloaded the current update file vd333c03.xdb from ftp://ftp.symantec.com/AVDEFS/norton_antivirus/xdb/ To update the signatures I just had to copy the .xdb file to the install-to directory and then reboot; after Windows startup the .xdb file was processed automatically, which made the 700MHz laptop nearly unresponsive for about 5 minutes. The 118MB .xdb file was expanded to about 688MB of virus definitions. When selecting -> Detectable Virus List, the Definition version was not displayed and the Total signatures was displayed incorrectly at 75279 (instead of millions), without any apparent ill effects. For Norton AntiVirus 2003 I downloaded the current Intelligent Updater 20101231-002-i32.exe from http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/definitions/download/detail.jsp?gid=savce The virus definitions created from the 102 Mb i32.exe file took only 189MB, much less than the 688MB of Corporate v8, no idea why. Test 1 - Checking new downloads: I then downloaded for about 30 minutes some stuff with eMule to check how well the updated Symantec/Norton AntiVirus detects malware. About 30-90% of eMule downloads are infected nowadays, this specific download sample (23 files, 142MB) contained actually 10 infected files. Symantec/Norton AntiVirus 2002 and 2003, with current signatures, detected only 1 infected file out of 10, mainly because the old scan engine couldn't look into .rar files or detect malware hidden in .wmv files. After manually extracting the .rar file Symantec/Norton AntiVirus 2002 and 2003 detected 3 more infected files. The inability of the Symantec/Norton AntiVirus 2002 and 2003 to look into .rar files makes it useless to me for checking new downloads. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 with the current signature detected 9 out of 10 infected files. Test 2 - Checking the computer: I ran a 2nd test under Win98 with Norton AntiVirus 2003 + current signatures: I checked most of my laptop. Norton AntiVirus 2003 detected 3 "infected" files. The 3 were leftover patch files, sitting for years on the laptop without having been noticed or having done any damage. I would classify these as 3 false positives. I guess the Symantec scanner tends to identify anything which looks like a patch as an infected file. At this point in time I would not trade under any circumstances the Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 scanner for the Symantec/Norton AntiVirus 2002 or 2003 under Win98. On the other hand, in a corporate environment, for a computer running an old Win98-only application, with no patches and no downloads, Symantec/Norton AntivVirus 2002 or 2003 looks OK. 2 questions: Can the 2004/2005 versions of the Symantec scanner check .rar files? Is there a standalone version of the 2004/2005 Symantec scanner, which doesn't corrupt the system with activation stuff? And maybe get 37 false positives.

It looks like Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 (Win98-compatible)) will have signature updates until 1-Oct-2012 http://support.kaspersky.com/de/wks6mp3?level=2 i.e. for nearly 2 more years. There are quite a few tricks necessary, however, before old KAV 6 works today. I am only interested in KAV 6 as a virus checker, not in the protection stuff. Attached is a screen shot, taken just yesterday, after license renewal for signature updates for another year. Trick 1: Download Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621 - The virus signatures of Kaspersky Internet Security 6, in contrast to Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6, canNOT be updated anymore. KIS 6 is useless for virus checking today. - There are several different products named Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0: One is the retail "Personal" product, another is the corporate "Workstation" product. An activation key for the Personal product does NOT work with the Workstation product and vice versa. The last Win98-compatible versions are v6.0.2.621 (Personal) and v6.0.3.837 (Workstation). - "Kaspersky v6.0.4.1424 for Windows Workstation MP4" is not Win98-compatible http://support.kaspersky.com/de/wks6mp4/install?qid=208639675 - A trial version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.3.837 Workstation can be downloaded here ftp://KAVWorkstation:4HaEgnxkFxCyh8cB@partner.kaspersky.ru/6.0/english/kav6.0.3.837_winwksen.exe but I have no idea how an individual could obtain a license key for it. An English link to v6.0.3.837 (MP3 = Maintenance Pack 3) is at http://support.kaspersky.com/wks6mp3?level=2 This seems to leave just one choice for the individual: Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621, i.e. the Personal product version. Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621 comes again in 2 flavors: - as a single file kav6.0.2.621en.exe, digitally signed 21-Mar-2007, which can be downloaded from http://www.filehippo.com/download_kaspersky_antivir/tech/2396/ or http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Kaspersky-AntiVirus-Personal-Pro-Download-5005.html Unfortunately when you try to buy a license via softpedia/Digital River, only v7 is offered. - as a set of 4 files (Setup.exe, kav6.en.msi, kav6.0en.pdf and release_notes_en.html) digitally signed 19-Dec-2007, which I had downloaded from http://data2.kaspersky.com:8080/Distr/6.0.2.621/ in Sept.2008, now 404. The release notes name the version of 19-Dec-2007 as "MP2 CF1" I have no idea were to get these files now. My suspicion is that the version signed 21-Mar-2007 might be an expiring trial version, i.e. KAV 6 might not work anymore after the license key expires, while the version signed 19-Dec-2007 might be an unexpiring version, i.e. continue to work, even if you cannot update the signatures anymore. But I don't know, I have installed only the version of 19-Dec-2007. ADDENDUM: See posting #12. The version of 21-Mar-2007, once activated, is NOT an expiring trial version, it works just as well as the version signed 19-Dec-2007 after the expiration of the license key with which it was originally activated. Another alternative might be to use the original CD which came in the retail box, and select "Update application modules" in the update settings, but I haven't tried that. Trick 2: A valid activation code The only way I know of getting a valid activation code for v6.0.2.621 (21-Mar-2007) is to buy an old retail box of v6, with the activation code on the CD envelope inside the box. But these old unused boxes are getting very hard to find. And there are no valid activation codes for v6 floating around elsewhere. Trick 3: Saving your license key file When KAV 6 is activated or the signature license is renewed, the activation key is being sent to the Kaspersky Activation Server, which then sends back a valid license key in the form of a 849-byte .key file. It may be quite prudent to keep this key file for backup purposes. If, for example, the computer has become corrupted or is off-line, this key file enables one to re-install and activate KAV 6 without being connected to the activation server: the key file has to be placed during installation, exactly when the window "Installation Complete" is displayed, into the install-to directory, then the next window Activation displays: "License key already installed". Unfortunately the license key file is a little hard to find. According to the Wikipedia "Kaspersky antivirus software also uses techniques resembling rootkits" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit and the license key file is actually inside of a "cloaked" folder, seemingly invisible. But under Win98, in contrast to WinXP, there is an excellent tool, MS Find: When entering in field Named: key and in field Look in: \windows\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\, the license key file is displayed and can be backed up. The license key file gets deleted by KAV 6 during the next startup of the opsys where KAV 6 was installed. If KAV 6 was installed under WinXP, the license key file can probably be backed up by booting after installation into another opsys, where it should be found in I:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\ Trick 4: Update distribution folder The Update distribution folder allows signature updates from a folder instead of from the Kaspersky server. Only a single folder has to be updated from the Kaspersky server, saving bandwidth. Currently the Update distribution folder has about 159 MB, slowly growing. In a multibooting environment, for example, KAV 6 under WinXP could be set to download from the Kaspersky server, while KAV 6 under Win98 could download from the Update distribution folder. Apart from possible licensing issues, there are no technical problems re-using a key in an environment containing update distribution folders. For portability, the update distribution folder could also be on a stick. The corporate Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.3.837 (Workstation) can also take its signature updates from the Update distribution folder maintained by v6.0.2.621 (Personal) I am regularly archiving the Update distribution folder, so that, when Kaspersky eventually stops providing signature updates for v6, I will still have a near-to final Update folder. So if I wished to re-install KAV 6 under Win98, say in 5 years, I could update the initial signature of 19-Dez-2007 (only 489.076 signatures) from the last archived update distribution folder (currently 4.451.072 signatures= 8-fold increase in 3 years).

OT: I had bought a dozen Asus P5PE-VM motherboards about 2 years ago, just in case, but they can still be found. I don't know whether recent CPUs work under Win98, if they are not on the Win98-compatibility list of the motherboard.

Hi duffy98, somehow your approach runs counter to what I do:1) I use exclusively PartitionMagic v8.01.1312 to create and format partitions, especially FAT/FAT32 partitions. Somehow I prefer to stay away from other tools for partitioning and formatting HDDs as FAT32 BTW, PartitionMagic can convert NTFS partitions containing data and programs from NTFS to FAT32. 2) I do not use 500GB FAT32 partitions. dencorso suggests 250GB FAT32 as max. partition size, I am even more cautious and use only 192GB. 3) I create FAT32 partitions only under Win98, never under WinXP 4) My preferred size for a SATA HDD is 1 TB, not larger and not smaller. A larger capacity uses too many drive letters, a smaller capacity would result in too many HDDs lying around. I have found 4x192GB FAT32 + 1x 163GB NTFS partitions quite practical and have partitioned all my external USB/eSATA HDDs in this way. I have also quite a few SATA HDDs which are not 1TB. I have relegated them to more or less computer junk status and I am storing grandfather backups on them. They are all early SATA Seagates, tend to get hot and I don't trust their reliability as storage media. 5) I try to stay away from SATA HDDs by Seagate.

Hi Joe, this may not be necessarily of concern to the end user. With a desktop shortcut to the router settings, changing the router MAC just takes a minute, mainly waiting for the router to reset. If a specific MAC number should cause problems, of which I have no concrete experience, it would be no issue to re-enter another one. I have nothing to hide. But there may be a trend towards totalitarian government and having Big Brother constantly look over one's shoulders is not what one could call freedom.OT: The Low Orbit Ion Cannon v1.0.3 (LOIC), possibly alluded to in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11957367 supposedly runs under Win9x. According to the BBC article, it possibly "enrols the machine in a voluntary botnet which then bombards target sites... Security experts warned people to avoid joining the voluntary botnet". There were about 27000 downloads http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/files/stats/timeline'>http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/files/stats/timeline from http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/ in the past week. The author has set it as Public Domain, "I will grant you appropriate rights. I wish to be not a owner, but a maintainer." http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/develop Sourceforge is also the home of eMule http://sourceforge.net/projects/emule/ Addendum OT: There was just a new posting by anonymous (could that be the group Anonymous mentioned in the BBC article?) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/develop

There were just too many unresolved time-consuming problems:1) The motherboard has onboard USB 2.0 with a special ICH5 USB driver, so there would be one USB 2.0 driver for the onboard USB 2.0, another USB 2.0 driver for the combo card, i.e. there might have been a possible driver conflict when 2 different versions of the Orangeware driver were installed 2) when I double-clicked in My Computer on a connected USB 2.0 HDD, the computer froze 3) HDDs connected to the ports of the combo card were annoyingly slow 4) I actually had to saw out a metal piece from the desktop chassis so that I could plug in cables into the eSATA and USB connectors on the combo card I had originally bought the card for eSATA plus the extra IDE connection, I didn't need the USB 2.0 connectors. Unfortunately I have not gotten around to installing another eSATA card on my desktop (the motherboard has onboard SATA, so I might eventually just use an eSATA connector instead of an eSATA card). So with my 10-year-old 700MHz Inspiron 7500 laptops I have eSATA (with the excellent and easy-to-install Vantec UGT-ST350CB PCCard), but on my dual-core desktop I have no eSATA connector .

Hi Tomas, a year and a half ago I bought an eSATA-PATA-USB combo card VIA VT6421A, which came with drivers for Win98. I never got it to work with my Asus P5PE-VM motherboard under Win98. It's lying in a box somewhere now. How about getting just a USB 2.0 card, no combo card? My Asus P5PE-VM motherboard has just 3 PCI slots, that's why I tried a combo PCI card initially. Eventually I'll be getting a PCI adapter for laptop PCCards. There are good laptop PCCards for USB 2.0, eSATA etc.

I just checked the registry under Win98 and WinXP. I have found some old router MAC IDs in the Win98 registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\DhcpOptions But I could not find the current router MAC ID in the Win98 registry, probably because I have Disabled WINS resolution, so that "Use DHCP for WINS Resolution" was de-selected/greyed out for the NIC card. Under WinXP I could not find any router MAC ID in the registry.

I beg to disagree. I never had any MAC address conflicts, and even if I had I would consider my privacy a higher good.If there is a conflict of MAC addresses, it's maybe an issue in the government computers recording information. Duplicate MAC addresses could be seen by government computers just like 2 persons having been assigned the same social security number, not my problem. Duplicate MAC addresses perhaps making it harder on government computers might be those in the vicinity, displayed in the site survery, etc of the WLAN card. If I remember right, there was a story about internet traffic going thru the computers of US agencies.

I have suspended my testing for now, it's getting too dangerous. Cyberwar has started, http://www.mastercard.com has been taken out. No idea whether there are implications for Christmas shopping at ebay, the parent of paypal. The number of complete sources of insurance.aes256 available on the KAD network has increased in the past 36 hours from 174 to 316, with now 7 fakes. The number of complete sources just on the "eMule Security" server has increased from 49 to 85, so the mule is currently distributing maybe 2000 copies per day.

I doubt that you will get it to work, don't mess up your dad's computer. This is a USB printer, without a Win98 driver. How about getting your dad a good old used printer, maybe with a parallel port?I have the HP2605dn Color LaserJet (Win98 version) and it has worked fine for me. It has USB and Ethernet connectors and is the network printer of a mixed Win98/WinXP network. Getting it to work in this way was very complicated and time-consuming.

Here's the 3rd 98er : SaveLayout http://www.12ghosts.com/ shareware, can do the trick just fine. v9.70 works fine under WinXP. v7.10b is apparently the last version for Win98. I have used SaveLayout for the past 7 years to back up the desktop (100+ icons). Making a desktop backup is part of my regular backups. SaveLayout can be installed as a single applet of the whole package 12Ghosts. I didn't use the other ghost applets (except for Replace, for making global changes in a website), under Win98, years ago, they tended to make the system unstable. To create a desktop backup file (4kB!), I am using the program interface, then I rename a copy of the created backup (e.g. SLAutoSave1005.sl) with a descriptive name. To restore a specific desktop arrangement, I don't use the program interface, but right-click on the specific .sl file and select "Restore Layout". I only run SaveLayout on demand, not from the system tray. SaveLayout is a little jewel.

Somehow the file does not show up anymore when one searches KAD with the string "wikileaks". The apparent maximum of 300 hits is displayed, but not the file. I have no idea how to increase the number of files displayed for KAD searches. Apparently the KAD network was flooded with files containing "wikileaks" in the filename. The number of complete sources has decreased to 174 (from 195, the last time I checked), so perhaps they are working on it. The search string "cablegate" displays the file Ok in the KAD search. When searching with the 2 strings insurance aes256, the real file with the file ID 6EC555319422123FE9C98CE04167960B shows up, plus 3 fakes of also 1.39GB. When searching the eDonkey network with the string insurance.aes286, many complete sources are now displayed, and 1 fake file seems to have been planted recently. A current list of servers is at http://www.emule-security.net/serverlist/ The "eMule Security" server has currently 49 complete sources, followed by "Emule Server No1" with 30 complete sources.

More speculation about the file insurance.aes256 and its content may be found at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/wikileaks_assange_will_release_encrypted_TMdRdOm0JfvW4Z9rjWwLQO Whether the file actually does contain anything is currently unknown. Currently there are 195 complete sources, so assuming an avg upload speed of 50kB/s, about 600 copies could be distributed via KAD/the mule per day. insurance.aes256 has apparently the SHA1 checksum cce54d3a8af370213d23fcbfe8cddc8619a0734c and 1.491.834.576 bytes, in case fakes are planted. OT Addendum re censorship: The US government has just prohibited government employees from reading privately at home postings at www.wikileaks.ch or related postings at sites like http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/world/05restrict.html?_r=1&hp

I am updating this older posting. During the most recent deployment I had a 750GB source PATA HDD with System Commander plus several operating systems on it. As target HDD I had only a 200GB PATA HDD, the 750GB PATA HDDs are getting hard to find and are quite expensive. Because the target HDD was smaller than the source HDD, the -ir (image raw) switch wouldn't work. The 750GB source HDD had less than 200GB allocated to partitions, the remainder was unallocated space. I have now successfully created and restored with Ghost v11.0.2 an image of the 750GB HDD with System Commander on it, using the "-ia -ib" switches for sector-by-sector cloning (instead of -ir), but additional work was required: 1) immediately after creating the HDD image with the -ia -ib switches I booted into Win98 to fix up the target HDD 2) under Win98 Norton Disk Doctor and Partition Table Doctor did not report any errors on the cloned HDD. When I ran PowerQuest PartitionMagic v8.01 build 1312 under Win98, however, the following err msg was displayed: "PowerQuest PartitionMagic has detected an error 114 on the partition starting at sector 8385992 on disk 2. The EPBR is not positioned at the beginning of a cyclinder. If this is not corrected the operating system could cause data loss. PowerQuest PartitionMagic can easily be fix this problem by moving the EPBR to sector 8385930. Would you like PowerQuest PartitionMagic to fix this error?"-> Yes, then msg: "Success. The partition table error was successfully fixed!" This was repeated for most partitions on the cloned HDD. PartitionMagic under Win98 did fix the cloned HDD fine, afterwards System Commander and all operating systems on the (smaller) cloned HDD worked fine. Addendum: Error 114 is not mentioned in the PartitionMagic User Guide. In http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-2.html#ss2.13 it is described as follows: "114 - Logical partition does not start one head away from EPBR [Extended Partition Boot Record]. If the EPBR is found at sector N, and there are 63 sectors per track, then Partition Magic expects the logical partition to start at sector N+63."

Yes, perhaps, but not as far as it looks at the first glance. Wikileaks stands for censorship, and the topic could just as well have been "Censorship, eMule and Windows 98"I am running the mule concurrently under both WinXP and Win98 to find out whether Win98 is indeed less susceptible to censorship than WinXP. This would be a major advantage of Win98 over WinXP. I suspect that eventually the mule will be taken out under WinXP, but not under Win98. But this is pure speculation requiring a test ... Addendum: Unfortunately my internet connection has a limit of about 20 kB/s upload, so my computers will probably be near the bottom of the hit list, and neither WinXP nor Win98 may get taken out, and I may never know the answer to my test. OT: In the US there is a more-or-less stringent reporting blackout about the cables. Non-reporting or under-reporting. Up-to-date info in English can be obtained here: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/usembassyfiles/

This was my initial posting in this topic. I have learnt a lot since then.1) Defragging before creating a .gho image with the switches -z9 -cns -fatlimit -szee is a useless undertaking. Ghost with these switches does not care whether the source partition is fragmented or not, and ignores the specific position of files on the source partition. The files on the partition restored from a .gho file created with these switches will be positioned according to Ghost's likings, not how they were originally arranged on a possibly de-fragmented source partition. Any optimized file positioning by defraggers on the source partition will not exist anymore on the partition restored with these switches from a .gho image. I don't routinely defragment but the Windows ME Defrag can handle it. Definitely makes sense. If one frequently restores partitions with the above switches, as is typical for a development enviroment, the HDD should not be substantially fragmented and using defragmentation software may not be useful One could actually defrag a partition by creating a .gho image of it with the above switches and then restoring it to the HDD. The resulting restored partition will have one block, with 0 file fragments, but the directories will not be defragged. 2) If one creates a sector-by-sector image, however, as with the Ghost switches -ia -ib (or -ir), then defragging the HDD prior to creating an image may be useful. Creating a sector-by-sector image, however, takes MUCH longer and should be preceded by a time-consuming prior sdelete of free space, to avoid HUGE .gho image files.

Maybe you could improve your DNS settings, both in Windows for each network card used and in your router. A list of uncensored DNS server is at http://www.computerguard.de/liste-alternativer-dns-server-vt5174.html It is conceivable that routers contain backdoors for US agencies. Maybe disabling remote firmware updates in the router may help. One easy way to reset the IP assigned by the US ISP is to change the MAC ID of the router in the router settings. It looks like the torrents for the file are dead. Torrent indexers have been seized by the US government http://torrent-finder.comThe mule seems to be still Ok. Complete sources for the file have increased in the past 12 hours from 115 to 170. It may be advisable to connect only to KAD, not to connect to any emule servers, they appear to be censored and don't list the file, and there may be fake servers. OT: the ebay subsidiary paypal has just closed/frozen the paypal account of Wikileaks/Wau Holland Foundation, to prevent donations from getting thru http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,732856,00.html

Maybe here is the answer to what is in the encrypted 1.39GB file insurance.aes256: Mr Assange said: "The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11907641 OT: 50 editors (I didn't know they had that many) of the German-language Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/ are currently going over their pre-release copy.

The safest way to browse in these directions may be under Win98.The attacks at Wikileaks are currently the top story of the German-language www.spiegel.de http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,732785,00.html The only wikileaks domain currently still up is http://www.wikileaks.nl from the Netherlands. They pulled the plug on www.wikileaks.ch which is owned by a Swiss political party. www.wikileaks.de is owned by a German political party. The US seems to act against the freedom of expression of some European political parties, they are represented in the the European Parliament and are the 3rd largest political party in the Swedish Parliament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_%28Sweden%29 12 hours ago there were 50 sources for the file insurance.aes256 on the de-centralized KAD network accessible with eMule, currently it has increased to 115 complete sources. Download speed seems to be 100+ kB/s. The file is apparently not listed by most eMule servers anymore, only via KAD. "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops," Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow. http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2010/12/03/news/doc4cf8fb7995b3c846109322.txt

The DNS server entries were taken away from Wikileaks.org but the site can still be reached via the IP number http://213.251.145.96/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-knocked-off-net-dns-everydns

A file "Wikilieaks insurance file pass.txt" is being distributed on the mule. Not sure whether it's an advertising gimmick or the real pw. BTW, www.wikileaks.org cannot be reached in the US anymore. I guess I'll download 7-zip from http://www.7-zip.org/ WinRAR didn't open the file. Addendum: 7-zip didn't work. Here is a link on how to possibly open file insurance.aes256 http://www.minousoft.com/2010/07/probability-analysis-of-the-insurance-aes256-file-posted-by-wikileaks/ They suggest OpenSSL there. Another link is http://cryptome.org/0002/wl-diary-mirror.htm Any suggestions on how to try to open the file under Win98 (or WinXP, if no tools exist under Win98)?