Category : Recently Uploaded Files
Archive   : INVB602.ZIP
Filename : HISTORY.TXT

 
Output of file : HISTORY.TXT contained in archive : INVB602.ZIP
Product upgrade, 6.01D
----------------------
Improved installation procedure. The Installation of IV will now run
without needing to actually change the current directory. Just type the
full pathname of where IV's INSTALL program is.

Daily inspection for companion virus. The companion virus verification
was added to IVB, since IVB runs daily. The same routine is retained in
IVscan, for operational redundancy.

Keeping track of the last inspected drive. In former revisions of IV
there was need to manipulate the COMSPEC variable in order to keep track
of the last drive checked by IVB DAILY. Now, just issue the IVB DAILY
command and the tracking record will be updated, according to the
current environment settings. Only make sure to always run the DAILY
check from within the same environment shell. The last improvement is
especially useful to LAN administrators.

The user interface in ResQdisk was improved further. The newer features
were grouped in three menus, Edit (accessible by pressing ^E), Track
Zero maintenance (^Z) and Analyze sector (^A). Also, the new ^B function
was added. The latter will refresh the boot sector of drive C: while
accessing via DOS instead of the BIOS, and is the equivalent of the
SYS C: command. The ^B function is helpful in removing boot sector
viruses such as Da'Boys, Boot-437, Form etc.

IVinit was enhanced to automatically invoke ResQdisk when needed. From
now, Most boot / mbr infectors can be handled right at startup.

Improved editing features in ResQdisk. Additional editing features were
added to resQdisk. The sequence ^E ^F will read a file into the sector
clipboard, while ^E ^D drops the content of the displayed sector into a
file. The combination ^E ^Y will decrypt an encrypted sector into the
clipboard and display it on screen. The later is especially useful for
the recovery of damaged hard drives, like from the Monkey virus. It is
indispensable for rescuing hard drives lost to inappropriate
disinfection procedures, like with fdisk/mbr, or inadequate antiviral
products. The above further improve ResQdisk as the best disaster
recovery and boot-antiviral utility.

Improved "track 0" maintenance features. ResQdisk is used in the rescue
diskette for backing up track zero of the hard disk to floppy and for
restoring track zero from file to the hard drive. The "track 0"
functions are now available on-line, with the visual inspection of
ResQdisk, in both SeeThru modes (backup only, recovery is always done
with SeeThru off). The track 0 functions are started by the ^Z keys
combination, followed by ^B for backup to file or ^R for restore from
file.

Either the Ctrl (^) or the Alt key can now be used for the editing
and the "track 0" functions. For on-line help press Alt+H while running
the ResQdisk program.

Making a rescue diskette for other than standard configurations. The
rescue diskette in the INSTALL program was improved to simplify the
preparation of a rescue diskette in configurations containing other than
Stacker, DoubleSpace or Disk Manager drivers. For details read in the
on-line documentation.

Improved resistance to IV dedicated viruses. The first virus aimed to
"kill" IV's signatures has been reported and a sample of was analyzed by
NetZ. It is recommended that users change the default filename of the
signatures to one of their own definition. The signature files are no
longer traceable as IV's, and cannot be identified as such -- provided
you don't leave them with the default name. The new signatures are fully
downward compatible with the former ones, and there is no action that a
user needs to take in this regard.

Random signatures' filename. When installing InVircible through IVlogin,
a random signatures' filename will be selected. IVLOGIN can be used for
standard installation with the default parameters. The random signature
filename will be implemented on first time installation only, and with
the default installation parameters only (to C:\IV).

Compatibility with large capacity IDE. IVTEST was corrected to ignore
the dynamic boot loader of large capacity IDE disks.

Revision 6.01c was compatible with only Ontrack's Disk Manager extended
bios drivers (XBIOS.OVL). The new revision is also compatible with other
brands, recently introduced into the market - e.g. Micro House.

Troubleshooting with IV. New text was added to the on-line help in
regard of troubleshooting problems with IV. There is guidance how to
detect an incompatible IDE controller with your hard drive, as well as
disclaimers about a couple of hardware: Promise hard drive controllers
with disk cache, and certain models of Maxtor's hard drives.

Further improvement for use in networked environment. IVMENU, the
integrated menu shell was upgraded to avoid conflicts in certain Netware
environment.

January, 1995
Product upgrade, InVircible 6.01C
---------------------------------
Improved performance in networked environment: Revision 6.01C has
further improvements for the operation of InVircible in the networked
environment. All the scanning modules; IVB, IVscan and IVX were revised
to avoid Novell's Netware files. The verification of Netware files under
DOS created errors because of the special attributes of Netware's system
files. IV's current revision avoids these files.

Updated manual: The use of IV in network environment, as well as the
strategy of how to disinfect the server and network are covered in a new
appendix, in the manual text.

Automatic IV version upgrades in network: IVLOGIN can now be used for
both the automatic installation of InVircible to workstations in a
networked environment, as well as the upgrading of an older IV version
to a newer one. IVLOGIN checks whether its own version is newer than the
current one installed on the hard drive. An older version will be
automatically replaced by a new one, by just invoking IVLOGIN. It is
recommended that the IVLOGIN command should always be included in the
users login script, in networks.

Improved piggybacking detection: Revision 6.01C has higher sensitivity
of piggybacking detection. The detection threshold has been lowered to
detect piggybacking within few affected files. The improved sensitivity
has no effect on speed since the loss in speed was compensated for with
a better search algorithm.

New "copy and paste" functions in ResQdisk: It is an advantage to have
editing capability of the master and boot sectors of the hard disk.
ResQdisk can now copy the content of a displayed sector to the clipboard,
by the ^E ^R sequence, then paste it elsewhere by pressing ^E ^W. The
copy and paste functions are useful to recover from mbr and boot sector
viruses, that relocate the original sector elsewhere, usually on track 0.
The copying and pasting of the original sector can be done under the
visual control of ResQdisk. The new functions can be used to store copies
of the critical sectors (mbr and boot sectors) in the unused section of
track 0, usually from sector 2 to the last sector on the track. Avoid
using sector 3 (used by Monkey), 7 (Stoned, Michelangelo), 8 (used by
Disk Manager - not a virus), 17 (B1-NYB), 13 (NewBug) and the last sector
(Quox and a few others).

December 1994
Product upgrade, InVircible 6.01B
---------------------------------
Installation of InVircible on networked PC: Revision 6.01B has an
additional file, IVLOGIN.EXE. As its name implies, its use is from the
user login script in networks. When a workstation connects to the
network, IVLOGIN verifies whether it has a hard drive, and if InVircible
is installed on that disk. If not, INSTALL/FAST is invoked to install IV
to the hard disk. The LAN administrator is required to install IV to the
server and add the IVLOGIN command to the user login script. The rest
is done automatically.

IVB upgrade: Some lame viruses affect *.SYS and *.OVL files, if they
have an executable structure (usually an EXE one). Thus, *.SYS and *.OVL
files were added under IVB's coverture. These files are now secured by
IVB, and can be recovered, in case they get infected.

ResQdisk upgrades: There were disk configurations that ResQdisk didn't
recognize properly. These were found mostly on Compaq models, having a
special partition dedicated to proprietary diagnostics, coming first,
before the DOS active partition. ResQdisk was upgraded to accommodate
for these configurations too.

In addition, ResQdisk had a few fixes to assure its proper functioning
with the new mode 3 and 4 IDE standards, EIDE as well as with large
capacity SCSI drives. This now covers all hard disk types used in
personal computers.

Install upgrades: The French version of InVircible configures now the
rescue diskette to start with a French keyboard. Install also takes care
to REM out the Thunderbyte TSR in the autoexec, at the installation of
IV. The TB TSR intercept IV initialization checks and may crash the
system. Also, Install will now install the IV registration key to hard
drives having the Compaq configuration (see ResQdisk, above).

User interface updates. Both IVB and IVSCAN command line syntax has been
improved. The [d:] argument, where d represents a drive letter, will now
start the program from the drive's root, instead of the current
directory. For the default directory just don't give any drive argument.


  3 Responses to “Category : Recently Uploaded Files
Archive   : INVB602.ZIP
Filename : HISTORY.TXT

  1. Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!

  2. This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.

  3. But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/