Double Image® and Double Image-O®

____________________________________________

5.0.55.0 Release Notes

September 29, 2009

Corrections, Enhancements

Made corrections and updates to the installer project

Note, the Double Image code has not changed, other than version #.

 

____________________________________________

5.0.54.0 Release Notes

September 9, 2009

Corrections, Enhancements

Updated installation and code features

Created installation and code changes to provide for easier network to client  deployments.

____________________________________________

5.0.52 Release Notes

February 17, 2009

Corrections, Enhancements

Updated the Help File

Fixed problem with target files not showing after disk format and backup

Under certain conditions, the target files would not show following a backup.  This could occur on a newly formatted drive, when copying from the root of a source drive; in which case the target would receive the System (s) attribute and Hidden (H) attribute making the files invisible to the user.  This could occur if the user did not permit System and Hidden files to show.

See Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, Advanced settings:

[x] 'Display the contents of system folders'
[x] 'Show hidden files and folders'

Fixed Installer Package to ensure the open file copy drivers were fully installed.

The previous build .0039 was released with a problem in the installer package that prevented the open file copy drivers from being installed correctly in some cases. When running build .0039, and copying open files was selected, the user would get a log error message: "the open file copy drivers are not installed..."

The open file copy drivers for Double Image-O are now certificate signed for authenticity to run on Windows systems.

 

____________________________________________

5.0.39 Release Notes

October 21, 2008

 

Corrections, Enhancements

Updated 'Always Omit' Path and File Groups

This enhancement will help users to prevent copying files that should not be copied to other hard drives, including the system page file, system volume information, recycle bin.

This change will prevent permissions of a target drive from being corrupted by not copying the source drive's 'system volume information' over another drive's 'system volume information' folder.

____________________________________________

5.0.38

August 2, 2007

Release Notes

Corrections, Enhancements

Corrected a problem that occurred on Windows 2000 computers, when Help, About was clicked.

This issue was only relative to  release 5.0.37, and is now fixed.

This problem did not occur on Windows XP desktops and Windows 2003 server computers.

A minor change to installation with a side-by-side manifest. Users should not need to upgrade from 5.0.37 because of this this change.

____________________________________________

5.0.37

July 23, 2007

Release Notes

Corrections, Enhancements

Licensed updates to the downloaded evaluation software will no longer require a uninstall, install

Evaluation downloads in releases 5.0.35, 5.0.36 required an uninstall prior to installing a licensed version of Double Image, Double Image-O.  Updates no longer require a uninstall and do not require a reboot of the system.

The evaluation release now shows the end of evaluation period correctly.  Previously, in release 5.0.35, 5.0.36, a message box would show the evaluation status too late, with a probability for a program hang. This has been resolved.

The default installation is now a machine installation and not single user. Previously, only a single administrator user could run Double Image. Now any administrator can run the program.

 

____________________________________________

5.0.35

April 16, 2007

Release Notes

Corrections, Enhancements

Double Image will now also recognize most file systems that are Non-Windows controlled drives, when using 'Backup Type' option 'Incremental backup by timestamp'
Previously, if a non-Windows controlled device held its file timestamps differently than a Windows controlled drive, then a FULL backup would most likely occur even when doing an 'Incremental Backup by Timestamp'.

Commonly you would see this on NAS devices that reported an NTFS file system when they are in fact controlled by a Linux operating system or other; and then a FULL backup would occur as a result since the timestamps would not match exactly.

Time tolerances are now applied to over 80 additional file systems within DoubleImage. Between '1 hundredth of a nanosecond' and 2 seconds variances are assigned.

The time variance is for individual drives (not for every drive being copied from or to) . The added file systems include UNIX, Linux, (including SUSE Linux), Netware, HP, Samba, Veritas, Amiga, Beeweeb, off the shelf NAS network storage devices like Buffalo's LinkStation or TeraStation along with most common file systems for CD, DVD drives.

The added file system acceptance to Double Image includes most older, current and beta releases for the file systems mentioned above..

Note, when backing up Windows folders and files to some of the above non-Windows computer drives you may notice messages in the log that describe an inability to copy attributes they cannot deal with, like the Windows files system attributes used on 'FAT' FAT16', 'FAT32' and 'Windows NTFS'. This can include Encryption, Sparse, Windows Compression, System, Hidden....

A network NAS device may show as a computer in your Windows 'My Network Places' with a UNC path (\\computerame\...).  The NAS device may not provide file permissions on the same level as that of Windows and other computers and you may see log messages to the effect that certain privileges are not accessible on the network computer.  This would be the case when a NAS network drive shows, ( most likely 'Linux'  under the hood ) and the file permissions are not relative to those used by Windows.

Double Image applies the file timestamp tolerance to the individual drives. A copy session can consist of several source drives and a target drive with any combination of Windows controlled drives or non-Windows controlled drives, and each unique file system will be assigned its own time tolerance to permit 'Incremental Backup by Timestamp' to function as you would expect.

Double Image, Double Image-O executables now have a digital code signed certificate signature
In addition to .msi and setup certificate signing, you will now see that the application code is signed. The certificate details can be viewed in the properties of the code file.

Microsoft's Windows Defender will now also show that Double Image, Double Image-O are signed. (this is viewable when running the application).

The beep is gone
You will no longer hear the default Windows wave beep sound at the end of a backup session. This was more an annoyance than a need.

[Yes, No] message no longer appears when viewing the UI following a backup
Previously, when a backup completed and the user views the Double Image user interface again, a message box asks if the source tree and target location should be refreshed. This was an annoyance and no longer appears. The refresh will always occur now.

Copy Option 'Back up the registry files on a computer if that computer has it's Windows system folder backed up.'  is now fixed. The middle registry option was not functioning on some earlier releases, and is now functional.

'Status' column on the main screen directory tree area has been removed.

Increased security of installation and running Double Image, Double Image-O
Installations require an Administrator or member of Administrators.

Running Double Image requires the user to have elevated security login privileges; a non-privileged user cannot run Double Image. This increased security measure prevents indirect access attempts to the HKEY_Local_Machine (HKLM) part of the registry, by a non-privileged user.

Administrators may schedule backups for non-privileged users.

NOTE:  On XP PRO  'Computer Administrators' and 'Limited Accounts' and Guest are the default user setups, and it is the Computer Administrators that can install and run Double Image, Double Image-O.

Problems that should no longer occur as a result of this change are:

  • probability for a corrupted target file when 2 profiles of the same name were in use and copying to the same target and run by a non-privileged user.
  • 'delayed write failed'  errors when 2 profiles of the same name were in use and copying to the same target and run by a non-privileged user.
  • potential for one copy session to destroy the cache file when a duplicate copy session was also in progress and the user was a non-privileged user.

Note, when running multiple copy sessions using the identical backup profile name, a unique log is created for the latter sessions with an extension of <logfilename>.bul[n], where n starts at 1 and is incremented for each concurrent copy session. Usually when multiple backups/copy sessions are occurring with the same profile name, the user has done this unintentionally.  One of the best ways to eliminate this condition from happening is to select 'Auto-Exit at End of Job' in the options, anytime the copy session is set to be scheduled.

The InstallShield Update Service is no longer used for Check for Updates
Until December 2006, customers could rely on the automated Update Service, which was part of the software installations and provided to developers by InstallShield(now Macrovision) for that reason.

The InstallShield Update Service is no longer relied upon by HII and will not be part of future Double Image, Double Image-O installations, starting with Double Image, Double Image-O build 5.0.34.  We have found that this expensive service created more problems to customers and HII than it solved.

Earlier installations of Double Image may have installed the 'InstallShield Update Manager'.  If this tool is currently on your PC, then run it to learn if other software is using the manager. If only Double Image shows in the list, then it is a good idea to remove it.

How To Uninstall Update Manager Run "uninstallupdatemanager.exe"

Previously a target file could end up with a zero byte file size
If by chance a target file was attempted to be copied to by one backup session and another backup session is attempting to update a same target file, the target file could end up with a zero-byte file size.  This has been corrected in this release.  The latter sessions will wait and prompt a message to SKIP, IGNORE, CANCEL; but if the 'Warnings and Error' message are set to show in the log only, then SKIP is assumed and the copy session continues with a log entry shown in the log that the file was not copied to. It is still acceptable to run multiple copies of the same profile at the same time.

A new option 'Never Copy Zero Byte Files' was added to the Copy Options in the user interface and command line usage
Users have a choice of copying files with zero bytes or not.  Zero byte files mayor may not be valid files. Some applications will create empty (.log) files, for example. On the other hand, zero byte files can result when any task/application either(1 ) does not complete writing to a file, (2) opened the file for output but could not write to the file, (3) opened the file and an application crash or (4) an operating system crash occurred.

 Under most circumstances you should not need to use this option, but it is available now available if you are using certain precautions. Secondly, you use this option to learn all the zero-byte files on your system.

Command line users

  1. When running Double Image from command line a new variable is now available in the 'copy options' -ops group is 'z'  = 'Never Copy Zero Byte Files'.  When the 'z' switch is used any source file that has a file size of 0 (zero) will not be copied and a Warning entry is entered in the Double Image log.  During an incremental copy session and if the 'z' switch is used, and the source and target files have the same timestamp, name and attributes then the log is not  updated with a warning entry.

  2. Using the command variable '-run:min' is equal to '-run:invisible' plus minimizing the progress dialog to the tray.

  3. Note, if an Administrator is scheduling a profile to run for a non-privileged user, use of these variables are not necessary, because the non-privileged user will not see evidence of the backup running at all.

Build 5.00.34.n did not copy attributes correctly, in all cases
This has been corrected in this release.

Support:  http://www.hostinterface.com/DI5/Support/