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Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 23rd 20, 06:37 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

I was looking for a tool to tell how many fragments the page file is, maybe to make a youtube tutorial video.

PageDefrag from sysinternals dont work on windows 7.

I tried defraggler from avast companies, which I generally don't like, cause their software/anti virus sucks and slows down systems.

Tried it anyway... turns out this software reads all cookies from firefox browser.

Took ages since there are billions of cookies lol, so I terminated this piece of crap.

Just warning you... with this kind of software your privacy is a bit at risk in case you didn't know

First time I see software do this.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #2  
Old February 23rd 20, 07:12 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

This tool can be used to see frags per file:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...wnloads/contig

With the -a option

Unfortunately it cannot show information for files that are in use like the pagefile

But if I really wanted to, I could reboot without using a pagefile and then inspect it.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #3  
Old February 23rd 20, 07:20 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

Another nice tool is fragger:

https://www.passmark.com/products/fragger/

This allows to analyze, fragment and defragment individual files.

Very interesting. It comes with a GUI so it's a bit easier and faster to use.

And is free for personal usage.

Bye,
Skybuck.
  #4  
Old February 23rd 20, 08:17 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

Unfortunately it's not possible to inspect the pagefile.sys for file fragments, at least not in an easy way:

1. Tried disabing page file and booting to safe mode with ms prompt, this simply deletes the page file.

2. Tried unlock it tool, it did momentarily work on w7 ultimate but not w7 home, not sure if it worked at all unreliable.

One idea is to boot the laptop or PC with a usb stick with windows on it and then inspect the page file.

However creating such a windows 7 full upgraded usb stick is not easy and is way beyond the scope of any tutorial lol.

Sometimes windows can be so annoying and this is a prime example !

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #5  
Old February 23rd 20, 08:19 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

Also booting laptop with HDMI plugged into to receiver for audio is not without risk.

The boot screen/boot process can not be seen, so this was another annoying failure cause by weird design.

Not even sure if safe mode would work at all in hdmi, no idea exactly what happened, press F8 couldn't see a damn thing, restarted the laptop without hdmi.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #6  
Old February 23rd 20, 09:03 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

wrote:
Also booting laptop with HDMI plugged into to receiver for audio is not without risk.

The boot screen/boot process can not be seen, so this was another annoying failure cause by weird design.

Not even sure if safe mode would work at all in hdmi, no idea exactly what happened, press F8 couldn't see a damn thing, restarted the laptop without hdmi.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.


7.1 audio extraction, HDMI passthru.

https://www.amazon.ca/Monoprice-Blac.../dp/B01B5FR722

Example of converting modern equipment for usage with older materials.

laptop ----- HDMI_IN --- (Box) --- HDMI_OUT --- HDMI-to-VGA ------- LCD VGA monitor
| dongle adapter
7.1 analog
audio to
receiver

Paul
  #7  
Old February 23rd 20, 09:06 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

wrote:
Unfortunately it's not possible to inspect the pagefile.sys for file fragments, at least not in an easy way:

1. Tried disabing page file and booting to safe mode with ms prompt, this simply deletes the page file.

2. Tried unlock it tool, it did momentarily work on w7 ultimate but not w7 home, not sure if it worked at all unreliable.

One idea is to boot the laptop or PC with a usb stick with windows on it and then inspect the page file.

However creating such a windows 7 full upgraded usb stick is not easy and is way beyond the scope of any tutorial lol.

Sometimes windows can be so annoying and this is a prime example !

Bye for now,
Skybuck.


jkdefrag can tell you how many fragments the pagefile has.
It cannot defragment the page file while the OS is running.

The nfi.exe utility from Microsoft can tell you how many
fragments the pagefile has.

File 28643
\pagefile.sys
$STANDARD_INFORMATION (resident)
$FILE_NAME (resident)
$DATA (nonresident)
logical sectors 21179568-24324383 (0x1432cb0-0x173291f)

Since there is only one line with "logical sectors" in it, the
pagefile has just 1 fragment.

If you saw

logical sectors 21179568-24324383 (0x1432cb0-0x173291f)
logical sectors 24324384-24324392 (0x1732920-0x1732928)

that would mean the pagefile has two fragments, with the
second fragment being very small (8 sectors).

Some of the commercial defragmenters could do it.
The free ones usually can't.

Turning off the pagefile, reboot, then turning it on as you did,
reboot, is a good way to take care of the issue.

Paul
  #8  
Old February 23rd 20, 09:14 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

wrote:
This tool can be used to see frags per file:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...wnloads/contig

With the -a option

Unfortunately it cannot show information for files that are in use like the pagefile

But if I really wanted to, I could reboot without using a pagefile and then inspect it.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.


The Macrium Reflect Free WinPE rescue media is a good choice
for a boot OS. It's WinPE. I would select the x86 version,
because I think I was able to run HDTune from there. Not all
the GUI programs would run (because of course, WinPE is
a Pre-install Environment and is not intended to be a full
featured runtime). WinPE is missing subsystems on purpose,
such as VSS. Just as it was, back in BartPE.

Macrium should be able to place an image on a USB stick, for boot.

And Rufus should be able to take a Windows ISO and put it
on a USB stick. It likely wraps the media in Syslinux materials and
chainloads it or something. But Macrium rescue disc (USB stick version)
is really the better choice. You can play more games with stuff
from there, than from a Command Prompt window from a Windows 7
installer session.

Paul
  #9  
Old February 26th 20, 10:04 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Posts: 533
Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

jkdefrag can tell you how many fragments the pagefile has.

How would jkdefrag do that ? When I look at the images on google images it seems to have a green gui only ?

How does jkdefrag actually do this ? Are you sure ? I tried a couple of other tools and they all say: "file is in use" or something similiar.

It cannot defragment the page file while the OS is running.


Would be cool if it was somehow possible.

The nfi.exe utility from Microsoft can tell you how many
fragments the pagefile has.


Where would nfi.exe be downloaded from ? Sounds/seems kinda old, are you sure this tool would be safe to use on windows 7 ?

File 28643
\pagefile.sys
$STANDARD_INFORMATION (resident)
$FILE_NAME (resident)
$DATA (nonresident)
logical sectors 21179568-24324383 (0x1432cb0-0x173291f)

Since there is only one line with "logical sectors" in it, the
pagefile has just 1 fragment.

If you saw

logical sectors 21179568-24324383 (0x1432cb0-0x173291f)
logical sectors 24324384-24324392 (0x1732920-0x1732928)

that would mean the pagefile has two fragments, with the
second fragment being very small (8 sectors).

Some of the commercial defragmenters could do it.
The free ones usually can't.

Turning off the pagefile, reboot, then turning it on as you did,
reboot, is a good way to take care of the issue.


No it wasn't, it just deletes the page file. I didn't do what I wanted to do and that is figure out how many fragments the page file was

Still interesting in a way to figure it out.

However it's "late" for me, I need to go to bed, so might investigate these tips of yours tomorrow.

I am ***VERY*** skeptical !

Bye,
Skybuck =D
  #10  
Old February 26th 20, 10:16 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Posts: 533
Default Avast Defraggler reads cookies during install.

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 9:14:36 PM UTC+1, Paul wrote:
wrote:
This tool can be used to see frags per file:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...wnloads/contig

With the -a option

Unfortunately it cannot show information for files that are in use like the pagefile

But if I really wanted to, I could reboot without using a pagefile and then inspect it.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.


The Macrium Reflect Free WinPE rescue media is a good choice
for a boot OS. It's WinPE. I would select the x86 version,
because I think I was able to run HDTune from there. Not all
the GUI programs would run (because of course, WinPE is
a Pre-install Environment and is not intended to be a full
featured runtime). WinPE is missing subsystems on purpose,
such as VSS. Just as it was, back in BartPE.

Macrium should be able to place an image on a USB stick, for boot.

And Rufus should be able to take a Windows ISO and put it
on a USB stick. It likely wraps the media in Syslinux materials and
chainloads it or something. But Macrium rescue disc (USB stick version)
is really the better choice. You can play more games with stuff
from there, than from a Command Prompt window from a Windows 7
installer session.


I use Win32DiskImager to place an IMG onto USB stick so this worked.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

If I remember correctly that is what I used...

and NTLite and Windows Updates Download tool to make custom ISO. It was a lot of work but was kinda forth it.

So I don't quite know what to do with your suggestions

Windows 7 itself has a strong survivability chance with it's own 100 mb partition...

GhostPE sucked... so I am kinda staying away from rescue/backup/recovery crap.

Problem with GhostPE was it created all these ghost files, there are three problems really:

1. I copied all the ghost files from multiple DVD's to one drive.

Turns out ghostpe needs to know what the last file was from each DVD to do anything with it, since there are like 4000 files or something I have no idea which the last one is, making the backup which is on the AMD 2600+ XP completely unusuable, which is crazy funny and stupid of norton. There are some backup CD's in some data safe... not sure if they still work.

2. Most CD's DVD's have seemed to loose their contents, at least enough that it's a problem.

3. GhostPE used zip compression to make backups, compression is very dumb for backups, unless you sure the backup won't contain bit errors, one bit error and nothing can be uncompressed because the compression needs every bit to be exact, at least that's what I believe for now, compression per file might be a little bit better and might not loose to many files, but even this is kinda stupid.

Thus a really good backup solution would only compute hashes/integrity codes to verify if the files are somewhat intact but use no compression

Here is my suggestion for you or anybody wanting to use products like these:

1. Intentionally damage a "test backup" and see if the tool is any use.

2. Mess around with files/cd/dvd's volumes copy them to other mediums see if the software is any use.

I wouldn't be surprised if the tools don't work under these circumstances

One last thing:

Once you know how to enable WindowsOnTheGO you will never need Rufus and WinToUSB ever again, because this is probably the technique these tools are using, so it's kinda stupid and keeping you in the dark and adding unnecessary complexities, if these tools fail for whatever reason you be stuck.

Making windows 7 boot from usb requires a script which enables two registry keys. This is definetly the way to go I think... once windows is on the usb stick or img, enable the registry keys on it, this can be done from windows to windows.

Online windows to offline windows.

Bye,
Skybuck.
 




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