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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10

Update:
  1. Download the update. See Downloading the Latest Build of Acronis Software;
  2. Install the update. See:

======================
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager Fails to Activate on Windows 7/2008

Increase Windows System Reserved partition to resolve the issue
This article applies to:
  • Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server
  • Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server - Small Business Server Edition
  • Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server - Virtual Edition
  • Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Workstation
  • Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Server for Windows
  • Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Workstation
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
Symptoms
  1. You try to activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager on a system that has a Windows System Reserved partition; (!) This partition can be viewed in Windows Disk Management (Start-Run -> diskmgmnt.msc):

  2. Activation fails with the message similar to the following one: Unable to copy asrm.bin to \\?\Volume\{07cc1c88-f797-11df-9ad3-806e6f666963}\bootwiz\
    There is not enough space on disk


Cause
There is not enough space on Windows System Reserved partition for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager files.
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is automatically placed on the active partition. By default, Windows System Reserved partition size is 100 MB and about 71 MB is free, which is enough for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager files. If some of the free space is taken by other software or if Windows System Reserved partition size is reduced manually, there will not be enough space for the files.

Solution
Increase the size of Windows System Reserved partition by 50-100 MB. You can do this with Acronis Disk Director 11 Home, Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced or other disk management software.
Alternatively, you can use Acronis Bootable Media instead of Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. See Standalone Version of Acronis Software.

More information
Acronis Development Team is working on fixing this issue. The fix is planned for the next build of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.
See also:

Acronis True Image Home: RAID Support

Source
RAID support scheme in Acronis True Image Home and Acronis True Image Home Plus Pack

This article applies to:
  • Acronis True Image Home 2011
  • Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus Pack
  • Acronis True Image Home 2010
  • Acronis True Image Home 2010 Plus Pack
  • Acronis Backup and Security 2010
  • Acronis Backup and Security 2011

Description

The official support scheme for RAID configuration is the following:
  • Acronis True Image Home supports hardware RAID arrays of all the popular types both with and without the Plus Pack add-on, in any case. Thus, the supported hardware RAIDs are:
    • RAID 0
    • RAID 1
    • RAID 5
    • RAID 0+1
    • RAID 1+0 As to specific RAID controllers - when running the product in Windows, the product will support them if Windows itself does. From Acronis Bootable Media most of the RAID controllers are supported.
  • Acronis True Image Home does not support software RAID implementations (Windows Dynamic Disks, GPT volumes etc) if Plus Pack is not installed. See also Acronis True Image Home Does Not Support Dynamic Disks or Disks with GUID Partition Tables (GPT);
  • Acronis True Image Home Plus Pack enables the support for Windows Dynamic Disks and GPT volumes that are set up in any configuration except for RAID 5 and RAID 1 (Mirrored) which are not supported even with Plus Pack. See also Acronis True Image Home Plus Pack: Dynamic Disks and Disks with GUID Partition Tables (GPT) Support.

More information

You can restore a backup of one RAID to a RAID of different type in the same manner as you would with a basic disk.
Here is the Acronis True Image Home RAID support matrix:
Hardware RAIDs Acronis True Image Home Acronis True Image Home Plus Pack
RAID 0 YES YES
RAID 1 YES YES
RAID 5 YES YES
RAID 0+1 YES YES
RAID 1+0 YES YES
Software RAIDs
Simple NO YES
Spanned NO YES
Striped NO YES
Mirrored NO NO
RAID 5 NO NO

Software Mirrored RAID can be created only
in the following operating systems:
  • Windows 7 Professional
  • Windows 7 Enterprise
  • Windows 7 Ultimate
  • Windows 2000 Server
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2008
Software RAID 5 can be created only in the following operating systems:
  • Windows 2000 Server
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2008
See also Dynamic Disk Types Support in Windows Editions.

Walkthrough: Deploy a Virtual Hard Disk for Native Boot

Published: October 22, 2009
Updated: July 8, 2010
Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
This walkthrough describes how to create and configure a virtual hard disk (VHD) running Windows® 7 for native boot. A native-boot VHD is a virtual hard disk that can be used as the running operating system on designated hardware without any other parent operating system. This is in contrast to a scenario where a VHD is connected to a virtual machine on a computer with a parent operating system.
In this release, VHDs can be applied to computers that have no other installations of Windows, for usage as a native-boot VHD, without a virtual machine or hypervisor. (A hypervisor is a layer of software below the operating system that runs virtual computers.) This allows for greater flexibility in workload distribution in that a single set of tools can be used to manage images for virtual machines and designated hardware.
noteNote
This walkthrough describes how to deploy the VHD to a computer with no other installations of Windows. For more information about deploying multiple VHDs with native-boot on a single computer, or deploying VHDs on computers with a parent operating system, see Add a Native-Boot Virtual Hard Disk to the Boot Menu.

Prerequisites

Create Acronis bootable USB flash drive

allacronis.com/step-by-step.php
Full drive backup to external drive
Clone hard drive to another lager drive
Full drive backup to CD/DVD discs
Restore backup archive
E-mail backup
Create BartPE bootable disc
Create Backup Location, Backup Rules and Backup Policies
Clone (manual mode) with Acronis True Image Home 2009
Create BartPE disc with Acronis Universal Restore
Backup and restore with Acronis Universal Restore
Create Acronis bootable USB flash drive
Deploy image with Acronis Snap Deploy 3.0
Convert .tib to .vhd and import to Hyper V
Backup with VSS
Shut down PC after schedule task
Create certain number of full+incremental backup archives
Edit boot.ini file
Create BartPE bootable disc with Acronis Disk Director Suite
How to keep previous set of full + incremental/differential backups with Acronis True Image Home 2009
How to create X full backups, then delete oldest in Acronis True Image 2009
How to automatically rename full backups, so that they do not overwrite each other
Backup and Restore Domain Controller with Active Directory using Acronis Backup & Recovery
Back up remote inactive computers
How to add acpi=off noapic into Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
Create Acronis WinPE bootable disc

Source
When creating Acronis Bootable Media on a flash drive, Acronis products do not mark partition on the flash drive as active. As a result, one cannot boot from the flash drive with Acronis Bootable Media.
These instructions apply to:
    * Windows Vista
    * Windows Server 2008
   1. Insert your flash drive;
   2. Hit Win-R and type cmd to open a command-line;
   3. Type diskpart to run Windows DiskPart utility:
   4. Type list disk to list all disks attached to the machine:
   5. Type select disk [number] to select your flash drive:
   6. Type clean to remove any formatting from the selected disk:
   7. Type create partition primary:
   8. Type select partition 1 to select the only partition, which you now have on the flash drive:
   9. Type active to mark the partition as active:
  10. Type format fs=fat32 to format the disk in FAT32 (otherwise the drive will not be bootable):
  11. Type assign to assign a drive letter:
  12. Type exit to exit Windows DiskPart utility:
  13. Run your Acronis product;
  14. Pick Tools -> Create Bootable Rescue Media;
  15. Follow all steps of the wizard and select your USB flash drive as media.
Windows XP:
1. Download the Forensic Acquisition Utilities from
http://www.gmgsystemsinc.com/fau/
2. Unpack the downloaded ZIP archive;
3. Place installation file of Acronis product in the same folder where you unpacked the ZIP archive:
4. Open the command-line (Start->run->cmd)
5. Issue the following commands:
cd [drive letter]:\fau\fau.x86
dd if=[drive letter]:\[name of the .dd file] of=\\.\[flash drive letter]: --localwrt
where
[drive letter] – Drive letter and path to the file on your hard disk
[name of the .dd file] – Name of the file you have downloaded on Step 3
[flash drive letter] – Letter of your flash drive that you would like to use as Acronis Bootable Media
Example
cd c:\fau\fau.x86
dd if=c:\atis_8115_s_e.dd of=\\.\e: --localwrt
6. Make sure that the partition is active using Disk Management (Start->Run->diskmgmt.msc);
7. Detach the USB flash drive.
You can now boot your machine from it.
Using a JetDirect box as an Nmap Idlescan Zombie
        While I'm on the topic of Nmap and JetDirect boxes, they make great bouncers for stealth Idle scans (also know as Zombie scans) since their IPIDs are incremental. Basically what happen is the Nmap scan is bounced off of the JetDirect box and any logs on the target will show the IP of the JetDirect box as being the attacker. There are a few problems with these kinds of scans, the biggest being that they are VERY slow. For more details on  Idle scans  see the following URL:
and the Nmap MAN page:
-sI 
Idlescan: This advanced scan method allows for a truly blind TCP port scan of
the target (meaning no packets are sent to the target from your real IP
address). Instead, a unique side-channel attack exploits predictable "IP frag-
mentation ID" sequence generation on the zombie host to glean information about
the open ports on the target. IDS systems will display the scan as coming from
the zombie machine you specify (which must be up and meet certain criteria). I
wrote an informal paper about this technique at http://www.inse-
cure.org/nmap/idlescan.html .

Besides being extraordinarily stealthy (due to its blind nature), this scan
type permits mapping out IP-based trust relationships between machines. The
port listing shows open ports from the perspective of the zombie host. So you
can try scanning a target using various zombies that you think might be trusted
(via router/packet filter rules). Obviously this is crucial information when
prioritizing attack targets. Otherwise, you penetration testers might have to
expend considerable resources "owning" an intermediate system, only to find out
that its IP isn't even trusted by the target host/network you are ultimately
after.

You can add a colon followed by a port number if you wish to probe a particular
port on the zombie host for IPID changes. Otherwise Nmap will use the port it
uses by default for "tcp pings".
        Here is an example of Nmap being run using a JetDirect box as a bouncer. I've used the -P0 option so that the host running Nmap does not ping the target first, lessening the stealth value by giving away the scanners true IP.
Irongeek:~# nmap -P0 -sI 192.168.1.93 Irongeek.irongeek.com

Starting nmap 3.81 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2005-09-08 17:22 EDT
Idlescan using zombie 192.168.1.93 (192.168.1.93:80); Class: Incremental
Interesting ports on 192.168.1.5:
(The 1654 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed|filtered)
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
110/tcp open pop3
111/tcp open rpcbind
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
443/tcp open https
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
587/tcp open submission

Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 35.262 seconds

Irongeek:~#

        Now, if 192.168.1.5 looks at its logs it will appear that 192.168.1.93 (the JetDirect box) was doing the scan. Sneaky!

Mounting .tib files and disks

SourceA
SourceB

Acronis True Image Home 10
Acronis True Image Home 11

Acronis True Image Home 2009 ==> Version 12
Acronis True Image Home 2010 ==> Verison 13
Acronis True Image Home 2011 ==> Version 14
Acronis guarantees backup compatibility for different Acronis backup products only within the same version. E.g. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Server for Linux will work with backups created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Workstation. You can’t restore backup archives created with Acronis True Image Home 2009 using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 products.
I would recommend you to recreate all backup archives and images using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.

Unfortunately without Acronis software installed you cannot view the contents of a .tib file. As a workaround, for example,  you can use a bootable CD to boot the other machine and use the CD to restore specific files or folders. You can refer to page 130 of our user guide for additional information.
--------------
You juste have to install acronis console on the computer (this feature does not require licence), and then, you will be able to open .tib files.
-----------------
If you only have the tib image, you could create a new VM and restore the tib image using the Acronis Boot CD. 
Then run VMware Converter Standalone and select "Configure Machine" to inject the appropriate disk drivers.
-----------------
1. My tibs are done in Acronis Home 2009 and 2010
Theses tib files cannot be imported by the Converter.
2. Does the error mean that I do the import for certain versions of acronis only?
Yes.
3. Is there possibility for successfull import the machine using the converter installed on vCentre rather than standalone version of converter?
No.
4. Why I do need bootable cd as well to do successfull import?
Using the procedure I outlined in my previous post is an alternative option to be able to use the tib images.
--------------------------------
 Yana wrote:
Windows can boot from the physical drive only, and the mounted image is just introduced in the system as a partition, while mounted image is a virtual partition, thus not available for booting.
It's hard to say why exactly the converted archive is not bootable.
Thanks Yana!
You may want to read MS article Deploy a Virtual Hard Disk for Native Boot for a surprise discovery that VHD drives with Win7 guest on them are attachable in Win7 host, and bootable in several ways on a physical PC. Further, one can boot inside any VM from its virtual drive with OS installed, including VHD drives. Yet, Acronis tib virtual drives are not bootable on a physical PC, for one reason,  in contrast with VHD drives TIB can't be attached automatically after reboot (even so you have such "Try to boot" feature in Acronis Home package). Further, in contrast with VHD drives, its not bootable even inside a VM after being mounted on the host and attached to that VM. And it remains unbootable inside the VM even after "OS image generalization" to remove traces of host hardware, or when its content is erased completely and a new OS installed on it inside the VM.
Hence, there is a definite issue with mounted TIB drives that needs to be addressed. My particulars are irrelevant here, since I didn't say the tib archive won't boot after being restored to a different physical hard drive. What I say, you can't boot from a mounted tib drive - neither host, no guest OS. But you can boot from VHD drives - yet not from those converted from tib to VHD by Acronis. :) You may want to try boot from your own bootable partition tib to see the same deficiencies. So my suggestion is to alert your team attention to this, and make it possible in the next Workstation release, so that drive archives can be tested and serviced before being restored on other PCs.
-----------------
Unfortunately *tib and mounting feature was never designed to work in such a way (though it would be nice to have such an option and I've just forwarded your suggestion to the Development team).
The thing is, backup converted to VHD must, ought and should be bootable. Thus, in case you cannot boot from it after conversion, there's obviously some issue occurred, which needs to be fixed as soon as possible. That is why I asked you to gather the diagnostic information and forward it to support. 
------------------
Acronis products allow to Clone disks, and Copy & Transfer disks and partitions. A physical disk may have several bootable partitions on it. When a partition copied by Acronis, it looses its bootable status, even if then marked Active. Only cloned disks remain bootable: the original disk can be marked Passive, and the new one Active to boot on the same PC, if its OS updated to a new NT sig.
When it comes to backing up partitions and attaching their tib volumes, a user also often needs to backup just one bootable partition, then mount the tib and boot from it. An attached tib gets its own NT sig. Furthering discussion, Acronis products should allow to backup not only disks, but also partitions such a way that they remain bootable, when tib is attached to the host or added to a VM. One can mark such tib Active and current system partition Passive, and reboot from the tib on a physical machine or VM.
---------------
 I created machine, launched the recovery disk, and restored most recent backup. I didn't even have to configure machine drivers.

What I had to do more I did put the new OEM key.
I used standalone converter. So I could do everything without VCenter 



Acronis Rescue Boot CD and MBR

Source
Will restoring the MBR from my C: [O/S TIB] backup cause me to lose any data on the second partition which is on the same drive?
Restoring the MBR shouldn't cause any problems and doesn't affect the partitioning data.
---------
Originally Posted by budachild
Can the Mbr be accessed/edited at anytime through Windows as a file/command? Or does it exist on the hdd outside of the OS?
It resides in the first sector of the disk, outside of any of the partitions on the disk. There are various programs that can be used to access and change the MBR including disk editors and the like. Normal Windows file operations won't work since the sector is not part of any partitions on the disk.
If you're curious, here is a site that has graphical illustrations of the contents of the MBR along with detailed explanations of the purpose of each and every byte. The color illustrations are very helpful in understanding the different functions that are included in this first 512-byte sector on a hard disk.
=================
 
I just used Acronis True Image v10's Rescue Boot Cd to restore a Tib image for the first time, which I had of my O/S partition on my primary drive. During the restoration I was asked by the boot cd to select what to restore from the Tib image I had. I was given two choices:
[ ] C: System ------ Primary, Active
[ ] MBR / Track 0
 With TI 2009, if you check everything it switches to an Entire Disk Image restore and you lose control of resizing, etc. You can restore multiple partitions in one setup, but you can't do the MBR/Track 0 with them -- something must remain unchecked.
In Post #1, it's stated that TI 10 is being used. If that's correct, then you should be able to check the Disk # checkbox to select both the partition and the MBR/Track 0.
==============
Originally Posted by seekforever
I looked at TI2009 and it is different from my recollection of previous versions - it does let you check both the partition and the MBR/Track0 at the same time! So TI2009 appears to be improved in this regard. I assume it would have done it, I didn't do the actual restore.
In Version 2009, if you choose both Partition 1 and MBR/track 0, then it becomes a Disk option restore with no resize option. As K0lo mentioned in post @2 & #7 and MudCrab in post #8, you can restore both but they must be run separately. Either can be first. Restore the MBR & Disk ID to the target disk and then return to main menu and repeat the restore of C which will give the resize option. The resize option is not readily apparent but it is there. You can change any default listed by TrueImage. Many times the default value is NOT the correct selection and must be changed by the user. You can click change default option and see what TI is offering. It may be only a few MB since you are restoring only the first partition of a two partition disk.
Attached Images
 
====================
Originally Posted by budachild
...Why is there an option to resize and did I do the right thing by leaving the default size picked that it had preselected for me?
This is actually a very useful option to have. In your case you were just restoring the operating system to eliminate a problem, so keeping the size the same was the right thing to do.
Where this comes in handy is if you restore your image to a new, larger hard disk. The resize option will let you make the partitions larger to fit the new disk.
 ===================
I have an image of my C partition from a drive that has several partitions. If I select only restore C or restore C and the MBR together I still have the limited resize capabiltiy. As far as I can tell my resize capabilty (make smaller only) is the same regardless of whether or not both boxes are ticked simultaneously.
===================
Originally Posted by seekforever
I have an image of my C partition from a drive that has several partitions. If I select only restore C or restore C and the MBR together I still have the limited resize capabiltiy. As far as I can tell my resize capabilty (make smaller only) is the same regardless of whether or not both boxes are ticked simultaneously.
It's because you have multiple partitions. The problem happens when all the entries are checked. In this case, the Disk # box is checked and it becomes a Disk Image restore (you can only select a destination drive).

For example, using a backup image of a drive with two partitions:
[x] C:
[x] D:
[x] MBR and Track 0
You can't resize any partitions.

[x] C:
[ ] D:
[x] MBR and Track 0
You can resize the C: partition.

[x] C:
[x] MBR and Track 0
You can't resize the C: partition.

[x] C:
[ ] MBR and Track 0
You can resize the C: partition.

In addition, if your backup image did not consist of all the partitions on the drive, you can select them and still resize.
This problem only seems to affect backups that included the entire drive (Disk # box checked, all partitions). So, if you create a backup image of C: and your drive consists of C: and D:, you will be able to check the C: partition and the MBR and Track 0 entry and still resize the C: partition.

It can get confusing. In my opinion, it would have been better to allow everything to be checked in both scenarios and still allow for resizing (as previous versions did).

The master boot record in NT5.x

Source (excerpts) Thanks a lot for the best info!
This MBR code is installed on blank hard drives when Disk Management is used by a Windows™ 2000, XP or 2003 OS.
[When dealing with Dynamic Disks, the partition type is set to 42h and the data in the Partition Table may become useless!]
Note: Like all other code presented in this series, this MBR code could still be used to boot any OS on an x86 PC if it meets the conditions listed here*.

Windows 2000 ( NT5.0 )
Windows XP ( NT5.1 )
This page examines the MBR code most likely to be found in a Microsoft® Windows™ 2000, XP or 2003 installation. All of these operating systems contain the same exact MBR code embedded in files such as DMADMIN.EXE (there are a few more places we didn't list above where either the MBR code or Boot Records can be found; if you're interested in that, read our Where's the code? page). This code will be written to Cylinder 0, Head 0, Sector 1 of a Hard Drive by various OS routines, such as the Disk Management Console,  if  the drive does not already have an existing MBR sector (recognized by Windows®) when it is installed. [Note: These OSs will still write data to the MBR sector when required (see our Disk Signature comments below).]
For Windows™ XP (SP2), the MBR code is contained inside the file:
C:\WINNT\system32\dmadmin.exe
This file which is "224,768 bytes" and has a Modification Date of "Wednesday, August 04, 2004, 4:00:00 AM" is described as a "Logical Disk Manager service process" with "File version: 2600.2180.503.0" and:

"Copyright © 1985-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Portions Copyright © 1997-2000 Veritas Software. All rights reserved."

The MBR code itself is found between offsets 34E28h through 35027h (of which only the last 80 bytes are shown here):

Figure 1. Note that the bytes "2c 44 63"are part of the MBR's image file in dmadmin.exe
    Under the original Windows™ XP, the MBR code was in the same file, but at offsets 2FFF8h (196,600) through 301F7h (197,111) for its August 23, 2001 5:00:00 AM version of 204,800 bytes.
 The following is a disk editor view of how the bytes in this MBR are stored on your hard drive's first sector; that's Absolute (or Physical) Sector 0, or CHS 0,0,1. (See Examination of the Code below to find out where this data ends up in Memory when it's executed.)
 Absolute Sector 0 (Cylinder 0, Head 0, Sector 1)

        0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
 0000  33 C0 8E D0 BC 00 7C FB 50 07 50 1F FC BE 1B 7C  3.....|.P.P....|
 0010  BF 1B 06 50 57 B9 E5 01 F3 A4 CB BD BE 07 B1 04  ...PW...........
 0020  38 6E 00 7C 09 75 13 83 C5 10 E2 F4 CD 18 8B F5  8n.|.u..........
 0030  83 C6 10 49 74 19 38 2C 74 F6 A0 B5 07 B4 07 8B  ...It.8,t.......
 0040  F0 AC 3C 00 74 FC BB 07 00 B4 0E CD 10 EB F2 88  ..<.t...........
 0050  4E 10 E8 46 00 73 2A FE 46 10 80 7E 04 0B 74 0B  N..F.s*.F..~..t.
 0060  80 7E 04 0C 74 05 A0 B6 07 75 D2 80 46 02 06 83  .~..t....u..F...
 0070  46 08 06 83 56 0A 00 E8 21 00 73 05 A0 B6 07 EB  F...V...!.s.....
 0080  BC 81 3E FE 7D 55 AA 74 0B 80 7E 10 00 74 C8 A0  ..>.}U.t..~..t..
 0090  B7 07 EB A9 8B FC 1E 57 8B F5 CB BF 05 00 8A 56  .......W.......V
 00A0  00 B4 08 CD 13 72 23 8A C1 24 3F 98 8A DE 8A FC  .....r#..$?.....
 00B0  43 F7 E3 8B D1 86 D6 B1 06 D2 EE 42 F7 E2 39 56  C..........B..9V
 00C0  0A 77 23 72 05 39 46 08 73 1C B8 01 02 BB 00 7C  .w#r.9F.s......|
 00D0  8B 4E 02 8B 56 00 CD 13 73 51 4F 74 4E 32 E4 8A  .N..V...sQOtN2..
 00E0  56 00 CD 13 EB E4 8A 56 00 60 BB AA 55 B4 41 CD  V......V.`..U.A.
 00F0  13 72 36 81 FB 55 AA 75 30 F6 C1 01 74 2B 61 60  .r6..U.u0...t+a`
 0100  6A 00 6A 00 FF 76 0A FF 76 08 6A 00 68 00 7C 6A  j.j..v..v.j.h.|j
 0110  01 6A 10 B4 42 8B F4 CD 13 61 61 73 0E 4F 74 0B  .j..B....aas.Ot.
 0120  32 E4 8A 56 00 CD 13 EB D6 61 F9 C3 49 6E 76 61  2..V.....a..Inva
 0130  6C 69 64 20 70 61 72 74 69 74 69 6F 6E 20 74 61  lid partition ta
 0140  62 6C 65 00 45 72 72 6F 72 20 6C 6F 61 64 69 6E  ble.Error loadin
 0150  67 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 69 6E 67 20 73 79 73 74  g operating syst
 0160  65 6D 00 4D 69 73 73 69 6E 67 20 6F 70 65 72 61  em.Missing opera
 0170  74 69 6E 67 20 73 79 73 74 65 6D 00 00 00 00 00  ting system.....
 0180  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
 0190  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
 01A0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
 01B0  00 00 00 00 00 2C 44 63 A8 E1 A8 E1 00 00 80 01  .....,Dc........
 01C0  01 00 07 7F BF FD 3F 00 00 00 C1 40 5E 00 00 00  ......?....@^...
 01D0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
 01E0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
 01F0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA  ..............U.
        0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
    The first 300 bytes (000h through 12Bh) of this 512-byte sector are executable code and the next 80 bytes (12Ch through 17Bh) contain error messages. The last 66 bytes of the sector contain the 64-byte Partition Table (1BEh through 1FDh); data in the Table area will depend upon the size, structure and file systems on each hard disk. The sector ends with the Word-sized signature ID of AA55h (often called the sector's Magic number); on PCs using an Intel (or x86 compatible) CPU, hex Words are stored with the Low-byte first and the High-byte last. The remaining 66 bytes (between the Error Messages and the Partition Table; 17Ch through 1BDh) begin as padding (which are first filled with all zero-bytes by Win 2000/XP); with the exception of the three bytes (2C 44 63) at 1B5h through 1B7h (described in detail below) that are actually part of the dmadmin.exe file (see Figures 1 and 2 above). However, after a drive has any of the NT-type Operating Systems installed and running, they will write a Disk Signature in the MBR. The four bytes from offsets 1B8h through 1BBh are called the Windows™ 2000/XP Disk Signature or NT Drive Serial Number (The digits shown in the disk editor view above are only an example and could be anything; but we've noticed a high tendency under Windows 2000/XP for the first and third and the second and fourth bytes to be the same digits, as in the example above: A8 E1 A8 E1. In other NT-type MBRs, we've observed signatures such as these: "87 04 88 04" and "6B 40 6C 40" and "84 1A 85 1A". So there's a high probability that at least the 2nd and 4th bytes will almost always be the same and that some kind of algorithm is being applied by the OS to create these digit patterns. However, we've also seen NT-type MBRs with no discernible pattern at all, such as: "ED 19 EB BF" and "80 EF A0 FB," so we have no idea exactly how these OSs 'decide' to write these kind of Disk Signature digits versus those having patterns as seen above.) See here for details on Disk Signature use in the Registry! The three bytes at offsets 1B5h through 1B7h ("2C 44 63") are used by Microsoft Windows™ for a very specific purpose; for English versions of Windows 2000/XP, you'll always see these same Hex values ("2C 44 63") in the MBR. They're used by the MBR code to display Error Messages on your screen. But for those using Windows™ with a different language, their MBRs may have different values in the second and third bytes depending upon how many characters are in the error messages. If you look in the code section below, starting at offset 063Ah (instruction: "MOV AL,[07B5]"), you'll see these three bytes are used to reference the offset in Memory of the first byte of each Error Message that can be displayed on screen at boot up: 072Ch, 0744h and 0763h. Since the code will always be the same, the first offset (072Ch) should never change. If you had the German (Deutsch) version of Windows™ 2000 or XP, your error messages and message offsets would look like this:
    0120 32 E4 8A 56 00 CD 13 EB D6 61 F9 C3 55 6E 67 81  2..V.....a..Ungü
    0130 6C 74 69 67 65 20 50 61 72 74 69 74 69 6F 6E 73  ltige Partitions
    0140 74 61 62 65 6C 6C 65 00 46 65 68 6C 65 72 20 62  tabelle.Fehler b
    0150 65 69 6D 20 4C 61 64 65 6E 20 64 65 73 20 42 65  eim Laden des Be
    0160 74 72 69 65 62 73 73 79 73 74 65 6D 73 00 42 65  triebssystems.Be
    0170 74 72 69 65 62 73 73 79 73 74 65 6D 20 6E 69 63  triebssystem nic
    0180 68 74 20 76 6F 72 68 61 6E 64 65 6E 00 00 00 00  ht vorhanden....
    0190 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
    01A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
    01B0 00 00 00 00 00 2C 48 6E                          .....,Hn
          0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
    Now that you know what the bytes at offsets 1B5h through 1B7h are used for, you could change these error messages to display whatever you wish (as long as they all fit into the space between offsets 12Ch and 1B4h) by counting their character lengths and using a disk editor on the MBR sector to make the appropriate changes.
Disk Signatures in the Registry
Searching for my Disk Signature (as "a8 e1 a8 e1") in the Registry taught me a valuable lesson: You cannot trust Microsoft's Registry Editor to find all your data! Although we entered the values both with and without spaces between them, and also tried both upper and lower case characters, their editor never found the very clearly displayed Values in our Registry, under the Key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

which also contains information (in the form of GUIDs) to reference all logical drives (including removable
storage, such as USB devices) ever connected to the computer!
Note, however, that the Disk Signature (or NT Serial Number) is actually a four-byte Hex Word, so for our example Signature above, upon searching for "E1A8E1A8" Hex, the Registry editor did show it being used in these keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\STORAGE\Volume
and even
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\DeviceClasses\{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

among many others. Keys using Disk Signatures contain a wealth of information about your hard disk's partitions! For example, one of the “SymbolicLink” Key Name's value (that begins with \\?\STORAGE#Volume#1& ) continues as:

30a96598&0&SignatureE1A8E1A8Offset7E00Length1AE735E00#

followed by the GUID {53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b} which you'll see in most of these key values. I'm not exactly sure how the digits in red are used, but I did find them as the Key Value for the Name ParentIdPrefix under the Key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\ftdisk\0000.
Interpreting the Data: The "Signature " value should be obvious. The "Offset " value is the Hexadecimal equivalent of the number of bytes before the beginning of this partition; thus, 7E00h is 32,256 bytes or 63 sectors (at 512 bytes/sector) which also means this is the first partition on the disk (every Basic Disk leaves the first track unused; except for the MBR sector, so its first partition always begins at CHS 0,1,1), and the "Length " value is the exact number of bytes in the whole partition (1AE735E00h = 7,221,763,584 bytes for about a 6.7 GiB partition size).

After executing the POST (Power-On Self Test), the BIOS loads this sector into memory at 0000:7C00 (as it does any MBR) then transfers control to this code.
Unlike an OS boot sector though, this code must first copy itself into another area of Memory. This is necessary because the code must also load the Boot Sector of the Active Partition into the same area of Memory that it was first loaded into! But just as we saw for the Windows 98 MBR, this code doesn't copy any bytes it has already executed before jumping to the new location in Memory; it copies only the 485 bytes from 7C1Bh through 7DFFh to Memory locations 0000:061B through 0000:07FF, rather than simply copying the whole block of 512 bytes to 0000:0600 and following as the the old Standard MBR code did! For the first 25 instructions, this code is quite similar to that of a Windows 98 (FAT32) MBR, but then diverges into completely new routines.

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 User's Guide
Source
The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 includes the following new functionality:
  • Support for VMware vSphere 4.1 as source and destination targets
  • Support for importing powered-off Microsoft Hyper-V R1 and Hyper-V R2 virtual machines
  • Public API and sample code for submitting and monitoring Converter jobs
  • Support for importing Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 sources
  • Ability to throttle the data transfer from source to destination based on network bandwidth or CPU
  • IPv6 support
Discontinued Support
  • Support of the following operating systems is discontinued:
    • Windows 2000
    • Windows NT
  • Support for OVF format is discontinued
  • Support for VCB image sources is discontinued
  • Linux installation support is discontinued
image
Check out the release notes after the jump and download it here
Automate and simplify physical to virtual machine conversions as well as conversions between virtual machine formats with VMware vCenter Converter. Use the intuitive wizard-driven interface of VMware vCenter Converter to convert your physical machines to virtual machines.(P2V)
Automate and simplify physical to virtual machine conversions as well as conversions between virtual machine formats with Converter Standalone.

Features & Benefits

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone can be run on a wide variety of hardware and supports most commonly used versions of Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. Quickly and reliably convert local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any disruption or downtime.
Complete multiple conversions simultaneously with a centralized management console and an intuitive conversion wizard.
DOWNLOAD INCLUDES
  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
Learn more about VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
Evaluate VMware vSphere
Other versions of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone:  3.0
 =======

VMWare

VMware Workstation 7.0.1

VMware Workstation 7.0.1

VMware Workstation is the best virtual PC program.
  • Publisher: VMware, Inc.
  • Home page: www.vmware.com
  • Last updated: February 11th, 2010
VMware Player 3.1.4

VMware Player 3.1.4

VMware is the best virtualization software available.
  • Publisher: VMware, Inc.
  • Home page: www.vmware.com
  • Last updated: April 2nd, 2011
VMware Tools 8.4.6

VMware Tools 8.4.6

VMware Tools 3.1 is a tools package for VMWare Workstation.
  • Publisher: VMware, Inc.
  • Home page: www.vmware.com
  • Last updated: April 8th, 2011
VMware Server 2.0.0.2712

VMware Server 2.0.0.2712

The free VMware Server is based upon VMware’s proven virtualization technology.
  • Publisher: VMware, Inc.
  • Home page: www.vmware.com
  • Last updated: November 11th, 2009

Acronis Privacy Expert Suite 2010

Acronis Privacy Expert Suite provides you with proactive, real time protection against malware; including spyware parasites, rootkits, adware, keyloggers, hidden dialers, browser hijackers, and other malicious programs. Our latest version, 9.0, adds key new features to ensure that your PC is not infected with malware:

- Rootkit removal automatically detects rootkits and enables users to remove these programs
- Quarantine places detected spyware items to the quarantine store before removal
- Enhanced malware shield allows you to set the level of protection you need (high, medium, or low)
- Daily malware definition updates
- Enhanced pop-up blocker allows you to select the level of protection you need (high, medium, or low) and allows you to block many different types of ads
- Internet cleanup utility supports Mozilla FireFox browser

Acronis Privacy Expert Suite is not only an anti-spyware solution. It combines a number of the must-have security and privacy tools into one solution:

- Internet clean-up: protects your Internet privacy removing traces of your surfing;
- System clean-up: eliminates traces of your system activities;
- Disk clean-up: securely destroys all the data on your old hard disk;
- File shredder: makes your deleted data unrecoverable by undelete or unerase utilities;
- Pop-up blocker: stops unwanted pop-up ads;
- Data destruction methods: wipes out all data without possibility to recover through the use of 8 powerful data destruction methods.
Download Download: http://download.acronis.com/PrivacyExpertSuite9.0_d_en.exe
44.42 MB

Acronis True Image Home 2011 & Plus Pack

Info Deutsch
Info English
Source
Download: http://www.acronis.eu/homecomputing/products/trueimage/#plus-pack
159.34 MB
Add-on for Acronis® True Image Home 2011 featuring enhanced backup and recovery functionality
Acronis® True Image Home 2011 Plus Pack is an add-on module for Acronis® True Image Home 2011 featuring enhancements for advanced home users. It includes the flexibility to restore files, applications and an operating system to dissimilar hardware as well as providing support for dynamic disks and Microsoft® Windows Preinstallation Environments (WinPE).
These three powerful features, originally only available in the Acronis corporate product line, are now accessible to technical home users. The optional Acronis® True Image Home 2011 Plus Pack integrates seamlessly within the Acronis® True Image Home 2011 standard version*, and leverages its intuitive graphical interface.
  • Restore to Dissimilar Hardware Restore a computer to dissimilar hardware regardless of make, model, or installed components, or to a virtual machine.
  • Dynamic Disk Support Back up and restore dynamic volumes easily, taking advantage of dynamic disk capabilities including multi-partition and fault tolerant volumes as well as partition size adjustment.
  • Microsoft® Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) Support Speed up your recovery process with easy and quick integration of the latest Microsoft drivers, customized scripts, applications and plug-ins to your rescue or boot media.
For more information on Dynamic Disks and disks with GUID Partition Tables (GPT), click here
* Acronis True Image Plus Pack works with the Acronis® True Image Home 2011 standard edition, but not with the Acronis True Image Home Netbook Edition or previous editions of Acronis True Image Home.
Please make sure that the build numbers of Acronis Plus Pack add-on and Acronis® True Image Home 2011 are the same. See "Viewing Build Number in Acronis True Image Home". Login to Your Account to get access to the latest builds of both products.
Supported Systems for Acronis True Image Home 2011 with Plus Pack
Storage Media
  • Hard Disk Drives
  • Networked Storage Devices
  • FTP servers
  • CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, BD-R (NEW! Blu-ray)
  • ZIP®, REV® and other removable media
  • PATA (IDE), SATA, SCSI, SAS (NEW), IEEE1394 (FireWire), USB 1/2.0 drives
For information on RAID support, click here
Supported Operating Systems
  • Windows 7 all Editions (x32/x64)
  • Windows Vista all Editions(x32/x64 SP2)
  • Windows XP (x32 SP3/x64 SP2)
  • Windows XP Professional(x32 SP3/x64 SP2)
Supported File Systems
  • FAT16/32, NTFS
  • Raw Images support
* Acronis True Image Plus Pack works with the Acronis® True Image Home 2011 standard edition, but not with the Acronis True Image Netbook Edition or previous editions of Acronis True Image Home.

acronis.de/homecomputing/products/trueimage/features

Source  
See video tutorials of best selling Acronis True Image Home 2011 to understand how the software works.
What are the advantages?There are several exclusive features of the Acronis True Image software that distinguish it from other products. See all new features of Acronis True Image Home 2011 click hear for review
Provides multiple backup options in one product: our original disk imaging backup option allows you to protect your entire PC, and our backup options allow you to protect your music, photos, videos, email and application settings.
- Supports Microsoft Vista (including x64 edition) and Windows 7, so you can safely upgrade to this new operating system
- Restore OS, applications and all data to a new hardware using special Plus Pack add-on. Get it free now
- GPT disks support
- Allows you to create backup rules, so you do not have to worry about managing your backups
- Enables you to receive e-mail notifications on your backup status, so you have peace of mind knowing your PC is protected
- Find specific files by exploring backup files
- Use your system during a recovery with the Acronis Snap Restore feature
- Save data to special partition on your hard drive, the Acronis Secure Zone. There is no need to purchase an extra hard drive, CDs, or DVDs to protect your data. This is especially useful for notebook computers.
- Use Try&Decide feature to install potentially unstable software or downloading suspicious e-mails to evaluate them and then decide if you want to keep this stuff on your machine or revert the system back in seconds by simply rebooting your computer.
- Restart your computer by hitting the F11 key in case you computer does not boot correctly with the Acronis Recovery Manager. Even if your operating system has been deleted, the Acronis Recovery Manager can boot your computer
- Run backups while you are using your computer
- Restore your entire PC in minutes, including the operating system, applications, and user settings without reinstallation of any software
- Automate backups on a regular basis by creating a schedule
- Walks you through each task so that you don't need to be a computer expert to use it
As Acronis True Image programs use Snapshot technology there are no restrictions using different applications while performing backup archive creation. It means you can backup your system from within Windows and run other applications.
See Acronis True Image Home 2011 user guide for detailed description of the product.
Description of Acronis Snap Shot technology.
Once Acronis True Image initializes the backup process of a volume (which logically corresponds to a single partition, if there are no Dynamic Disks), Acronis Snapshot Manager flushes the file system mounted to that volume temporarily freezing all the operations on the system volume. Immediately thereafter, the Snapshot Manager driver creates a point-in-time view of the system volume and a bitmap describing the used sectors on this volume. Once the bitmap is created, the filter driver unfreezes the I/O operations on the system volume. It generally takes only several seconds to create a point-in-time view of the volume. After that, the operating system continues working as the imaging process is under way.
Acronis True Image reads the sectors on the system volume according to the created bitmap. Once a sector is read, the appropriate bit in the bitmap is reset. In its turn, the Acronis driver continues working to hold the point-in-time view of the system volume. Whenever the driver sees a writing operation directed at the system volume, it checks whether these sectors are already backed-up, if they are not, the driver saves the data to the sectors that will be overwritten to a special buffer created by the software, then it allows the sectors to be overwritten. Acronis True Image backs up the sectors from the special buffer, so that all the sectors of the point-in-time view of the system volume will be backed up intact. Meanwhile, the operating system continues working and the user will not notice anything unusual in the operating system functionality.
See step-by-step instructions to view basic actions with Acronis software.

Acronis Software
  • Acronis True Image Home 2011 (English)
    Build # 6696
    February 04, 2011
    159.4 MB
     torrents 
    Release name: Acronis.True.Image.Home.2011.Incl.All.Addons.v14.0.0.6574-IND
    Size: 414 MB
    178.33.156.205/roxy/browse.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Frapidshare.net%2Ffiles%2F434572061%2Fatih2011.14.0.0.6574-fs.part1.rar&b=0
    178.33.156.205/roxy/browse.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Frapidshare.net%2Ffiles%2F434572190%2Fatih2011.14.0.0.6574-fs.part2.rar&b=0
    Password: www.dlfind.com
    Acronis True Image 2011 Plus Pack (English)
    Build # 6696
    Release Notes
    February 04, 2011 
    79.1 MB
  • Acronis True Image Home 2011 Netbook Edition (English)
    Build # 6021
    October 19, 2010
  • Acronis Disk Director 11 Home (English)
    Build # 2121
    November 03, 2010
  • Acronis Backup and Security 2011 (English)
    Build # 7040
    February 14, 2011
  • Acronis True Image Home 2010 (English)
    Build # 7160 (look down!)
    H8B7N2WR-EWYZNP7N-XGP6A5N3-BLLWM2N7-QURDRAWK-HH35ECAR-29JC8GP5-BQ5XZFJE
    ZMW497H3-SX68ENX9-5GLBKS9N-4X7ASKV2-UBV78EPG-CXP5FP2N-FV3ZK5JF-RMM7BEZK
    MXHK4TRA-NTH2KUCH-AFRJL8RS-KYRBVZJ9-RR3FZKQ9-2YA4UF3A-CV8ST7ZL-GMFKFQ7W
    APWA8GL8-2QXPMHHE-ATYJ97GU-YNBBFH6K-FRPH9QH6-CFYETNFN-NFFRGNQP-AV9CUV7H
    DRQK4ZYB-V22FWAS6-YPZTBCRP-CEZHA4GJ-5CY5ZS8W-5TRE6J7Q-ZFCLTRNY-X6FKXGZ7
    February 04, 2011
  •  Acronis True Image 2010 Plus Pack (English)
    Build # 7160
    Release Notes

    February 04, 2011
     60.1 MB
    torrent
    True Image Home 2010 PlusPack (look down):
    PKYQ7LBL-3TP3RNHX-NAEEFK85-2LYBT586-KRQHWQBR-RM8KUP8Z-JHY8KJTX-LQF2358G
  • Acronis True Image Home 2010 Netbook Edition (English)
    Build # 4030
    September 30, 2009
Acronis Drive Cleanser 6.0.701

Acronis Drive Cleanser 6.0.701

Protect your privacy by securely obliterating data from your hard drive.
  • Publisher: Acronis
  • Home page: www.acronis.com
  • Last updated: February 21st, 2010
Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0.2288

Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0.2288

Powerful and easy-to-use program for managing server hard drives and partitions.
Plus Pack per Acronis True Image Home 2011 14.0.6597

Plus Pack per Acronis True Image Home 2011 14.0.6597

Plus pack for Acronis True Image Home 2011 protects the PC with total dat backup.
  • Publisher: Acronis
  • Home page: www.acronis.eu
  • Last updated: February 19th, 2011
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.0.17552

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.0.17552

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 is the next-generation disaster recovery.
Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0.658

Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0.658

Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0 is a powerful data migration software.
  • Publisher: Acronis
  • Home page: www.acronis.com
  • Last updated: March 5th, 2008
Acronis True Image Home 14.0.6696

Acronis True Image Home 14.0.6696

Best solution for centralised backup and recovery in home and SMB environments.
  • Publisher: Acronis
  • Home page: www.acronis.com
  • Last updated: March 9th, 2011

VMware Converter und Acronis Image

 SourceVMware Converter (Standalone) 4.3 unterstützt als Quellmedium Sicherungsimages diverser Hersteller. Darunter auch Acronis-Images. Laut Spezifikationen seitens VMware sind dies:
Acronis True Image Echo 9.1, 9.5 und Acronis True Image 10.0, 11.0 (Home-Produkt)
  • Acronis True Image Home 10
  • Acronis True Image Home 11
  • Acronis True Image Home 2009 = Version 12
  • Acronis True Image Home 2010 = Verison 13
  • Acronis True Image Home 2011 = Version 14
Das bedeutet, Images die mit Version Home 2009 ff. erstellt wurden, können nicht mit Converter 4.3 importiert werden. 

vSphere-Client für Unterwegs
Nicht immer hat man sein eigenes Notebook dabei. Und nicht immer kann/darf man auf einem PC den vSphere-Client installieren.
Schön, wenn man den Client auf dem USB-Stick dabei hat.
VMware-Labs hat jetzt einen Tragbaren vSphere-Client bereitgestellt.
Das Paket wurde mit ThinApp gepackt und ist frei bei VMware zugänglich:
Download
Einziger Haken an der Sache: Die App unterstützt in dieser Version nur vSphere 4.1, jedoch nicht vSphere 4.1U1, und auch keine älteren Versionen.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Connectify - Virtual Router

Alternativen für Intel My Wifi oder Connectify

PC als Wlan-Router
Virtual Router
Mit dem Open-Source-Tool "Virtual Router" machen Sie aus jedem Windows-Rechner mit Windows 7 oder Windows Server 2008 einen WLAN-Hotspot.
  Schaffen Sie sich ein eigenes WiFi-Netz, ohne einen WLAN-Router in Betrieb zu haben. Mit der Freeware "Virtual Router" kein Problem, zumindest wenn Sie einen Rechner mit Windows 7 (Home Premium und höher) oder Windows Server 2008 nutzen.
Das Open-Source-Programm wandelt Ihren Windows-PC in einen virtuellen WLAN-Router, mit dem Sie andere Geräte (etwa Computer, Handys oder Spielekonsolen) kabellos mit dem Internet verbinden können.
"Virtual Router" verschlüsselt die WLAN-Verbindung per WPA2, so dass Ihre übermittelten Daten sicher sind. Sie können Ihrem WLAN-Hotspot einen beliebigen Namen und ein maximal achtstelliges Passwort verpassen.

Fazit: Ungemein praktisch, so ein virtueller WLAN-Router---------------
Source
Virtual Router is a free, open source software based router for PCs running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Using Virtual Router, users can wirelessly share any internet connection (Wifi, LAN, Cable Modem, Dial-up, Cellular, etc.) with any Wifi device (Laptop, Smart Phone, iPod Touch, iPhone, Android Phone, Zune, Netbook, wireless printer, etc.) These devices connect to Virtual Router just like any other access point, and the connection is completely secured using WPA2 (the most secure wireless encryption.)
The Wireless Network create/shared with Virtual Router uses WPA2 Encryption, and there is not way to turn off that encryption. This is actually a feature of the Wireless Hosted Network API's built into Windows 7 and 2008 R2 to ensure the best security possible.
You can give your "virtual" wireless network any name you want, and also set the password to anything. Just make sure the password is at least 8 characters.
BTW, this project is written entirely in C#.
Supported Devices
.=========================== Connectify
Die Freeware Connectify verwandelt jeden Windows-7-Rechner in einen WLAN-Router.  Fotostrecke: Die coolsten Tools fürs WLAN
Wäre es nicht praktisch, im Hotelzimmer ein kleines WLAN-Netz aufzusetzen, um den Kollegen im Nachbarzimmer mit Internet zu versorgen? Oder zuhause das Handy ohne teure Datentarife auf den neusten Stand zu bringen? Wie wäre es mit mehr Reichweite für Ihr heimisches WLAN-Netzwerk, indem Sie Ihr Notebook in einen WLAN-Repeater verwandeln und so auch bequem im Garten surfen können?
Das alles können Sie schon etwas länger haben, wenn ihr Notebook mit einer der beiden Intel-WLAN-Chipsätzen WiFi Link 5100 oder Intel WiFi Link 5300 ausgestattet ist. (Zum Artikel: So wird das Notebook zum Access Point) Dass es auch ohne teure Hardware geht, beweist das Gratis-Tool Connectify, das Windows 7 in eine Art Software-WLAN-Router verwandelt.
Connectify verschlüsselt die WLAN-Verbindung per WPA2, so dass Ihre übermittelten Daten sicher sind.
Fazit: Connectify verbindet sich automatisch mit einer aktiven Internet-Verbindung und ist mit deutlich mehr Hardware-Komponenten kompatibel. Eine ebenso kostenlos erhältliche Alternative ist das Tool Virtual Router.
forum.chip.de/drahtlos-netzwerke/-connectify-wlan-verzweiflung